Hasty Treat - Backyard Offices

Welcome to Syntax in this Monday, Sanity Street. We are kicking off season 1.5 here. We're not quite into season 2 yet. We are gonna be talking all about home offices and building an office in your backyard.

Now I've seen quite a people do this lately. There's been a lot of cool, home offices popping up ever since this whole pandemic started. You've seen all sorts of neat stuff. Now we we have a a Node little shed in our backyard that could be turned into 1, but it is a complicated and a complex situation. So as somebody who's built their own home office in their backyard, we have on the show,

our very own Wes Bos. How's it going, Wes? Hey. Good. Good. Yeah. This is it's kinda something cool because I set off at the about 6 months ago at the beginning of this pandemic.

We went up to our cottage, and I didn't have, like, a good spot to work. And I had always thought about turning one of these sheds into an office, and I did that. And I can talk about that today. And then I also just by posting stuff on Twitter, I've got, I don't know, probably 7 or 8 different people send me photos of of their own setups of what they've been working on. If you have, like, photos of your backyard office, tweet us at syntax f m. So I'd love to share photos of of other people's setups. I have Node link right here to Brad Westfall on Twitter. He just built the most beautiful one in his backyard. There's a palm tree over it.

So we're just gonna just gonna kinda go through, like, the steps and and what you need to to know about and think about before you go ahead and and build one of these because, like, it looks like a lot of people are going to go be going remote full time.

And if that's the case and you need some sorta good setup, and if you don't if you aren't as lucky to have a room in your house for that, then this is a a good option if you have something in your backyard or you have some space you can build. Yeah. So just like we want to see your home setups, I want to see all of my errors and exceptions handling in real time with the video Scott bold replay

and, my Redux store. And, yeah, let's see what else my error tab, my network tab, and all that. And that's I like to use LogRocket. Now LogRocket is a error and exception handling and finding bug finding service, I guess you could call it, that allows you to see the bugs and the errors happen in a real time scrubbable video. As I just mentioned, it is really something cool. And for those of you who have just been pawing your way through, text errors and, you know, log messages and whatever just to find out what happened when somebody did something or how the heck did that user do this thing. Well, now you can see exactly how this user did that thing by seeing it in a scrubbable video replay. So head on over to log rocket .comforward/syntax, and you will get 14 days for free.

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Alright. Let's get into this, Wes. Let's get into the the the whole shed office, shed chic.

Shed chic. Yes. You know what? I just thought of another one is, Brad Frost converted a shed in his backyard to, like, the ultimate jam space, workspace.

Really cool. If you go to his blog or just Google Brad Frost office, it's it's really awesome. So let's talk about structure first. So you if you wanna build something in your backyard, you need something to put your office in. And for a lot of people, there is probably some sort of existing shed where you're putting the wheelbarrow in it. And that's what I did JS we had this shed in our backyard, which JS 10 by 12.

That's, feet for for all y'all. That's not in meters. That would be a very big office if it was in meters.

And we weren't really using it for much, just storing rakes and stuff in here. So I decided to to to go ahead with that and and convert it over.

Things you sort of need to look at is, like, is it sound? So it's not worth putting a bunch of money into something that was will fall over or is maybe rotten or is is sort of sitting in the dirt. You gotta make sure it's, like, not gonna be sitting in the dirt. Otherwise, that will go rotten.

Other people said that they're getting quotes to just build something, by themselves. Sort of the Yarn part about that is if you wanna erect some sort of shed or some sort of building on your property, there's likely some bylaws in your area that will allow not allow you to to do that. Because, if you have something existing, it's usually grandfathered in. But if it's if you don't have something that's existing, usually, the rules are, like, it has to be 5 feet from all fences, which is really hard for most people's backyards, or can't go above a certain height, which is is not a whole thing, or or putting bringing electrical to that is is really tough. So before you get too excited about it, definitely look up any building code that is in your area to make sure that you can,

do that. We quite a bit looked into some additional tool. We have, like, a Node car garage that we're using as a gym in our backyard, and we've looked into what that would take to convert it into an existing structure.

