10 Questions You MUST Ask Before Buying a "She Shed" - #13

Have you always wanted to get a "she shed" in your backyard? Then this episode is for you! There are some important questions you must ask yourself before you jump into the "she shed" crave. We're talking about foundations, locations for a "she shed", and extra costs you may not have considered when buying a "she shed" for your backyard. (And for you men, these same questions apply when getting a "man cave" for your backyard, too!). ;)

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SHOW NOTES:

• Tuff Shed sheds at The Home Depot
• Customize your own Tuff Shed
• Amish Sheds in Maryland
• Montgomery County, Maryland Department of Permitting Services
• Ductless mini splits for heating and cooling

Transcript

Hey, what's up. It's Serena Appiah here from ThriftDiving.Com, which is a podcast, a blog, and of course, a YouTube channel that helps you decorate and improve your home with paint, power tools and thrift stores. And of course, here at Thrift Diving, we don't sacrifice our budget, the environment or style.

Welcome to Episode 13 of the Thrift Diving podcast. Today, we are talking about something that is near and dear to my heart. We are talking about she sheds. Yes. In fact, just this morning, I was bingeing on that show. There's a show called. I think it's called He Shed, She Shed. And it caught my eye this morning when I was watching it on Samsung TV because I actually was interviewed to be one of the hosts of that show.

And I had forgotten all about it. This was several years ago, and I just happened to notice it. And I was like, wait a minute. That sounds familiar. And I looked, I was like, wait a minute. I think I interviewed for that. And of course, the person they chose did a fantastic job, but I was drawn to that because right now, I'm actually in the process of buying a huge she shed, which I mentioned in the last episode, and I thought this would be a good opportunity to talk about she sheds.

Is this something for you? What are the 10 questions that you should be asking yourself before you decide to jump into buying a she shed for your backyard? I started thinking about all these different things I've been learning along the way and questions I've had that have come up.

And I thought, this would be a really good podcast episode and a blog post. So, let's talk about it. 

 Just to give you a little bit of background, as I mentioned, I am getting a shed, a prefabricated shed in my backyard. I'm in the process of going through this now, trying to get it permitted.

And it's a pretty big shed. It's a 16' x 26' shed. The reason why I decided to go forward with it was because a couple of reasons. Right now, if you've been following my blog for any length of time, you would know my workshop is in my garage. I also share the garage with bikes and lawn mowers and all kinds of things that make it really difficult to build anything or even work on a furniture painting project in that garage.

It's packed and it doesn't matter how many times I tried to clear everything out, it's almost like the stuff just magically comes back in six months later. So I've never been able to fully get my hands around clearing it out, making it a place where I can actually work. So several months ago, I guess maybe in the last six months to a year, whatever, I had my mind wrapped around this idea of buying an investment property.

And I thought, it would be great if I buy a property that I would be able to fix up, find something that just looks ugly. Cause you know, here at Thrift Diving the uglier the better. And I thought if I buy an ugly property, I can fix it up. I'd have content for my channel. I love making ugly things pretty.

So it would satisfy my desire to do that. But it would also give me space to work. So I'd have a whole other garage dedicated to a workshop. I'd have maybe a room for podcasting and, find something with old, wallpaper and strip that down and just have a project house. That's how, if you remember from episode one, that's how I just got started with my blog, is because we bought an old 1970s home and I spent all the money buying the house, I didn't have any money left to decorate or improve. So I had to learn to do that myself. So my home has been my project. Even though my home isn't done, it's at an acceptable level of done.

  If I never did anything else in this house, I think I'd be pretty comfortable, right? Like all the really bad stuff is gone and I could just be comfortable. So I started thinking I want to get another place and I have been doing pretty well financially, thank God for that, that I have

been able to save money up and I wanted to put up-- just a chunk of money down on something. Well, I don't know about you, but if you have seen this real estate market, especially during the pandemic, it has been insane. Homes are flying off the market faster than you could turn your head. They're flying off so quickly, people are offering more. They're skipping inspections. They know that there's not a lot of inventory because people aren't selling as much as people want to buy. So it's a total seller's market right now. So I got really discouraged by the competition. And I started thinking how about I just put something in my backyard?

