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Tag: Studio Shed

Made In Colorado 2022 — Best Designed Goods

All Made In Colorado’s winners and finalists have at least one thing in common: They all make products in Colorado. 

It underlines the sheer breadth of the products made in Colorado. While the Colorado manufacturing base is not as established as places like the Rust Belt and the Southeast, it is also unconstrained by tradition and underpinned by innovation.  

And that might be exactly what the domestic industry needs as it rides a winning streak fueled by the return of manufacturing from China and other overseas locales — no matter whether it lands in Detroit or Kremmling, Colorado. 

 

BEST DESIGNED GOODS 

Greeley Hat Works

WINNER — Greeley Hat Works

Greeley 

Visit — www.greeleyhatworks.com 

Hatmaker Trent Johnson is the fourth owner of Greeley Hat Works in its 113-year history. 

After apprenticing at the shop, he bought the business in 1996, when it made 120 cowboy hats for the year. The annual output has since increased to more than 6,000. 

Now 25 employees, Greeley Hat Works operates from a hybrid showroom/hattery that’s about 10,000 square feet — and counting. “We’re working on a new space just to the south of us as well,” says Johnson. 

Good cowboy hats start with good raw materials. Greeley Hat Works sources hat bodies made from high-quality hare and beaver fur from suppliers in Europe. “We are right up there at the top importers of pure beaver and beaver-hare hat bodies,” says Johnson. 

The company’s hats have made appearances in the Yellowstone TV show as well as an upcoming production from filmmaker David Lynch and “Zombieland: Double Tab.” “Even zombie killers need quality products,” laughs Johnson. 

Regardless of screen time, Johnson says he is focused on serving everyday people from his home base in Weld County. “It’s real here. It isn’t Hollywood.” 

FINALIST — Studio Shed

Louisville

Visit — www.studio-shed.com 

Studio Shed

It all started when co-founder Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski wanted a better place to store his bikes. The company started building stylish sheds in 2008 and has since moved into accessory dwelling units (ADUs). As of October 2022, Studio Shed had shipped roughly 80,000 square feet of product for the year. 

FINALIST — Thriving Design 

Fort Collins 

Visit — www.thrivingdesign.com

Founder Jason Rider came up with C-BITEs to hold up tomato plants in his own garden, then realized he might have a product for the mass market. After selling more than 1 million C-BITEs in 2021, the company now makes the patented products in-house after working with a contract manufacturer. 

 

Denver-based writer Eric Peterson is the author of Frommer’s Colorado, Frommer’s Montana & Wyoming, Frommer’s Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Parks and the Ramble series of guidebooks, featuring first-person travelogues covering everything from atomic landmarks in New Mexico to celebrity gone wrong in Hollywood. Peterson has also recently written about backpacking in Yosemite, cross-country skiing in Yellowstone and downhill skiing in Colorado for such publications as Denver’s Westword and The New York Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected]

Three ways ADUs Go Easy on the Environment 

Homeowners thinking about adding freestanding ADUs (accessory dwelling units, a.k.a. in-law apartments, granny flats, or cottages) tend to focus on creating much-needed space without knocking down walls in the houses they’re living in, the addition of rental income, and other practical considerations. The political can also come into play: ADUs provide low-profile, distributed housing, quietly preserving a street’s character and avoiding the ire of neighborhood associations. 

In addition to the practical and the political, a third factor plays a role – or least should – in the ADU calculus: the environmental. The environmental advantages of ADUs sort themselves into three broad buckets. The first involves the efficiency of the finished ADU itself; the second is about the benefits of a smaller physical footprint; and the third support greater housing density the distributed, smaller footprints of ADUs enable. 

Efficient from the ground up

Freestanding ADUs tend to be much more efficient than the single-family homes they augment. ADU building envelopes typically include above-code insulation and weatherizing with such features as Zip System wall sheathing, OSB with rubberized membranes, and ultrahigh-efficiency doors and windows. ADUs comply with strict building-code standards, which demand that additions and new homes – including ADUs – have enough solar panels to achieve net-zero energy consumption. In addition, ADUs boast tankless water heaters as well as highly efficient mini-split HVAC systems that handle both heating and cooling, and appliances tend to be both right-sized and Energy Star rated.  

