Shed to House Conversion: Seven People in 915 Square Feet
Sarah and her husband weren't looking to go tiny. At the time, they were living in a four-bedroom suburban house with three young boys and another baby on the way. Then a rainy family vacation shifted something.
They spent the week tucked inside a two-bedroom, one-bath cabin with nowhere to go and not much to do besides read, play games and be together. Instead of feeling cramped, Sarah came home wondering why they needed so much space in the first place.
"I thought maybe we could do with a lot less than what we have right now."
That thought eventually changed nearly everything. Twelve years later, their family has grown to seven and they live on rural land in Texas in a 915-square-foot home that began as a simple shed shell. The shed to house conversion took them about a year. They built it themselves, despite starting with no construction experience, learning as they went and turning to YouTube whenever they got stuck.
These days, Sarah is also part of the Tiny Home Tours team, which made sitting on the other side of the microphone a little unusual.
At a glance
Home: 915 square feet, converted from a shed shell
Family: two adults, five children, all homeschooled
Land: 10.5 acres bought in 2014 for $60,000, with 24 more acquired since
Shells: $5,600 for the first, $17,000 for the second
Mortgage: none, and that was the point
Built by: the two of them, learning from YouTube, over about a year
A Tent, Then a $5,600 Shed
They bought the land in 2014, when they had one child, and spent years driving out to it at weekends. Ninety minutes each way. That was the limit Sarah had set when they were looking, because anything further would have made a day trip pointless. There was no water on the land and no electricity turned on, though there was a pole, which she notes saved them a fortune. Everything they needed had to fit in the car alongside the children. By the time they had unloaded and worked for an hour it was time to drive home again.
Sarah remembers it feeling like they weren't making much progress getting out there.
They camped in a tent at first, then bought a shed to sleep in instead. Twelve feet by twenty, no plumbing, no electricity, a cot inside. That shed is where the whole idea came from.
"I think just having that small shed kind of triggered some ideas for me that, you know, this is kind of like a house."
It is also where the family lived for six to eight months after they moved out for good. A king size mattress on the floor, triple bunk beds, everyone eating outside every day. The bigger shed had gone up six months earlier, but then it rained without stopping until they arrived, so nothing inside it was finished and every possession they owned was stacked in it. Sarah is matter of fact about most of this story and not at all about that part.
"I think we were really happiest living in that 240 feet."
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Why a Shed to House Conversion Beat a Tiny Home
She tried to do it the conventional way first. After the cabin trip they wanted something in the 1,000 to 1,200 square foot range. So they called builders, modular companies, and anyone who would deliver to a property that does not receive postal mail.
The quotes kept coming back wrong, for a reason worth knowing before anyone starts phoning around. Cost per square foot climbs as the house shrinks. A company set up to build 4,000 square foot houses makes its money on 4,000 square foot houses, and shrinking the floor plan does not shrink the price in proportion. Nothing Sarah found in the range she wanted came in below what their suburban home had cost. The entire point of the exercise was to end up without a mortgage.
So they bought a shed shell instead. That gave them the difficult part already done. The frame, the roof pitch, the things that are hard without experience, delivered and erected in a day by people who do it constantly.
"I don't think I could have ever done that. So, I'm glad we did spend the money."
Everything inside it they did themselves, one board at a time, from YouTube. They started with a hammer and a nail before working out they should probably buy better tools. Before any of that Sarah went shed shopping with a tape measure and graph paper, around Lowe's, Home Depot and shed lots, looking at hundreds of them and possibly thousands by her own count.
"We sat on every toilet Lowe's had."
What It Cost
The land was $60,000 for 10.5 acres in 2014, bought with a loan while they were still in the city. The first shed was $5,600. The second was $17,000, slightly over list because their gate is 15 feet wide and the 16 foot shed would not fit through it, so it had to be built on site instead.
Then they sold the suburban house. That cleared what was left on the land loan, and the remainder paid for the build out. They finished with no mortgage of any kind.
"That's a game changer in anyone's budget."
Sarah is careful that the shed prices are not the whole number, and that doing it this way costs something other than money.
"A lot of people will say, well, you can build it a lot cheaper, but you have to keep in mind your time as well."
The Risk Was the Job
Her husband was a police officer, and he quit the week they moved. Staying would have meant more than two hours of commuting each way. That left no evenings with the children and no time to work on a house that was nowhere near finished. Their household income dropped by something like 75 percent.
"It was big, but we have always lived within our means and below our means, and I told him, I think we can do this."
He builds now. Chicken coops, goat sheds and fencing, mostly, and he helps other builders when work comes up, which it does because their schedule is their own. Sarah works part time. There are no jobs out there to speak of and they knew that going in.