Why don't I just get me a she shed? Put that thing in the backyard, and I'll be able to work. And if I want to put a coffee bar out there, if I want to put a little room for podcasting, I can do all that stuff. So instead of thinking outside of my home, I started thinking, how could I bring what I'm looking for into my own home?

So that's what led me to she sheds and I'm going to walk you through some questions, because if you're thinking about doing this for your home, there's some things you got to consider. You may be thinking, I'm seeing all these, she sheds on Pinterest and it just looks so amazing. And I'm seeing these shows that people are doing. I want that too. 

Well, there's a few things you got to keep in mind and we're going to talk about them. So let's talk about number one, question number one that you should ask yourself before you invest in a she shed is: do I want to buy it prefabricated? Or do I want it custom built? 

So when I had several contractors come over to my house to do some quotes, generally you want to get three quotes, whatever project you're doing, get three quotes. Always have three quotes.

And two of those quotes no, let me take that back. All three of them, they told me that the building that I'm looking for, the size the location, all of that, they said it was going to cost 80 to a hundred thousand dollars. I know you're freaking out right now, too, right? That's what I, when I opened up the quote and saw that number, I was like, Holy, you know, insert your own beep there.

There's no way I'm paying $80,000 to have a shed. I'm calling it a shed. but I'm not paying 80,000 for a custom building, so an accessory building in my backyard, even if I added on to the house, it probably would be just as much money, if not more to build onto the house. We'll talk about that in just a little bit. 

So I knew based on that price, that it was going to be easier for me to do something prefabricated. So I ended up going with Tuff Shed. They're not sponsoring this. I contacted them directly and said, Hey, I'm looking for a shed that I could do all of these things in it.

Just have it be my primary office. And what do you got for me? And I went onto their website. I did all the little customization, which was really cool because I could choose all these different features that I wanted. Skylights, windows here, a door here, a double door, like a French door in the front.

I can do all these things and here's the price. There were no surprises with what things were going to cost. So that's the question that you should ask yourself. Do you want to do something prefabricated, or do you want to do a custom build? And I think if you go the custom build route, you're probably going to get a better quality in terms of something that's going to last for years and years, I mean, 20, 30, 40 years, or you could do something that-- now, I can't tell you exactly how long a Tuff Shed lasts.

I don't know that information. I didn't research it, but I feel like the quality of it looks good enough to me. I've looked at enough videos. I've talked to enough where I've not talked, but I've done enough reviews. I've done my research to where I feel like it's going to be a good enough quality for me, even if it lasts 20, 25, 30 years.

I'm good with that. It doesn't have to last a hundred. Okay. I'm not going to be in this house forever. I'm 43 years old. My life is not going to be that long of 120. I don't need a building to last for years and years and years and years. But that's the question that you should ask yourself is, do I want to do a prefabricated or a custom build?

And I can tell you that prefabricated is going to be probably cheaper. Do your research, check around to see if there's any local shed builders who could build it and then get a quote from them compared to what a quote would be from, let's say, Tuff Shed, or maybe building it from Amish sheds. There are Amish sheds that you can buy. There's actually used Amish sheds that you could buy. So do a little bit of research and ask yourself, do you want to do prefab or custom built? 

The second question that you should ask yourself is what kind of foundation are you going to need? This is something that had slowed me down in my process of buying just the right she shed, because I didn't know what kind of foundation. There's a couple of different ways that you can do this. You could actually-- no, there's more than a couple of ways. Now, the most expensive is putting it on concrete. If you have a shed on concrete, you're going to have to have somebody come to your house, dig a trench, and probably do footers here in Montgomery County, in Maryland.

