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DIY prefab, baby

Our little family will be soon moving to our new house on E. Zia Road, and as commodious as it is, I don't have an office/studio space to work in. So for the time being, I'll be working in a provisional setup in the guest room while I complete the design for my new office space which will be a custom converted lean-to storage shed made by TuffShed (www.tuffshed.com). We researched a bunch of the new crop of ship-ready prefab modern buildings that are available, but honestly, they are all still too expensive. One criticism I have of most that I have seen is that the designs themselves are a little too precious, and do not lend themselves to the DIY "modder" (someone who has a circular saw, a drill, some paint brushes, but not much more...like me). There is nothing inherently wrong with 2x4's and plywood, and these mundane materials can become something pretty special in the right plucky hands (like mine).

The first design I am working on (seen here) is a combination storage shed and office space, made from a single 12'x32' Tuffshed. These were drawn using Adobe Illustrator, which is the poor man's AutoCad. One of the ideas we have is to create interior walls from the backyard fence which we are planning to replace with a different design. This size Tuffshed will probably cost about $11,000 with a few options like barn doors, 2x2 windows, vents, etc., whereas many if not all of the fancy-pants modern prefab buildings we've seen start at $30,000 and that's without shipping, siteprep, and assembly labor (which probably doubles the price, depending on locale). Tuffsheds are manufactured only an hour away from Santa Fe, and are shipped on a flatbed and assembled on site in an afternoon by 3 Tuffshed tuffguys - all included in the one price. I reckon I'll spend another $2,000 on the interior, another $2,000 on electrical and networking, and about 100 hours of my time, so we'll have a 384sf building for about $15,000, and a fun summer project to boot. Should be completed by late summer, and I'll be sure to post progress images.

Cohen: "It's the end of the era of the white man."

From Roger Cohen's "The Baton Passes to Asia" in The New York Times:

But in the end, transformation is not about numbers. It’s about the mind. Come to Asia and fear drains away. It’s replaced by confidence and a burning desire to succeed. Asian business leaders are rock stars. The culture of education and achievement is fierce. China is bent on beating the U.S.A.

Posted on Mar 31, 2008 at 11:27AM by

Gong Szeto in Economics |

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Reader Comments (1)

Though Cohen's hardly my favorite columnist, he's right about this one.

March 31, 2008 |

david

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