Bike Shed

When you live in a small space storage solutions are key. We did not use our one car garage for parking, it was our main storage room. It was also, my husband's work shop, where the kids kept their outdoor stuff, the home for our lawn mower, and our main entrance. I knew we needed to get it under control. I started small with the kids bikes. There was no clear home for them, so naturally, they left them wherever. Even worse, some days they were buried in the back on the garage, and they wouldn't bother riding them at all. My solution was to get a small shed for the side of our home. We were lucky enough to be in and end unit townhome, which meant we had the tiniest bit more yard compared to the others. When I say tiny bit I mean tiny. Our home was 1872 sqft, and our land, 2615 sqft. Luckily we had some "green space" owned by the HOA next to our property, so we got to enjoy more room, even if we didn't own it. When it came to the shed however, it would have to be contained with in the land we owned. 

Not knowing exactly where the property line was I used our air conditioning unit as a marker. I assumed that must be located on our land, so as long as I didn't go much past that we would be ok.

The unit measured about 3.5 feet from the side of our house. I decided to look for something between 3 and 4 feet. Searching "small storage shed" lead me to plenty of options. After some back and forth about what we were looking for in a shed, we decided we really only wanted something for the kids bikes. Everything else could be contained in our garage with some downsizing and organization. 

After looking at may options, we decided on a 4' x 6' Craftsman shed. This would normally be used to hide your large outdoor trash bins. We laid out the measurements in chalk on our garage floor. This allowed us to actually see if all 3 bikes would fit. 

We did not want a large structure on the side of our small house. We wanted something that was just enough, and blending in as much as possible. One trip to Lowe's and $600 later, we had exactly what we were looking for. It's was exactly what we were looking for. It made all the difference when we finally got to redoing out garage. Our kids loved having east access to their bikes. I am happy to report they were riding daily when the weather allowed it.