You've got to be below the frost line, if you're doing concrete, I think it's got to be at least 30 inches. So you have to have a company dig down 30 inches. Do a monolithic pour, which is where they come in with a truck and just pour all this concrete. Boom, you got your slab, your four-inch slab with footers.

And usually those footers are 12 inches wide below ground. Now you can imagine that is expensive. I can tell you the quote. I got two quotes for someone to come and do a concrete foundation. The first quote, and again, this is for 16 by 26. So that's a pretty large shed. The first quote was he actually quoted me for a 16 by 20, but when I adjusted the length of the building, it came to $15,000 for concrete.

Yeah. It was 15,000.  Pulling my hair thinking, Oh, that's so much money. Then the second guy that I had come, he quoted me 11,200 to do the same size with the exact same specifications. So he's the guy that I'm going for. The one who's $11,200. He's someone that lives, I guess just maybe about a mile from my house.

So that's cool hiring somebody that lives local. So that's one way that you could do it. You could do a concrete foundation. You can also do pressure treated wood with a gravel pit. Generally, this is the preferred way to do foundations for sheds, especially if there's not going to be people using it.

When I say people use it, if it's not inhabitable space, at least that's what my County told me. So they said Serena, if you are using the shed strictly for putting your tools in there, your lawn mower, you can do a gravel base. That's totally fine. But if at any time you think you want to use that for habitable space, it better be on concrete.

So that's why I'm choosing concrete because I have to, because of permitting, but your permitting requirements may be a little different. And we'll talk about that. Cause that's actually number three, do you need a permit? So we'll talk about that a little bit more. Those are two foundations you can do.

Another foundation is if you need concrete piers. So that's where you don't have a whole slab of concrete. Maybe you have some gravel, but you've got these circular concrete piers that go down whatever your frost line is, if you live in an area like me, that has a frostline, you got to go down a certain depth.

And instead of doing a whole concrete pour, you could do the 30 inches or whatever that is. And it pretty much looks like around circular cardboard tube. And then they just fill it up with concrete. Now, I guess I could have gone that route, but I think after talking to my permitting people, I was like, I don't even want to take that chance.

Let's just do the foundation and be done with it, but doing the concrete piers, that is an option for you. If your shed is on solid ground and it's pretty flat and even you might even be able to just, set it up on some concrete blocks. You might even have some pavers that are already there, maybe it's level, but whatever you decide to do, you have to make sure that the ground is level.

And typically when you order a prefab shed, they don't necessarily do the leveling for you. So you have to pay somebody extra to come in and make sure that's level for you. So keep that in mind. That's one added expense whenever you're getting a shed in your backyard. You want to make sure that it's level and you may have to pay out of pocket for that.

And it can be several thousand dollars even for them to come and do the 16 by 26 gravel with the pressure treated wood. I believe that was going to be $3,600 for a 16 by 26. And I actually consulted with my carpentry teacher and said, Hey I'm confused. what foundation should I do?

And he told me, he said Serena with that pressure treated wood and the gravel, you can do that. However, it's not going to last you more than about 15 years because it's wood. It's going to break down. It's pressure treated, yes. But it's wood. It's not going to last forever. And of course that was before I called permitting and they gave me

the additional rules. But just make sure that your shed is going to be level. And if there's going to be a cost for that, to level that out, you need to know what it is. 

So my third question that I'd mentioned to you is do you need a permit? And this is where a lot of people don't really know what they should do because it really depends on your jurisdiction. Where do you live, in what County, in what state and what do they require? Now, I'm here in Montgomery County, in Maryland. Their rule is that it doesn't matter what size your shed is, you need a permit. They need to know you're putting something in your backyard.

They want to know where it's going to be, how big it's going to be. And you better submit that permit. The permit is not that expensive. I want to say they charge Is it 55 cents per I can't remember what it is, but it's like maybe no, maybe it's 77 cents per square foot. And then I think once you go over a certain square foot, then there's a different fee for that.