The high-volume, factory-based production of ADUs also enables a strikingly precise alignment of inputs to outputs. In fact, the waste from the onsite construction of a modular ADU is measured in garbage cans, not dumpsters. That same precision and scale can also enable the efficient recycling of metals and the composting of clean wood waste.  

Taken together, a well-built ADU is built tight and runs lean. That translates directly into low utility bills; indirectly, it allows our built environment to tread more lightly on the planet.  

Physically (and environmentally) small

When it comes to environmental footprint, a structure’s size matters. A detached ADU of 700 square feet is estimated to have just half the long-term environmental impact of that 2,262-square-foot house. 

There are knock-on benefits to going small too. There’s less room to store the stuff that accumulates into the clutter that Marie Kondo has made a career out of curating. Less room means fewer, more deliberate purchases, and less shopping means less embodied energy in the products themselves and, later, less landfilling. As I prepare to move into a 1,000-square-foot prefab home with my family of four, I can attest unequivocally that space constraints modify shopping behavior – for the better, in my opinion. 

Low-profile density

ADUs are a thoughtful way to address growing populations. While development on urban fringes consumes open space, reduces natural wildlife habitats, increases air and water pollution, and brings greater risk of mass destruction from wildfires, ADUs in yards closer to downtown translates into less need for cars and more opportunities for public transit.  

A 30-mile commute at 23 miles per gallon yields about 2.5-ton annual carbon savings per ADU from commutes not taken. Together, that’s about 42 U.S. households worth of emissions. 

There is no shortage of greenwashing in the construction industry, with bold claims about the sustainability of certain materials or techniques that don’t stand up to deeper scrutiny. The environmental advantages of living smaller and more thoughtfully, however, are undeniable.  

Backyard studio spaces for work, creativity, or living allow us to extend the life of our existing homes to work in more modern ways. Prefab construction at scale results in meaningful reductions in waste and degradation of the environment. An embrace of these structures at the municipal level will be a key element in solving our housing crisis in a way that results in more livable communities that tread ever more lightly on the planet.  

 

Jeremy NovaJeremy Nova is co-founder and creative director of Studio Shed. A longtime professional mountain bike racer who competed in the 2004 Athens Olympics, Nova built the first Studio Shed to store his many wheels. His passion for smart design, efficiency, engineering, and architecture has buoyed Studio Shed’s growth into the only ADU maker that ships nationwide for installation by a comprehensive network of certified installers. 

Meet Studio Shed’s Jeremy Nova

Jn Headshot

Jeremy Nova, 42

Co-founder, Studio Shed

Hometown: Denver

What he’s reading: The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age, by James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg.

Studio Shed is a great example of a Colorado business started not on purpose, but as an outcome of necessity. One persons problem and inability to find a solution on the market turned personally created solution.

Jeremy Nova, a professional bike racer and Olympic athlete, needed a way to store his many mountain bikes. His answer to the question of how, is what we now know as the thriving Studio Shed.

I had the opportunity to speak with Jeremy on the origins of his business, his experience learning to navigate the entrepreneurial world, and how his background as a professional athlete prepared him to be a business owner. Here is what he had to say.

ColoradoBiz: What problem were you solving when you created Studio Shed?

Jeremy Nova: Well, the birth of Studio Shed did actually grow out of my mountain bike racing career, which feels like a lifetime ago now. My wife and I were both professional athletes for about 15 years, and we had a problem of too many mountain bikes and not enough space. There really wasn’t any [solution] on the market. It was at that point I said, Im just going to do this myself.”

CB: Did you set out to start a business?

JN: [Well, no but,] I always had been a fan of modern architecture and just an enthusiastic DIY-er. I had an engineering degree from CU and really just decided to build my own nice-looking shed for our bikes. That was really the beginning. I didn’t really ever envision starting a company based on that concept. But, my now-business partner, Mike Koenig, was the one who really said, Hey, we should sell these and make a business here.” So that was the start.

We started in 2008, so I think this is our 13th year now … a 13-year overnight success. It was a side business initially. I was still mountain bike racing full-time for several years as we got the business off the ground, and Mike was involved in another business. It grew to more of a hobby pretty quickly, but we weren’t necessarily trying to make something really big right off the bat.

