Budget Breakdown: He Remixed His Janky Shed Into a Design Studio for $6K

Almo Troup, principal of the Australian firm Trouthouse, was looking for a little more space for his architecture and furniture design practice. He found it in his own backyard.

Almo says the shed that came with his Preston, Victoria, home was "completely unusable," yet he saw potential in that little backyard hut beneath an ancient apricot tree. Built by the previous owners 30 years ago, the structure had holes in the roof and cracks in its cement panels, but it also had good bones.

With a little sweat equity and $6,000, Almo transformed it from an eyesore to an ideal workshop—a minimalist and highly functional 290-square-foot space he affectionately dubbed the Apricot Studio.

Instead of a full-on renovation, Almo approached the project as more of a rethink, repurposing and rearranging almost all of the existing materials to create something new from something old. "It was a bit tricky, because the plan was to have an idea for what I wanted to do—but not before I had an idea of what materials were available," says Almo. "It made it more economical, but also an interesting design exercise."