My permit was about $310 for a 16 by 26. But in Montgomery County, all sheds have to be permitted. However, in Washington County, which is Western Maryland here, that's where I'm from Hagerstown, Maryland. I always know kind of what's going on in, in Washington County. They don't have a permit requirement if your shed is under a certain square footage, it might be 200. But here in Montgomery County, all sheds have to have a permit because I personally think they just want to get money out of you. And if your shed is less than 200 square feet, they won't have to come and do a structural review.

You just submit the permit. File it. They approve it. And then you get your shed. If it's over 200 square feet, then they got to do a structural review. So that's where you got to schedule them to come out, check to make sure that everything has been done properly, that it's in the right location.

Structurally, it's not going to fall down and all that good stuff, put the stamp of approval. Then you can start, moving in there. Or using it, putting your tools and all that stuff in there. So again, it's based on the size. So you need to check with your County permitting to see what you need to do.

And if you're not sure, you can always go to Google, just type in whatever your County name is and type in permitting office. Or you can go to an app. This is an app that I love to use. It's called Next Door. And just ask the question to your neighbors. Next Door just connects people in their neighborhoods.

And you can ask the question, Hey, does anybody know what the permitting rules are? How do I contact them? What's the email address? What's the website address and do a little bit of research. Because the last thing you want to do is to move ahead with a shed only to find out you were supposed to get a permit.

And if you didn't and your neighbors report you, cause yes, neighbors are cruel like that. Then if you're in the middle of building your shed, they can actually come and shut you down and say, Nope, can't continue. Nope. You better stop right now.

Cease and desist. And you need to get a permit for that shed. You don't want to do that. So make sure that you do it right the first time. 

So number four, the question that you should ask yourself is where are you going to place it? Where are you going to place the shed? And this has been a huge question that's been bothering me from the very beginning of when I started this process, because the way my backyard is, I've got a pretty large backyard, but it's, I think the whole area of my house or my land, my property, I should say is on maybe a third acre. So it's not huge, but it's a large enough backyard that you can get a nice 16 by 26 back there, hopefully crossing fingers and not feel like you're like crowding out the entire backyard.

But the big question is, is it going to be parallel to the house? Is it going to face the sun? Is it going to face away from the sun? Like all of those things you have to figure and where I've struggled is figuring out whether I want my shed to be like catty corner to the back corner of my yard, or if I want to face it parallel to the house or perpendicular, I'm still not sure.

And even though I've submitted the permit, I'll be honest with you. I still have doubts. I'm like so afraid once I get this thing built that I'm going to look out my window and say, oh my gosh, this thing is just huge, it's an eyesore. It's like messing with the beautiful surroundings of the backyard.

I'm just so worried. But this is the question that you have to ask yourself, where are you going to place it? And also this will depend on permitting because the way my backyard is I've got all these huge trees in the backyard. But even if I didn't have those trees, a lot of times with permitting, they have something called setback.

Setback is generally where you can't use a certain amount of space or place something within a certain number of feet from your property line. So in my case, in my County, which is insane, the setback from the rear. I believe it's 10 feet. I thought it was 12, but it's 10 feet. But the setback for the side is 15 feet.

 Yes. this is the crazy thing. So I feel like, my shed is almost going to be sitting in the middle of my yard because of the setback requirements and someone on Next Door they said something really interesting. They said when this neighborhood had originally been planned back in the seventies, they planned for each of the homes to have one acre, but something happened along the way.

And all the lots were much smaller. Again, mine's one third of an acre. So these setback requirements were not really conducive to putting sheds in our backyards because 15 feet is a pretty that's a pretty big distance from your property line.