And, dang, like, every contractor we reached out to said, like, hey, can we make this bigger? Can we turn this into this? They just say, we can't we can't even we can't even touch it in those ways. You you know, you could drywall or whatever. You can't add on to it. You can't do anything like that. Otherwise, it's against zoning. So we, unfortunately, we we had plans to turn that what is now the gym into my office, and it just could not work out because of zoning, man. Zoning, zoning kill you. Yeah. I I have a bunch of friends that are in Toronto, and Toronto is super expensive. So a lot of people don't have room for

for a bigger house, and a lot of people are doing this in the backyard. And I I've talked to a few people that got I think they're called variances. I don't know a whole lot about this, but you can apply for sort of like, oh, but can I be the exception? And that is sometimes approved. So that JS an option in some cases, but then you have to, like I think you gotta post one of those big billboards and have a meeting where your neighbors can come and things like that. I don't think it's super easy. Yeah. Also popular are just these, like, drop in offices. So almost like a tiny little shipping container.

There's lots of companies out there that will drop these, like, matte black, really sleek little boxes in your backyard that have, like, a big door glass door built into them, and you just pop those in, which is pretty cool. And then the last thing, which I think is probably, like, the most affordable depending on where you live, is that at Costco, they have these, like, huge rubber Node sheds that you can just put together yourself.

If you were to, like like, I don't know, pour a little concrete pad and slap Node of those on that, that would actually make for a pretty affordable structure to start off of because I think they're only, like, $1,000 or something like that to to get up and running. And they're they were pretty big Wes I saw them at Costco.

Once you have your structure, I Scott think about electrical. So that's something that I had to do JS likely, there is no electrical being run to your your office, so you have to get, I had to get permits for that.

And then Wes also have to pay an electrician to run electrical, and that can greatly vary depending on how far you need to go. For me, in order to get electrical run, it had to be buried, and then it brought in and all the outlets and everything like that. I think it was about $2 for me to to get it all wired up, which JS much more than I was expecting, but I I don't really know much about how much plugs cost. So after electrical, you think about insulation. So this little office Wes, luckily, it was already watertight, and it was just reroofed a couple years ago.

So I didn't have to worry about any of that. But I did have to worry about insulation because, where I am, it gets very, very cold and very, very Scott, and I've been here for both.

And a way to sort of combat both of those is to insulate it. So I ended up getting the entire thing spray foamed, which is just someone comes apparently, in in Europe, they don't have this. People have been warp asking me, like, what is that? It's just somebody comes with a gun and sprays this foam on all of the joists and and all of the beams and everything like that, and then it expands and sort of seals up the entire, the entire thing. By doing that, I didn't have to have any sort of external venting because it was a 100% sealed. If you use that, like, batting insulation, then you do need to have some sort of venting. Otherwise, you can have issues with moisture and mold and things like that. Yeah.

What else? Heating. So how to heat it was Wes a big one. So I started I got a, 1500 watt little oil heater.

And there's all kinds of different heaters out there. But at the end of the day, they're all exactly the same in terms of efficiency. There's a really good article on or not really good YouTube video from Technology Connections Mhmm. On space heaters and how they all work exactly the same because they're all taking

really cool. That video was so good. And we watched another Technology Connections video last night while we were eating dinner, and Courtney hasn't seen she's seen him before, but hasn't and she was just like, what does this guy do for a living? And I was like, oh, this is this is what he does. He makes these really awesome videos. The color brown. That's the one that we watched. It was like the color brown in LEDs.

And, it was so good. It was so fascinating. I mean, I absolutely love this channel anyways, but, like, man yeah. That is some some seriously good content. The 1 on space heaters and on the 1 on portable AC units, both fantastic episodes, especially in the context of this.

