guest house | casaCARA

GUEST CABIN, SHE SHED, WRITING ROOM, LOVE SHACK…whatever it’s called, it’s the latest project to be (nearly) completed at my Long Island, N.Y., beach house, and I think it turned out pretty cute.

Here’s what the 14’x17′ cedar structure looked like a month or two ago:

In the two years I’ve owned the property, the shed had become a very handy storage unit for leftover lumber and bits and pieces of furniture I didn’t know what to do with. I had a yard sale in June and got rid of most everything. Then, the same two-man team who painted the house last spring and whipped up bookshelves and a closet for me removed the trio of aluminum windows, above, replacing them with a pair of French doors left behind by the previous owner.

A casement window went into the side of the building where no window had been before (above). In this photo the French doors are merely primed; I later had them painted brown to coordinate with the house. I was going to have the shed painted Aegean Olive to match the house as well, but after it was power washed, I decided I liked the look and would keep it that way, at least for now.

Naturally my little folly ended up costing a lot more than expected; the shed required a whole new roof, not just a patch job, including replacement of some rotted rafters. (The two skylights were salvageable, happily.) I sacrificed a deck for budgetary reasons, but I had the guys build three four-foot-wide steps leading to the French doors, using stringers from Home Depot.

The furnishings are all things I had on hand, including a rustic hutch from my previous house that had no place to go. It was all done in a feverish couple of days at the end of June, as the house is rented out for July. I hear the shed — no, cabin — was a great success with young visitors over the 4th.

MY SHED IS A VERY VERY VERY FINE SHED…no, not really. At the moment, it’s a stark cedar box, above, with a shed roof — as in shed water, I now realize — but it will be a very fine shed when my son Max gets through with it. In fact, it will no longer be a shed; it will be a guest house/studio with its own deck and maybe even an outdoor shower.

There’s a pair of French doors and a casement window left behind by the previous owner of the house, which we’ll use, and I’ve got a folder of inspiration pics, below, collected from various sources.

Simple things, sheds. For some reason — memories of prehistoric shelters imbedded in our DNA? — their small size makes them very appealing. Though it’s twice the square footage of the tiny house written up recently in The New York Times. My shed will be a very fine palace by comparison.