So in my mind, I'm like if I didn't have trees back there, what would I put around the shed? I could put trees around the shed, but I feel like it's almost sitting further away from the property line than I would like it to be. But that will determine where you're putting your shed,

you're permitting, but also too, you have to decide, do you want it to be parallel to the house? Do you want it to be more like catty corner? Which I never see anyone do, but when I drafted it out, it looked good to me. I thought he looked creative. so think about that. Where would you place it?

Number five. Who will finish the inside of your shed? This is a huge question that you have to ask yourself before you buy a she shed, because all of these sheds that you buy prefabricated, none of them are finished inside. And when you go onto Pinterest, or Google or any of these sites or blogs, and you see these amazing finished insides, people had to pay for that. People had to pay another contractor to come in to finish that, which means they needed to put dry wall, underneath the dry wall, they needed to put insulation. So that means they needed insulation then drywall and then finishing the dry wall.

So you've got to put the layers of mud. And tape and all of that. And then you've got a paint with the primer, and then you got to paint with your regular paint. So there's a lot of things to do. You got to put flooring and then let's not forget utilities, which we'll be talking about that in just a moment, because that's the next question.

But somebody has got to do that work and I can tell you that when I had a. contractor come to my house to give me a quote for the custom build, I actually told him to break it down line by line because I wanted to see what everything costs. Let me tell you for him to finish a 16 by 26 on the inside: paint, drywall, and insulation:

$8,000 eight zero zero, zero. That's a lot of money for someone to come and do that. Now I know it's going to be a lot of work cause that's not a small space, but you know, within a month, maybe four weekends I definitely feel that I could do that myself. Even if it took me eight weekends, that's worth saving $8,000.

So before you actually get a she shed, ask yourself who is going to finish the inside. Are you going to do it yourself? Do you feel comfortable doing it yourself or are you going to have to reserve a little bit more money in order to get that done by a professional? Because you might want it done quickly or you might say, look, just get the structure in my backyard.

We can take our time, do weekends to finish it the way we want to. So great question to ask yourself. 

So question number six, who is going to provide utilities to the shed? Are you going to have electricity? Does it need plumbing? These are the things that you need to know. And I think when you consider the location, that will also determine how much the utilities will be.

The further away you put your shed, of course, the more money it's probably going to cost because they have to lay more conductors from your home to draw that power to your she shed. So keep that in mind. I know for myself it's going to be several thousand dollars.

I know, but what can I say? I need to be able to plug in my tools and, honestly, I'm thinking I might even want to put a sink out there. So I may need to get a plumber and have the plumber give me a quote on how much it's going to cost to put a sink or maybe, I don't know. can we do a toilet?

Can I just live in the 16 by 26? Because technically it is the size of a small home. Let's just be real. What was it like 416 square feet? There are some apartments in New York City that are that size for thousands and thousands of dollars. So that's a great question. How are you going to get utilities there?

And you'll want to think about how you're going to heat and cool. This is all part of the utilities. Now, what I have been told is that I would be able to do something called a mini split. This is a ductless air system. It's where there's a unit that's sitting, let's say maybe behind your shed and then up on the wall.

If you've ever been to any international countries, I, this is where I've seen it. If you look up on the wall, there's usually like a cooling AC vent, not an AC vent, but an AC unit hanging up towards the ceiling and usually got a remote, push the remote, and now the room is cooled down. 

This is a ductless system. They do have systems that provide AC and heat, which I will need. Maryland, we get cold in the wintertime. So think about that as well. How are you going to heat and cool? This is all part of the utilities question that you should be asking yourself. These systems, these mini split systems, I've seen them cost.

I want to say on Home Depot site, maybe about 2000. That's the cost for the unit. That's not including the fee for an electrician to come and wire that for you or HVAC person, I think probably an electrician can do it. It's ductless. I think an electrician could do that. So think about those things.

Cause I can tell you that's going to increase my cost and that's making me a little afraid of how much that's going to be. 