And the one on how those tape deck to auxiliary things were Oh, no. That's is so fascinating. Tape deck to auxiliary. Oh, man. How did you remember when you got your 1st car and you wanted to pluck you wanted to plug your iPhone in or your your Discman? Hear him. You had to get that, like, tape deck with the cord. Yeah. It's like a fake fake tape. I always felt bad for the the tape player when I put that thing in. I'm like, you know this is fake. We all know this is fake,

but getting my music out of here.

Oh, that was good. Yeah. Anyways, that that's an awesome one. So, some sort of space heater. That one was more than enough for my space. It did take a couple hours to to actually heat up, but it did. So what I ended up doing is I put it on a Wi Fi plug and turned it on at, like, 5 AM. And by the time I started working or 6 AM, and by the time I started working at 9 AM, it was, like, super toasty. And I could almost I would turn it off at about 12:30, and this was, like, when it was snowing. And it would stay warm the entire the entire rest of the day. So the installation was doing its job and and retaining that heat that was used. A lot of people gave me hack for putting it on a Wi Fi plug, but it was a 1500 watt heater, and they're rated at 1.8 watts, I think, those plugs. So I did my homework. Don't worry.

What else? Cooling. So then, like, Node, people are like, what? You're just weren't you just heating that thing, like, 2 weeks ago, and now you're looking into air conditioners? So when I wanted to get air conditioner, it was the pandemic, and everybody was buying air conditioners. So I got one of the last air like, portable ACs that I could find, and that was, like, a 1300 BTU portable higher.

And it works great. It cools it down super fast, but the there's a problem with it and that it's super loud and that I can't record when it's on. I also had a ceiling fan put in as well, and I can't record with the ceiling fan on either because it the air buffets against the mic and it you can hear it.

So, even right now, I'm just, like, super hot because I can't turn any of those on. Yeah. That is the problem with recording.

Yeah. It's it's frustrating. So, luckily, one thing happened with the air conditioning is it showed up with a tiny little clip that holds the air intake hose on, and that clip was broken.

So I contacted them, and I said, hey. Can you send me another clip? I'll fix it. And, they're like, okay. Let me check. And they're like, no. There's no parts available for this, so we're just gonna give you your money back.

And I was like, okay.

And I could I could keep it? They're like, yeah. We don't, like, we don't want you to ship it back. It's broken. I was like, well, okay. Like, I guess so. And I, like, I bet I if I open it up, I'll find the the broken clip, and I could just glue it back on. So they let me keep it, and it was $600.

So, I thought, okay. Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna go a step further, and I'm gonna get one of these things called the mini split. And a mini split is where you put the compressor unit outside, like a tiny little air conditioner, and then there's a Node, and then there's a indoor unit that goes above, like, a door. It's, like like, 1 foot high by, like, 3 feet wide.

It's great. And I install or I haven't used the outside y, but I installed it, in the office. And then I had unfortunately, the only one that was available was a two forty unit, which in in North America, we run on, like, 115, 110 or, sorry, 120.

So I didn't I couldn't power it, and I was a dummy because I just paid an electrician to wire this whole thing up, and I didn't have the foresight to Get the to run 240. The beefy the beefy power.

We could run it, but we had to install pnpm extra circuit breaker. And then we also and then, like, all the walls are already finished and everything like that. So I couldn't I we had to run it outside and then dig again, which which kinda Vercel, but he came in and did that. And then I was about to hook it up myself, but it turns out you need a special vacuum pump to release the gases into the unit, and I don't have that. And I couldn't find anybody to to do it, and I ended up just saying, you know what? I'll wait till next year. I still got this broken one. And and even further, the first one showed up broken again.

They had, like, a dent a big dent in the Node, and, one of the, like, the valves where you hook it up was dented.

And I, I I took a picture and sent it to Wayfair and said, hey. This is broken. Can I return it? And they said, sure. We'll send you another one, and then don't return the other one. So now I have 3 air conditionings, and I paid for 1.

And I don't I don't know if if the one that is dented is broken or not. I'm gonna have to test it. You're not allowed to sell it because they make you sign something, but it's it's kinda funny that I follow these air conditionings now. That is that is very lucky in a in a awesome way.

