Would You Live In An Amish Shed? This Couple Does

Trend Alert: People are buying Amish sheds and converting them into living spaces, studios, and stores.

That’s the report from the Bangor Daily News. They share the story of Jason and Jennifer Remillard, a Chicago couple who moved to Maine several years ago to “homestead”.

This fits in nicely with the tiny home movement that’s been mainstream for about a decade now. Here’s the couple in front of their Amish shed home setup (actually two sheds combined), explained below:

The Pluses of An Amish Shed Home

What’s the appeal of an Amish-built shed home?

It seems there are two big ones: price – and speed:

With costs ranging from $2,000 to about $36,000, depending on size and whether it is a shell or completely finished structure, the sheds are about half the cost of a log cabin package or a tiny home.

Not to mention, they can be completed in about four to eight weeks.

The Remillards’ two Amish sheds — a 14-by-36-foot and a 14-by-32-foot that they connected with a 5-foot hallway — cost $24,000 combined.

“It was delivered as a shell with a roof, studded walls and an insulated floor,” they said, adding that after three years the interior is about 90 percent finished. “The beautiful thing about this is they are so adaptable and easy to add on to.”

So you’re getting a home at a fraction of the cost, even with conversion costs included.

On that, Jason Remillard makes videos on how to convert an Amish shed to a living space.

He notes that “On their three-mile-long rural county road there are seven Amish sheds used as cabins, Jason said, adding that ‘hands down, absolutely’ this is a growing trend that he calls the Amish shed to cabin craze.”

The Trade-Off

Of course, living in a shed, you’re giving up square footage.

But maybe not that much. If my math is correct, the Remillards’ setup – two sheds combined – gives them around 1,000 square feet of floor space. Not bad for two people.

It’s certainly not as cramped as some “tiny homes” I’ve seen in the past. Some “regular homes” don’t give you much more than that in square footage.

Sheds and other pre-assembled buildings – like barns and cabins – have long been a key industry for Amish manufacturers. It’s one of the more common Amish businesses.

An Amish man named Johnny Kulp from the Smyrna Amish community built the Remillard’s buildings. And they’re not just to live in. Kulp shares the many uses of a converted shed:

People regularly come in to talk about how they might use a shed for their home or business, Kulp said. They have done music shops, artist’s studios, photography studios, a concession stand, garages and many homes and cabins, he said.

“We do all this customization so people can use their imagination and say ‘wow this will work well for my office, my studio, my home, my camp,’” Kulp said. “There is a definite trend to use them for camps, tiny homes, cabins, office spaces and artisan studios. ”

Another woman in the story converted an Amish shed into a bookshop business for around $12,000.

Many Amish also build conventional homes. So this is something a bit in-between. I think we should expect to see more Amish producers marketing their sheds as living spaces.

Of course, Amish already make pre-assembled cabins and cottages, designed to be living spaces. So at some point the lines become blurred between a shed built to live in, and those.

I think I’d be fine with living in an Amish shed. Except for one thing.

There’s no mention of bathroom facilities in the article. But I’m assuming that the Remillards are not using an outhouse, Swartzentruber-style, or bathing once a week. I’d need to at least have that covered before I could sign up for the Amish Shed Life.

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