So the next question, number seven, is to ask yourself, is this worth the expense? And the reason why I'm asking this is because I've asked myself this question as well. I've been in my garage, I've got a pretty large two car garage, but there's no space in it.

And like I've mentioned earlier, no matter how much I try to clean this up, it just tends to grow. I'll get one side clean everything's in its place. And six months later, there's like a big snowblower sitting there, or there's a piece of furniture that I painted that I don't know what to do with, because I don't know where I want to put it in my house.

So now, I've got less space and it just tends to happen over and over. But I was asking myself this question, Serena, the amount of money that I'm going to spend on the shed in the backyard, is it worth spending that money or should I save it and just do a complete, like deep dive into my garage, clean out everything that doesn't need to be in there and just get something smaller that can, go in the backyard to house the bikes and the lawn mowers and things like that. 

So that's a very valid question that I've been asking myself. And when I think about the answer, I actually want to spend this money. Like I want a place to just go into the backyard and work. And just not have people bother me.

I want to have the skylights. The way I've designed this shed, it's, going to have four skylights. It's got windows all around it. It's going to be light and bright and airy. I'll be able to work on projects and film and not be pushed up against the side of the wall because there's no space or I'm stepping over, you know what I'm saying?

Like I just want it. And I feel like I have worked hard enough for it that I deserve it. And because I'm going to be using it for business, I can actually write it off as a business expense. So I don't feel bad spending the money because I know I'm going to get at least a tax deduction because I'm going to be using this for business. But that is a valid question to ask yourself, is this worth the expense?

Do you need a she shed, or could maybe that spare room that you thought would be a guest bedroom that doesn't really get used by anybody, could you maybe clean that out and use that for the things that you want to use it for? Or like I said, get all that stuff out of the garage and put the bikes in the backyard.

You don't have to be in the backyard Put the bikes in the lawn mowers back there and you take the garage. But yes, I considered that, but I really do feel like I want something that's exclusively mine. It's not going to be for the kids. It's not going to be for my husband. No one's going to come out and say, Hey, let's just store this thing out here in the garage.

No. This workshop is just going to be for me and for my tools. So ask yourself that question. 

Number eight. How long will you live in your house? This is a very important question. And I've asked myself this because the amount of money that you're going to spend on a she shed, if you're planning to move in the next year or two, is that really an expense that you want to incur when you're going to be moving anyway?

You know, depending on the amount of money, you're spending a few thousand dollars and you're like, you know what, I know I'm going to be moving in two years. I'm okay with that. I really just want and need the space. I need an office. I need a place to read. I need a place to connect with my friends. Whatever your reason is, if you're okay with spending that money, regardless of when you think you may or may not be moving, go ahead, do it.

But it's a question that you have to at least ask yourself so that you know, that you're mindful of the fact that you're spending money and you may not be able to recoup that because of the fact that you're going to be leaving so soon. Me personally, I think they're going to have to carry me out of here in a body bag.

I don't see myself leaving this place anytime soon. And it's not that I wouldn't sell my home. It's that my husband is very... What's the word. He doesn't like change at all. And if I were to even bring up, Hey, let's move so we can buy a place that already has a shed in the back. It just, it, no, it wouldn't happen.

Like he's once he has found a place to settle in, that's where he is. So getting him to move is a lot more work than what I think I have in me. So buying myself a shed means that I know I'm going to stay here for a long time, and I'll have a place to work. So good question to ask yourself, how long will you live in your house?

Number nine. Are you hoping to increase the value of your home? And the reason I ask this is because, and the reason why you should ask this is because putting a shed in your backyard doesn't necessarily increase the value of your home, but I'm going to say something here, and this is not based on fact or anything.

I feel like that if you put something really cute and quaint in your backyard, and then you sell it in three or four years, you're telling me that a family that comes to, to move in there to look at the home, you're telling me that the wife is not going to look at that and say, oh my gosh, honey, we got to buy this house.