CB: How has Studio Shed grown since the beginning?

JN: [Initially,] we would get the occasional order and fulfill it, but it started to grow pretty quickly in 2011-2012. We opened our own production facility, and that facility grew over the years. In 2016-2017, we started to get quite a bit more scale behind it. Theres still not tremendous scale when you’re talking about large businesses, but it’s enough that there are some meaningful improvements that we can make now that were not possible previously.

We self-funded the whole thing initially, so we each made some capital contributions. As of 2016, we do have a majority investor. We have access now to some more initiatives and capital that we didn’t previously. I think they really helped get our ducks in a row, particularly on a manufacturing level. Now its more like 10 to 15 projects out the door a week. So, 600 to 700 a year.

CB: What did you have to learn about building a shed that could be SOLD vs. building one for yourself?

JN: I think you learn some things the hard way, and there was definitely an evolution in the company [in terms of] figuring out how to prefab something in a way that we could flat-pack it, versus what I did.

I just bought lumber and stick frames and built something in my backyard without any consideration for shipping constraints or panelization or those types of things. So in terms of building a business, there was a learning process around that transition.

I think there were some things I did back then that were form over function. On my own initial pre-company project, the glass ended up leaking over time because I didn’t build the windows right. And the door wasn’t a proper residential door. So now its been sort of a marriage of that design aesthetic, but actually with proper residential-quality materials.

CB: Is there anything else you had to learn the hard way?

JN: There is no shortage of examples of things we learned the hard way. I think one of the most difficult things, and it still remains a big challenge for the company, is the installation network.

To try to serve and grow a national footprint of high-quality contractors, the kind of people that we would want in our own homes, and the learning that is associated with everything about that … from the shipping of the product to having someone receive it, and the efficiencies that you need to get some kind of scale with those types of endeavors … theres really no shortage of things.

CB: Do people really order $100,000 sheds ONLINE?

JN: Yes, obviously its a high-consideration purchase. Theres a lot of questions people typically have, like, how does this come delivered? And [those questions are] answered on the website, but it’s the kind of purchase you would expect to talk to someone and have a consultative sales process. It shows the confidence people have in online purchasing in general right now that people are willing to do things like that.

CB: Can you talk about your online presence?

JN: The website, we see as our primary merchandising avenue. We have a showroom in Louisville but not that many people come to actually see it, so the website is our primary showroom. I always have a list of things that I want to get done for it [but] its never good enough.

We have a 3D builder, so you can go on and build and design your own [product]. And we actually are investigating some 3D photo-realistic interior walkthroughs, because that technology has gotten so sophisticated now.

We certainly think that in the building industry in general, it’s a little antiquated in terms of the use of digital, so we really want to be the industry leader in that online category.

CB: How did being a professional bike racer prepare you for being an entrepreneur?

JN: It’s not so much the rush I would say, but there is a lot of crossover. I think that being an athlete, especially at a high level, is a very entrepreneurial endeavor. In an individual sport like mountain biking, you’re kind of out there selling yourself, building your own personal brand and making relationships.

A lot of those things that drive creation in athletics, so to speak, translate pretty naturally to the business world. Theres a real natural transition to [being] a business entrepreneur from that background.

CB: How has Colorado been as a home for Studio Shed?

JN: I think Colorado is great. I mean, I grew up in Colorado, I’m a native Coloradan. I love it. I have a deep affinity for it. And it is also a great place to do business.

I think theres a good “work hard, play hard” culture in Colorado that gives a lot of longevity to peoples careers and motivation. It’s a community and it’s probably more balanced than some other areas of the country. You’re also seeing more and more real talent that is available here, so theres never a shortage of finding the right person.

For us in particular, as a company shipping really large products, it also has generally very good shipping lanes to both the West and East coasts. There are some pretty good advantages here for shipping a large product, and just the culture, in general, is a good fit. We think Colorado has a great brand for ‘made in Colorado.’

To hear the Studio Shed podcast in its entirety, visit www.proco360.com/podcast/shedding-a-bike-storage-problem.

Dave Tabor is the host of PROCO360 podcast, featuring world-class entrepreneurs who choose Colorado™, available via podcast app or at www.PROCO360.com.

