A farm outbuilding undergoes a transformation that replaces nest boxes with laptops.

“I have to sleep in a chicken house?” asked our 10-year-old houseguest, the city-raised son of a friend of mine. He looked dubiously at the outside of the low white farm building we were standing in front of.

“Well, it’s not a chicken house anymore. It’s a studio,” I told him. 

“But chickens lived there once, right?” he asked suspiciously.

“Yes, but it’s an office now. And there’s a bed,” I reassured him.

“Did the chickens sleep in the bed?” he asked. 

I opened the door so he could see that he wouldn’t be sharing digs with egg-laying birds, and he smiled and tossed his backpack on the mattress.

“This is cool,” he said.

The long, one-story building behind our house was once a chicken coop. Nest boxes lined the walls. Fat broody hens sat on clutches of eggs. And little puffball yellow chicks darted across the floor. The 1632-foot structure was our chickens’ Home-Sweet-Home for 10 years.

The inspiration for change came by way of a family reunion in southern Sweden, where we rented a big house for relatives—but not quite big enough to sleep everyone. A small shed in the backyard provided additional bunk space. My sons, Tristan and Graham, were 8 and 6 at the time and were sulky after flying a long distance to find that they were being shoved into a shed.

Just three steps from the house, the tiny building did look more like a place to stash lawn equipment than living quarters. But when we opened the yellow door, we were instantly charmed. The floor, walls, and ceiling were painted white, and the small windows sported yellow curtains. A set of bunk beds stood next to a side table, lamp, and chair. The boys didn’t need a word of convincing that bunking in a backyard shed—separated from the adults—was exactly their type of vacation. I liked it, too. I read bedtime stories to Tristan and Graham, tucked into their beds as the golden light of late-night sunsets filtered through the windows. And it was here, in this little pocket of solitude, that I hatched my plan to change our chicken house.

When we got back home, I called our contractor, Randy, who has patiently and expertly built and rehabbed every building on our property. My scheme to convert the 512-square-foot building filled with chickens into an office and photography studio didn’t even faze him. 

After giving the shed a thorough power washing, Randy started redoing the interior. He laid yellow pine planks across the concrete floor, installed a skylight, and clad the interior with drywall. A salvaged woodstove (which we later replaced with a propane heater) kept us warm in the winter. And after a small amount of ridicule from the phone company (“You want two phone lines installed in your chicken house?”), we were in business.

On weekends, we packed up the laptops, and the studio became space for birthday parties, sleepovers, and late-night jamming sessions for several budding garage bands.

We bought an old chicken house at a farm auction and moved it next door. The chickens seemed to love it—even though it didn’t have a phone line.

— KAREN WEIR-JIMERSON