Look at this little she shed. I got to have it. Come on. I feel like it's going to help. Maybe not on the books, it's not going to help in terms of the value, but I think there's a value to that. If someone sees that you've done all the hard work and it looks beautiful, I think that it could be a selling point.

Maybe it doesn't increase it directly, but there's going to be a selling point there that you could put in the description of your home for sale. When one of the contractors came to give me a quote, he had mentioned that. He said, you're going to have more value if you add onto your house versus just putting a shed or like an outbuilding back there.

And that was one thing that I was considering when I first started taking on this project, do we want to increase the value and go through the craziness of building for three months? Or do I just want a building in the backyard? And I realized I just wanted a building. I don't care about increasing the value.

I just need space for me. I need a workshop. But ask yourself, are you doing this because you're hoping that it will increase the value, in addition to you wanting to have space for yourself. 

And number 10, ask yourself, what will you use this for? What are you going to use this for? And there's no right or wrong answers here at all.

As I mentioned, I'm going to be using this for a workshop, but I'm sure there's going to be some area in there where I'm going to be lounging. I want to put a TV in there. I want to maybe have a little section where I filmed things or do photographs. I just I just cannot wait to have a place to do all these things that are really a struggle for me to do in the garage.

So ask yourself, are you going to use this for a workshop. Is it going to be a studio for you to do art, other art, and painting? Are you just going to chill out there? There are so many reasons why you're going to do this and there's no right or wrong reason, but I think it's good to have your why, because if you lose sight of that, then you may change your mind as you start going through the process.

Or as you start looking at the extra costs of finishing the inside and going through the permitting and all of that. It's good to keep your eyes on the prize and you know what it is you're looking for it. Cause there've been times when I'm like, Serena, you're spending a lot of money on this. Is this worth it?

Should you just cancel this and just take the money and go invest it in the stock market? I would love to take that money and invest it in the stock market, but I feel like the value that I would get from having it in the backyard is going to be so much more valuable to me, it's invaluable, actually.

It's invaluable. So I'm looking forward to it and that's what I'm using mine for. So what are you going to use yours for? 

There's another couple of things I wanted to point out to you that one of my readers had mentioned to me. She had said when you're buying a shed or building a shed, keep in mind the location and if it's accessible to your main home, right?  If you've got a huge yard, for example, when you put the shed all the way in the back, if you've got to go out back and forth, is that going to deter you from going out there, especially if it's like a thunderstorm or if it's cold weather, is that going to prevent you from going out there?

So that's one other thing I wanted to add. I think there was some additional things that she had mentioned, but I can't remember what they are off the top of my head, but I think what these 10 questions, we really talked about all the things to consider before you get into deciding to put a she shed in your backyard, it really comes down to permitting.

It comes down to where your place in it. What's your budget. Do you have time and resources to finish off the inside? Or are you just going to use it just unfinished and if you do that's okay. But also keep in mind that if you don't finish off the inside, it could get very hot in the shed. It could be very cold in the winter without the insulation.

And if you're keeping tools in there, you might need to put a dehumidifier in there because you're not going to have any cooling or anything. So just all of these things keep in mind. I'm thinking of them. And I know that if you're thinking about them, you're going to make a good decision too.

All right guys. I hope that you enjoyed this episode. If this is something that you are considering getting a, she shed hit me up on email, send me an email right now. I don't have an easy way for you to contact me or to give me any feedback on anything that you've heard here, but you can send me a message on Twitter.

If you're on Twitter, just at me @ThriftDiving, find me on YouTube and be sure to come back next week for Episode 14, because we're talking to a real estate agent, whose got some tips for us on what we should be doing before we sell our house. And also, if we're looking to buy a house, what should we be looking for-- right now, as I mentioned, it's a complete seller’s market, but there might be some things you can do to spruce up your house before you sell so that you can get top dollar and not have to spend a lot of money.

All right. I'm Serena Appiah from Thrift Diving. I will see you next episode.