My my that's how kind of stuff always happens to me. So my wife is like, of course, that happened while. You buy 1 air conditioner. Wes, my my CalDigit just died, and they're just like, yeah, you'll have to pay us to get a new one. Yeah. Really? Ship it back. Yeah.

Oh.

Really? I I tried Scott talking him, and Node I I like I like Wes trying to trying to do a little talking to see if I could at least get them to cover the cost to ship it. And, and and Node he's like, if if our if our standards or if our process does not work for you, I'm I'm just going to cancel the RMA. I'm canceling it. And this JS, like, I had to be, like, wait wait wait wait. Like, he he he made me, like, apologize, essentially, for asking for them to pay for the shipping.

Oh. Node, did you? I have such a high

high thought of Node. That's a bummer too. I was really I was really upset. I, definitely upset about it. I'm looking for alternatives now just because it's like, do I wanna yeah. Sure. I'll have them fix the one to ship it back. But, like, I don't know. I'll only go with somebody else.

Inside, I ended up, paneling the whole thing with pine wood, which gives a very rustic, cottage y feel. Yeah. It's nice. And then I put a lot of people told me to do this. Luxury vinyl plank, which is just a fancy word for vinyl that Scott spins on when he does his break

break ins and Bos went to Home Depot, and I said, give me a giant roll of linoleum. And, yeah, that's my my my linoleum looks like a a floor. Yeah.

So this came in, like, in planks that you install, like, hardwood. Oh. But it's it's awesome. It's, like, really floppy, so it all sits down really Node.

And it it's been been super nice.

And then what else? Wi Fi, I ended up people told me to, like, trench for running, like, Ethernet or running fiber, but I didn't feel like doing that because it's it was so much work, especially how rocky it is here. So I just used a Ubiquiti outdoor access point and mounted that somewhere between the house and here. And that gives us actually really good Wi Fi in the entire property, which is which is awesome.

And I believe that is it.

So all in, people always ask me, like, how much does something like that cost? Given that we had the, like, most expensive Yarn, which was the shed, it was about $4,000 to get it wired up, do all the flooring, all the paneling, and, and air conditioning. Oh, that mini split also heats. I should tell you. It's a heat pump, which does the opposite of air conditioning, but it just sprays the hot air into the room instead of outside the room.

I can get rid of my little space heater now because the the mini split will also heat it in the winter, which is is pretty cool. So about $4 Canadian, which is that's $3 US. And how many in euros? €2.56.

So €25100 to do something like this. So, like, not cheap, but definitely if that's if you're gonna be, like, working from home full time, especially I know some some companies give, like, a couple $1,000 to their employees for something like a chair or whatever.

So definitely have enjoyed

building this thing and having my own space in my backyard. And now I wish that my place at home, I could build a a backyard office as well. You know what? Also, if you own a business, the business can pay for a portion of that. So and both the construction and, you know, tax, whatever. So just keep that in mind. Luckily,

or unfortunately for me, I can't because it's not our primary residence. Oh, so primary residence. Well, interesting.

Yeah. I I like, even before we bought this place, I was asking my accountant. I said, could I build something on the property and 100% expense it? And he said he's like, not really. You can make the argument that you're gonna be there 3 months a Yarn. And so you could you could expense 1 third of it or or sorry, not 3 months or 1 fourth of it. But it's it's kind of hard to do something, especially when you are increasing the value of your something that you personally own with business funds, it gets a little bit murky. But if it was your primary residence, I think that you probably could definitely check with an accountant, though. Yeah. As as with anything, check with the accountant or your lawyer. Yeah.

So that is it. If you have your own little backyard office, I'd love to to see what you've built. They're such cool little cozy places, and they're different all around the world.

The the Brad Wes one, he's in, I think, Arizona.

So he's got, like, a pool outside,

I know. Little, like, palm tree over the top. In it. That looks unreal. I know. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

TJ in on that one. TJ in a hard TJ over here.

Cool. Alright. That's it. Thanks so much for tuning in, and we will catch you on Wednesday.

Peace.

Peace.

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