It’s the time of year to kick back for part of your weekend and enjoy your favorite college or NFL teams.  If you’re having an issue with sharing your space with a spouse, roommate or kids, it might be a great idea to start making plans to build your own space for next season.  (Face it, if you build it now, you will miss the games!)

Where in your house, inside and out, can you squeeze out some space that you can call your own?  It may be in a garage, on a patio, a spare room, basement or covered porch.  It doesn’t really matter where it is; just that there is some place you can call your own.

Start with that space in mind and visualize how you would want to transform the area into your very own TV and entertainment zone.  Start saving a little money every week or month to put toward the renovation for next spring or summer.  Make a few small purchases to keep you motivated and focused on the project and when its right take action and do it! 

Sheds are sometimes known for their diminutive size. However, less floor space may be overcome by building up top. To this end, you may want to add a loft to your shed. Attached correctly to the ceiling and wall rafters, most lofts will be able to support a substantial amount of weight. They are especially handy for storing items you may not use very often, such as boxes of dishes, luggage, or Christmas decorations.

Most lofts in sheds will be built into one end of the shed and can be the same width as the building. The depth will depend on whether or not you are willing to sift through items at the edge of your loft to get to those in the areas farther back. If you’re not willing to do this, your loft can be fairly narrow. Of course, you’ll still need a ladder to access your stored items, but on the other hand, things are not readily available to small children or others you may not want using your tools.

The easiest way to add a loft is by measuring the space you would like up top and cut a piece of three quarter inch plywood and slip it on top of the rafters.  Attach the plywood with one inch wood screws along the edges and you are done!  The entire process is easy, efficient, effective and inexpensive. 

Several years ago my wife and I decided we lived in a house that was just too big for two people.  It was a 2400 square ft home with a half basement where I stored all my tools and lawn equipment.  We decided to sell the home and rent a house and see if we could live smaller.

So we found a house that was 1800 square ft and rented it for 1 year.  What we found out was it too was just to large for us.  We never went into one of the bedrooms, the dining room or another small living area.  However, this house did have 1 car garage where I stored my lawn equipment and tools.

At the end of that year we decided to go ahead and look for a smaller home and buy again, which we did.  What we realized after we bought our present house is it is a great size for us.  We utilize all the space but we had one major problem.  Since there was neither a garage nor a basement, there was no place to store the lawn equipment or tools.  The answer was a storage unit and we have never looked back.

If you listen really closely you can hear these words being said all across North America.  Wives and girlfriends and partners, mothers and mothers-in-law and an occasional father say these words and walk away slowly shaking their collective heads.

This reaction is in response to the many ideas that are dreamed up and planned only to be shot down by those that have no vision.  Bless the guy or gal who forges on, who continues on with the quest of something bigger or better.  It is those lonely individuals that I salute.

If not for the dreamers, the lookers would have nothing to view.  The magazines would be void of anything new and would only have blank pages of the same old stuff to print.  It’s the guy who turns his garage into an Irish pub, the girl who envisions her storage shed as a first class studio and delivers or the couple who see the possibilities of 5 star entertainment out their back door and onto their patio space.

So you want to do what? Cool!

Down at the local pub last week I ran into a buddy of mine and we got to talking about space.  My friend is adamant about he and his family living a small sustainable life and he was telling me that back in the late fifties the average American lived in 300 sq ft.  I thought back on the house I grew up in and it was about 1500 sq ft with a 2 car garage.  For four people that was 375 sq ft throughout the sixties and into the seventies.

What surprised me was, with the population being so much higher today that each American now lives in 800 sq ft!  Now I had to stop and think about it and today, my family lives in about 550 sq ft. each and we use every part of our home plus a large 10 x 14 storage shed that is pretty full.

In fact, if we didn’t have the storage unit, we would have to have either more space or less stuff.  It’s our ability to store things outside of the house that has enabled us to live a little bit smaller than we used to (900 sq ft).  One of the best bonuses for us of living smaller has been the reduction in utility bills.

I’m a guy.  I’m a guy with a lot of tools and equipment and I also own 2 vehicles.  I’m a guy with a one car garage and we all know who gets to park in the garage, and it’s not me.  So what’s a guy to do when the garage is just not big enough for all the tools and equipment?

You either make sacrifices, choices or a combination of both.  You can leave the tools and equipment exposed to the elements and watch them rust away.  You can sell the tools and a quarter or less their value only to buy them brand new when you need them again.  You can house them in a spare room in the house and hope your wife or partner understands that you have a relationship with your things and you all need some space.  Or you can bite the bullet and get a storage unit just for your stuff.

I chose the storage unit for several reasons:

• I needed space for my things to stay dry
• I needed space to work on my things
• I needed space that was all mine

Now I’m a happy guy who has his tools and equipment locked away safely in their own special shed.  Now about my truck…I’m working on that one!