When my darling husband and I first bought the farm, we had grand plans of turning the "shed" that is attached to the kitchen into a family room. Many evenings were spent discussing how we would reorient the woodstove, where the mudroom would be, would it have a cathedral ceiling (and thus lose the attic space above it), would we open it up to the kitchen, etc. We believed that this additional family room would be necessary, as we would have several children and our current set up does not provide an ample indoor space for older kids to "hang out".
The "shed" is on the far right in this picture, from the hot water pipe onwards. Conveniently, there are two exits directly to the outside from the shed.
Now that we've lived in the house through five winters and summers, it has become clear to us that the benefits of the shed outweigh the benefits of a finished family room. The shed is a space for all seasons, and without a garage, one of its main functions is as a storage unit and recycling containment center. It also is where the workbench and all the tools call home.
While storage is certainly a noble purpose for a 400 sq. ft. space, it was the seasonal activities that occur in the shed that led us to believe we would not be able to part with it.
Early Summer: I use this area to clean the shorn sheep fleeces before sending them out to be carded. It's a tedious process, particularly since the sheep live with burdock, but I usually get most of the crud off.
Tess and Rachel's wool on the screen, ready for picking
Late Summer: Harvesting. Need I say more? We set up the saw horses with a screen to lay the onions, garlic and beans out to dry before storage.
Fall: We continue with harvesting, but the main purpose of the shed is for apple pressing. Bud and his father spend evenings out there grinding up apples and then pressing them into fresh cider. While we end up hardening most of the cider, we also freeze 3-4 gallons each year.
Bud shows off his cider pressing abilities. In the background of this picture, you can see the sawhorses and screen with beans drying on it!
Winter: You would think that winters are relatively quiet on the farm, and indeed they are. However, the picnic table, lawn furniture, fencing and fence chargers, and wood all come in for the winter. While our barn could hold much of this material in the summer months, the barns in winter are stuffed to the gills with hay (and more fencing equipment). The shed, since it's not heated, is also a fabulous refridgerator in the wintertime. Pots of stock, soup, left over hams, freshly butchered poultry, pies, puddings, and beer have all been stored out there to great satisfaction.
Early spring: This is probably the busiest time for the shed. I use the floor space in April to cut and dry seed potatoes. It is also where we raise our chicks and turkey poults for the first 4 (if you're a chick) to 8 (if you're a turkey) weeks. This year, we actually received our shipments of both types of fowl at the same time, and quickly had to build another brooder for the chickens. With powerful heat lamps, they seem content, even though night time temperatures are dipping into the teens.
Turkey poults are in the front box; chicks are in the rear.
Our chicks from a few years ago. We actually ended up putting them in our broken shower upstairs when it got too cold for them in the shed (we didn't have heat lamps at that point).
As you see, it would be rather difficult to find a replacement home for all of these activities. Thus, it appears the shed will stay a shed, as the concept of a family room doesn't seem so necessary anymore.
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