When Jill Crocket's husband, Steve, asked her what kind of house they should build on their regional NSW property, she told him she wasn't too fussed about what form it would take.
"I made the mistake of saying I didn't care if I even live in a shed - well, Steve ran with that," Jill said with a laugh.
What Steve ended up building on their Nemingha farm, in the state's north-east, was a "shouse" - or a shed house.
A shouse has the steel exterior of a shed, but with all the comforts of a home on the inside.
Shouses have grown in popularity in recent years as a potentially cheaper way to build a unique and appealing home amid soaring construction costs.
Social media is littered with groups where Australians show off their shouses, such as the popular Facebook page "Shed Life Australia", which now boasts around 150,000 followers.
For Jill and Steve, their shouse, which was completed three years ago, has been a resounding success.
"It turned out really well," Jill said.
"It just feels like a normal house. It's very open and big.
"People are amazed when they walk in, and it's just 'wow'."
For Steve, who did all the building work on the shouse himself over a two-year period, the benefits came in the substantial amount of money saved and the ease of construction, compared to a conventional house.
However, building a shouse - even from a shed kit as many people do - was not an easy job, Steve cautioned.
Steve came into the project with considerable experience, having previously built a bricks and mortar home.
While not a qualified builder, Steve said he was a retired tradie with "a pretty good grounding in everything".
"Obviously, you still have to have a certain degree of experience with construction," Steve said.
"It's not like those shows you see on TV where they are all having a crack at things with no experience whatsoever."
Shouses are also viewed as a standard dwelling by local councils and are required to comply with all the standards and regulations of a conventional home.
"It's got to go through all the checks and it's got to be passed as habitable," Steve said.
"You can't build a shed and just live in it. They'll condemn it.
"All the electrical and plumbing has got to be passed."
Once the external shell of the shed is built, cladding and insulation is added.
Shouses offered far more freedom when designing the internal layout than a conventional home, Steve said.
"There's no limitations on your room sizes," he said.
"You can put your walls wherever, because it's all freestanding, it has what's called a portal frame."
Steve said he designed the home to be open plan and with soaring ceilings because he and his wife like open spaces.
It was a very straightforward build, he said.
"It's pretty clinical, it's straight lines and clean, I didn't put a lot of frills on it."
The two-storey, four-bedroom ending up being a massive 1000 square metres, with half of that space dedicated to a garage for Steve's collection of old cars.
The shouse is so big it's been jokingly referred to by some as a "shastle" or a "shansion".
But the shouse came in much cheaper than a bricks-and-mortar home, largely because he was able to do all the labour himself, Steve said.
All up, Steve and Jill's shouse cost around a third of the price of a conventional home of the same size to build.
"We came in a bit over $500 a square metre," Steve said.
"A conventional builder will charge about $1500 per square metre. And then the more complicated and more you want to put into that building, it can go up to $2000 or $3000 a square metre."
Warren Thomas' company Tru Shed sells shed kits, along with packages which include design and engineering support, for shouses.
Over the past few years, Thomas has seen enquiries for shouses grow.
"I get the gut feel (that the popularity) is predominantly down to a combination of people wanting to live off-the-grid and live somewhat differently," he said.
"It's a fiscal decision, but then shouses look very appealing too."
The flexibility of shouses was also an advantage compared to conventional homes, he added.
"You are only limited by your own imagination," Thomas said.
"Whatever you can think of can be built in a shed house. You start with a basic shed kit - a skeleton which has got cladding.
"But then, of course, the first thing that comes off is often the cladding because they want to put something trendy on it."
In many cases, the final product ended up not looking like a shed at all, Thomas said.
Carissa Perkins, from NSW's Central West, designed her own shed home eight years ago, which she and her husband lived in for five years, before selling it for a profit.
Having worked as a shed designer for a shed company many years ago - well before the trend of shouses took off - Perkins had a thorough knowledge of the industry.
"I designed the shed, from start to finish," Perkins said.
"Then we had the blueprint drawn up, which I sent off to an amazing draftsman who incorporated the engineering of the shed in with the house plan.
"Basically, it just looked like a normal house plan when we submitted it to council and it was approved."
Perkins and her partner bought a $30,000 shed kit and hired a local builder to do the construction work.
The cost-effectiveness of shouses was an important factor in deciding to build their home, Perkins said.
However, the cost of steel prices had gone up since their build, Perkins said, which had led to an increase in shed kit prices.
"We didn't do the cost comparisons (to a conventional build) at the time because I knew that a shed house would be so much cheaper. But I would recommend people do that today," she said.
All up, the cost to build their 295-square-metre home, including the installation of rainwater and environmental septic tanks, was $360,000, Perkins said.
"Our builder was amazing and we got a large home for such a good price," Perkins said.
Like the Crockets, Perkins said she was attracted to the idea of being able to build a unique home with a shouse.
Hers included raised, 5m-high ceilings and incorporated recycled materials, and was designed to make the most of the property's spectacular views of the Wellington Valley.
Double insulation and double-glazed windows helped make the home more energy efficient, Perkins said.
"Inside, the temperature was amazing, even in summer. And then in winter, obviously it held the heat inside quite well."
When it came time to sell the shouse, Perkins said she had no trouble.
"When we did open house, people just could not believe it when they walked through," Perkins said.
"They were absolutely blown away. It was not what they expected at all.
"They loved how unique it was. We had no issue selling it. I sold it privately without going through an agent, and it sold pretty much straight away."
Matt Redfern, from Matt Redfern Constructions, is the local builder who built Perkins' shouse.
Redfern said there was one factor which could make it harder to build shouses going forward.
New residential sustainability standards (BASIX), introduced by the NSW government last October, were very stringent and could prove a problem for shouses, he said.
"The big issue that's going to come forward shortly is these changes to BASIX, because what they've changed is insulation levels and thermal comfort and all that's going to mean it's a lot harder to get those steel-clad buildings certified."
While it was "still a bit of a grey area" about how shouses would be affected, it could mean building with materials such as double-glazed windows became a must for shouses, which would add to building costs significantly, Redfern said.
