Sheds for American Foursquares

At Historic Shed we design each shed to complement individual historic homes. Two of our recent installations were for a storage sheds behind American Foursquare residences in two different Florida cities.

The American Foursquare is a common house form built in neighborhoods throughout the country from the 1890s through the 1930s. The homes feature a compact, roughly square plan that fit on small suburban lots.The American Foursquare house type is typically 2 to 2-1/2 stories high and has a hipped roof, often with a center dormer. Porches can range from a small portico to wide wrap around porches such as seen on these examples on the left. The house layout generally consist of four equal-sized rooms to a floor. The house form was popular due to its efficient layout and economical shape. Able to have a variety of styles applied, this house form can be seen in historic districts throughout the United States.Examples in Florida tend to exhibit Craftsman, Prairie or Mission styling or details.

Both of the homes we designed sheds for had Prairie style detailing with low sloped hipped roofs, boxed eaves and 1/1 double hung windows. The sheds we built mimicked the low sloping hipped roof and wide boxed beadboard eaves. Walls were clad in cypress lap siding and paired cypress beadboard carriage house style doors added an additional degree of historic character to each outbuilding. One shed included a salvaged wood window with traditional window surround. The carriage house doors on the other shed were designed to complement the front door on the main house.