To find the right property for their family’s future weekend retreat, designer John Redington and his father, Jack, took a two-week road trip and explored the land between Austin, where they both live, and the Dallas suburb of Frisco.

One day, their car climbed the gentle slope of a rural parcel for sale outside Llano in Texas Hill Country, “We were completely enthralled,” John recalls. “There were so many wildflowers. As we got to the top, there were two trees that completely framed the view of the Riley Mountains. I was like, ‘This is our spot.’”

For John, a designer with the award-winning Austin firm Side Angle Side, this was not only a chance to design a house that he and his young family—including his wife I-Ping and his baby son, Lin—could enjoy with his parents, sister, and friends. It was also a chance to marry his professional career with his work as an artist and historian devoted to vernacular Texas sheds and barns. (Side Angle Side served as the architect of record, and John was the project’s sole designer—he likens the scenario to band member recording a solo album without leaving the group.)

John grew up on a farm, where his appreciation for agrarian buildings took root. He traces his hobby documenting these buildings to his affinity for the Japanese firm Atelier Bow-Wow, known for celebrating Tokyo’s micro-architecture in numerous publications.

“It got my gears turning: ‘What is that for Texas? What is that for my life?’ I concluded it was abandoned sheds,” he says. “They’re so incredibly beautiful.”

Under the banner of his ongoing Low Plains project, John has documented hundreds of decaying sheds around his home state—not just photographically, but also through silk-screened artworks. More than half of the structures he’s featured have already been demolished or collapsed.

The Shed/House, as it became known, would be designed for its hillside site and the needs of its occupants, but it would also “take cues from vernacular architecture—specifically sheds—and adapt them to modernism,” John explains. “It goes back to Mies van der Rohe talking about the utilitarian aspects of modernism, and the Bauhaus using warehouses and buildings meant for utilitarian purposes.”

$100,707 Framing	$47,323 Concrete Slab & Steps	$44,621 Metal Siding & Roofing
$55,511 Exterior Windows & Doors	$40,074 Steelwork	$68,500 Interior Wood Siding
$21,275 Appliances	$13,968 Granite Countertops	$51,957 Tile Showers & Floors
$54,583 Plumbing	$33,269 Electrical	$26,913 Paint & Wood Finishes
Grand Total: $558,601

He also cites the influence of contemporary architects like Australian Pritzker Prize winner Glenn Murcutt and Nova Scotia’s Brian MacKay-Lyons, who channel vernacular design through a contemporary lens.

The single-story home evokes John’s beloved old sheds, with its long, thin form and corrugated aluminum siding. Yet it’s also wrapped in windows and sliding glass doors that fill the interior with natural light and encourage natural ventilation.

Driving up the hill, one first encounters the blank facade of a storage room on the side of the house. The space is nestled under the roofline, yet separated from the living areas by a covered breezeway that’s ideal for outdoor dining.

“The sequencing is super important to me,” John explains. “It goes from very private shed to very public.”

A glass front door leads from the breezeway to the living room, and then an adjacent dining area and kitchen. The first two spaces feel open and spacious thanks to a vaulted ceiling, while the kitchen and nearby bedrooms have lower ceilings, creating a dramatic variety of scales.

The combined kitchen/dining space is anchored by two family heirlooms: a decorative bar from Taiwan that was given to John’s mother (it now serves as a kitchen island), and a circular wood dining table built by John’s ancestors in Massachusetts.

Sliding glass doors bring copious natural light to the living room room and capture picturesque southern views, while the extended shed roof creates a covered porch and shades the interior from summertime glare. Concrete floors contribute thermal mass to help passively cool the home—for a portion of the year, there’s no need to turn on the AC.

The interior walls and ceilings are clad in Douglas fir, an affordable wood choice that gives the home an inviting, natural texture. John avoided placing any lighting or vents in the ceiling—instead, they’re concealed within a C-channel steel belt wrapping the bottom of the vault. The bathrooms are similarly uniform in materiality, with walls and floors clad in tile.

The first of two bedrooms is bunk room with two beds, and a ladder affixed to the outside wall leads to a sleeping loft above. It’s carpeted with hemp in homage to hay lofts.

The adjacent primary bedroom has its own en suite bathroom, and its sliding glass door is situated on the west facade, lined up symmetrically with the front door on the other end of the house. This alignment encourages airflow and allows one to look straight through the house.

John also included what he calls “intended misalignments,” which are inspired by old sheds as well as misregistration in silk screening, a kind of distortion favored by Andy Warhol, among others. The home’s interior walls angle past steel columns, for example, instead of hiding them.

“It’s intentional that things don’t line up or embed themselves within,” he says. “It goes back to celebrating the handmade. It’s imperfect, and I like that.”

The project stayed within its modest budget thanks to a combination of choices, starting with its modest 1,300-square-foot plan and economical material choices. John also believes working with a local Llano-area contractor was a factor—and he saved some features for later, like solar panels and a rainwater catchment system.

Now that the project is finished, John and his parents are working to restore the surrounding landscape. This part of the Texas Hill Country has suffered from overgrazing, so on their property the Redingtons have brought back native blue stem grasses, and they hope to restore native quail habitat.

The Shed/House’s completion in February 2023 came amidst an eventful period for John. Two months later, he and I-Ping got married, and in June of this year their son was born. “It has been a really big couple of years for me,” he says with a smile. Though John hopes to invite friends to the property, so far Shed/House has been all about family gatherings, now featuring three generations.

More Budget Breakdown stories:

In Rural Texas, a Couple Build an Off-Grid Forever Home for $1.68M

A Designer Clears Out His Overgrown Backyard to Build a $318K Studio

An Austin Architect Spins Michael Pollan’s Food Advice Into a Healthy Home

Project Credits:

Architectural Designer: John Redington, Low Plains / @lowplainsdrifter

Architect of Record: Side Angle Side / @sideangleside.co

Builder: J&M's Remodeling

Structural Engineer: Duffy Engineering