Five Children in 915 Square Feet
One of the questions Sarah gets most often is how seven people manage in 915 square feet, especially as the kids get older. But for their family, the square footage has never been something they've been particularly attached to.
They could add a second story to the house if they really wanted to. The kids know that too. They also understand that adding onto the house would mean spending money that couldn't go toward something else.
"They understand that everything comes at a trade-off, and that's what we've taught them."
Sharing rooms isn't something the kids had to adjust to when the family went small. Even in their four-bedroom suburban house, Sarah had three boys sharing one room. They've also always spent a lot of time outside. In the suburbs, they were the family that was constantly in the front yard. Now the kids have 34 acres, ponds and playhouses to explore.
"Their rooms are a place to sleep. I don't think they even really notice."
During the live conversation, a viewer described it in a way that immediately clicked with Sarah: sometimes we confuse resting space with living space.
"They need a place that's safe to rest their heads. I would rather have usable space to can and do art projects than take up all this room where they're just going to sleep."
She would rather have space where the family can can food, do art projects and actually live their lives.
What She Would Change
If she were doing it again she would ask for two by sixes rather than two by fours. Thicker walls would have meant more insulation, and it gets hot in Texas. She is honest that it would have cost more at a point when they were counting every dollar, and that she does not know whether they would have paid it.
Everything is insulated as it stands. Fiberglass in the walls, closed cell spray foam in the cold room. The week before the 2021 freeze that shut Texas down, someone sprayed foam underneath the whole structure.
"Game changer. It is amazing."
They run a mini split for cooling, a wood stove through the winter and propane wall heaters as backup. Sarah likes having three options rather than one. If the family has to leave early she is not going to light a fire.
Her practical advice to anyone buying a shed shell is smaller than any of this. Ask the builder for what you want, because they will often do it. Windows where you want them, hurricane straps, thicker walls if you are willing to pay.
"If there's something that you want from your builder, ask them. Can you do this? How much more or how much less is that going to run me?"
It Does Not Always Go Well
Once the house was finished her husband built her a greenhouse, and a month later a storm picked it up and threw it across the property.
"I sat and I just cried and I kind of rethought my whole life there for a minute."
The cold room that holds their canned food is meant to sit at 55 degrees. It has stopped working, so the food is under beds and tucked into whatever gaps the house has. Sarah has butchered chickens, raised pigs and learned to can, and has not bought chicken at a store in over four years. She volunteers unprompted that she only ever cuts the feet off, because there has always been a baby to feed or somebody needing the bathroom.
What she thinks the children take from the bad days is worth more to her than the greenhouse was.
"It's so good for the kids to see such struggle and how you just get up and you move on."
A Bigger Life
Cindy read back a line Sarah had written to her before the episode. They did not build a smaller house because they could not afford a bigger one, but because they wanted a bigger life.
"You can only buy so much stuff. But that comes at a cost. It comes as an exchange, and that's normally for your time, and you cannot buy your time."
Asked whether she would do it again, Sarah says yes, exactly as they did it. Then she adds that she would not move and start over somewhere new, because she wants to be here now and enjoy it. Asked what she misses, she does not say the house, the stores or the income.
"I miss my neighbors the most."
If you are at the land stage of this, what to check before you buy raw land covers the costs that come before the house. If you are earlier than that, our cost guide puts five real budgets side by side, and the buyer's roadmap walks through the order to do things in.
FAQ
Can you turn a shed into a house?
Sarah and her husband did, with no building experience between a geology degree and a police career. They bought a shed shell delivered and erected on site, then finished the inside themselves over about a year, learning from YouTube. The shell is what makes it work, because the roof pitch and the frame are the parts that are hardest to get right without experience.
How much does it cost to turn a shed into a house?
Their two shells cost $5,600 and $17,000. The land was a separate $60,000 for 10.5 acres in 2014. They funded the build out by selling their suburban house, clearing the land loan with the proceeds and spending what was left, which let them finish with no mortgage at all.
Is a shed cheaper than building a tiny home?
It was for them. Sarah says the cost per square foot climbs sharply as the house gets smaller, because builders are set up for homes of 4,000 square feet and make their money there. Nothing she found in the 1,000 to 1,200 square foot range came in much below what their suburban house had cost.
Can a family of seven live in 915 square feet?
Sarah's five children have shared rooms since they were small, and she says bedrooms are for sleeping rather than living. The family spends most of its time outdoors on the land or in shared indoor space. She says 900 or so square feet is about right for seven people, and that what a homestead needs more of is barn and storage space rather than house.
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