-Submitted photo
Cheryl Gosch's She Shed sets in the footprint of where a large portion of the old farmhouse used to be. Behind the outside divider to the left is the entry for the employee break room which is the third of the farmhouse which remains today.

IDA GROVE — In 1959, Dan Gosch moved into his farm’s original farmhouse with his parents and sister.

When his parents Eugene and Mary Gosch purchased the home, there was a corn crib so big that Eugene favored it over the house, which still had an outhouse at the time. The old farmhouse had colonnades in front of a screen porch, three upstairs rooms, and downstairs — a kitchen, living room, and family room.

Flash forward to 1979 — the year Dan and his wife Cheryl married; the newlyweds established their own home on the farmstead, as Dan would eventually take over the farm.

“We knew we wanted to have our own home,” said Dan. “My folks lived in the old farmhouse until moving to town in 1985; it was rented off and on until 2010 when I decided to cut two-thirds of the house off.”

Yes, you read that correctly, and Gosch did it with a Sawzall sporting a 24-inch blade.

-Farm News photo by Doug Clough
Cheryl and Dan Gosch inside Cheryl's "She-Shed." The creative space is where Cheryl works on her artistic endeavors, including paint pours. "Our grandkids like to come out here and work with me at times," said Cheryl.

“The remaining portion of the house became an office for our hired men, complete with break area and restroom,” said Dan Gosch.

“In 2020, I was looking for something to do to keep me busy and use a stack of salvage lumber from the barn as well as wood from the grain bin my father favored so much,” he said. “It was during COVID, and none of us were going anywhere. I asked Cheryl if she wanted a ‘She Shed’; she was doing a lot of her painting and other creative work in the basement and in an old farrowing house, but it just wasn’t convenient for her.”

Cheryl Gosch is the daughter of Allan and Brigitta Robitaille, and — from her father — she acquired an artistic bent.

“My dad was always good at drawing and even did a big portrait of my mother,” Cheryl Gosch said. “He had also created a profile drawing of me when I was 2. When he began working for JCPenney, he didn’t have as much time for art, but I had already picked up my enjoyment of it from him.”

Cheryl retired from United Bank of Iowa after 40-plus years of service and is enjoying the use of the She Shed, even occasionally with friends and her grandchildren.

-Submitted photo
The original farmhouse is shown as it stood when Eugene and Mary Gosch purchased the Ida County farm in 1958. Their son Dan cut two-thirds of the house off with a sawzall and left the remaining portion for his employee's breakroom.

“Before having the creative space, I was taking over a good part of our basement,” said Cheryl Gosch. “I like doing paint pours, and those required space to put a lot of different colors of acrylic paints as well as a drying area.” Paint pours, also known as acrylic pour painting, or acrylic flow painting, is a painting technique that involves pouring acrylic paint onto a canvas or other surface to create a flowing design.

Cheryl’s She Shed measures 16-by-24 feet with 10-foot high walls and 14 feet to the peak.

Eugene Gosch was very proud of his corn crib, which could hold 3,000 bushels of ear corn and 3,000 bushels of small grain.

“It’s good to have used the lumber for the walls of Cheryl’s She Shed, which included tongue-and-groove and shiplap. The building is set in the footprint of the original farmhouse,” said Dan Gosch. “It was a big deal to have that kind of grain-holding capacity even through the 1960s; I thought about that often when we were constructing this building. Doing something like this is so much better than just setting a match to it.”