Is an ADU or home office a good option for your property?

Since the Covid-19 pandemic began almost a full year ago, Americans have spent more time in their homes than ever before and the immediate merging of work and personal spaces has been a challenge for many. Our households have never felt so crowded. Across the board, there has been a unique need for more space in the home.

Colorado-based Studio Shed offers one of the most sought-after solutions during the pandemic: an easy-to-install, affordable detached studio in the backyard. The company’s Signature Series designs, often used as backyard home offices, are typically 10×12 feet, easily designed online and delivered flat-packaged as a kit.

At a time when scheduling and finding high-quality contractors is not always possible, Studio Shed’s extensive network of contractors is available to execute a quick and easy install, or homeowners can choose to install the sheds themselves.

A recent CRAFTSMAN Built@Home survey reported more than 1 in 5 Americans learned to use a drill for the first time in the onset of the pandemic and 76% said they or someone in their household worked on at least one home improvement project in 2020.

For more space, Studio Shed also offers the Summit series models or Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) which homeowners are using to add a wellness studio, guest room, in-law suite, or granny flats to their backyard. An ADU offers an easy solution without the hassles (and costs) of a traditional remodel and simplified permitting and construction logistics.

Curious if an ADU or home office is a good option for your property Jeremy Nova, co-founder and creative director at Studio Shed recommends homeowners consider three key questions to get started:

1. Do I need a permit?

Most counties allow for the construction of one 120 square foot structure without applying for a building permit. Be sure to check local regulations before ordering, however, as some municipalities have more stringent requirements. Some questions to ask the building department:

  • Is there a certain size/square footage where a building permit is required?
  • What is your zoning and allowed building forms?
  • Is an engineer-stamped plan set required to pull a permit?
  • Is there a limit to the number of structures you can add to property?
  • What is the max lot coverage for all structures?
  • Any wall or roof height limitations?
  • What is the required distance between structures on your property?
  • What are your setbacks (distance off the property line to the new structure)?
  • Any special easements (utility, cable, access roads, open space, corner lot) that impact where your shed can go?
  • What about my community’s HOA?

2. Does my county have ADU regulations?

Legislation is changing to make it easier to build ADUs – leading to a boom in interest and trending growth in certain markets.

The volatile housing market (especially during the pandemic) and rising cost of building materials means alternative housing methods (for current homeowners and prospective renters) are booming. The Denver zoning map is available online and specific descriptions for each zone are included.

3. How do I want to use the space?

Detached backyard structures and larger ADUs provide flexible space for a variety of uses. Depending on your needs, a Studio Shed can be used for the following scenarios:

  • RENTAL UNIT – ADUs make great rental units on your property. Homeowners will find that they serve as flexible housing solutions and provide supplemental income.
  • GRANNY FLAT / IN-LAW SUITE – Many customers are looking for at-home options for assisted living for their elderly parents or relatives. ADUs provide the benefit of keeping loved ones close while giving them their own space.
  • PERSONAL SANCTUARY – Find an escape in your own backyard with an ADU. Whether you use this space to practice your daily yoga, an art studio or as a quick escape from the kids, you can find peace and quiet in your personal sanctuary, just a few steps away from your back door.
  • GUEST HOUSE – If you love to entertain and host friends & family, an accessory dwelling unit makes for the perfect backyard guest house. ADUs can be fully equipped with electrical and plumbing as an all-in-one solution for your hosting needs.
  • HOME OFFICE – Our modern world requires that we work in new ways. A backyard office is a place you can commute to in seconds. Unlike a dedicated room within your home, a prefab backyard office shed provides a detached space away from distractions of home, so no more worrying about the doorbell ringing or your dog disturbing your video conference. Your new commute across your yard provides both the separation necessary for focused work and the convenience of working from home.
  • MULTI-PURPOSE ROOM – The beauty of an ADU is that it provides a multi-purpose space for almost need. Depending on the season of life you are in and what your needs are, a well-built and designed ADU can meet them all. Convert an ADU into a guest house during the holidays or use it for supplemental income as a rental when needed. The possibilities of how you use your ADU are endless.

Visit Studio Shed at www.studio-shed.com for more information.

Jeremy Nova is the co-founder and creative director at Studio Shed.