This Shed of Mine

Three years ago a dream of mine started to take place—

Autumn Celebration by Marjolein Bastin—Courtesy of gallery1.com and can be purchased there

Gifts of Mother Nature courtesy of http://www.pucliky.cz/

I dreamed of a garden shed where I could keep those things near and dear to my whimsy. I wanted a place to store bird’s nest, gardening books, sayings, old gates, lace, bottles, and so on…… The art above and below is from Marjolein Bastin. I have been collecting a few of her pieces to hang and set around inside my shed.

 

In The Meadow courtesy of http://www.pucliky.cz/

This is the art of Marjolein Bastin. I want to collect all her garden pieces for my Copper Top CottageI love the colors and the sweetness of her style. My shed will be in these colors with flowers around it to make it look cottage style.  Marjolein’s Site

            http://www.marjoleinbastin.nl/marjolein/marjolein.asp?act=1&lg=uk

 

I mentioned this to Mr. Delicious and he said sure..let’s build it. At the time, we lived in another location. He got as far as the flooring and wall roughed in when we decided to build a new home of our dreams. So being the patient man he is….he took it down piece by piece. And so it has been stored under our deck at the new house waiting on him to begin again. And he did……

 

Here is the location in our current yard for the new shed. It is tucked back up under the trees so it will be cool in the summer and warm in the winter. See how pretty is is back there. We have almost an acre of land. We only had a 1/4 acre at our former home.

Way back down there in the corner is the location. You can see my window garden is done for the year.

At first, I wanted a shed made completely of old windows but after reading Debra Prinzing’s book,Sylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways—I had changed my mind and wanted a Cottage look. Debra’s book is chock full of inspiration ideas. I wrote to her right away and told her I would be using her very well written articles to incorporate in to my Shed Style. Please see myReview of Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways here.

So it has begun and here you will see the very first steps in the process. We, meaning Mr. Delicious, set the foundation post in the ground and cemented them in to place. We live in the city limits so everything has to be built to code. We have a nice permit out on our tree to indicate we are legal.

Please see the next couple of shots as he builds the flooring and prepares the base for the walls. I have some pretty stained glass pieces that I collected from a salvage yard. He has to build the walls around those odd shaped pieces. The salvage yard donated the windows to me. We anticipate the structure to cost around $1,500 when all is said and done. That is with my husband and engineering son doing all the labor and thinking.

This is the view above my shed during Autumn

 

 

Below is the view out the side. Our property goes to the end of the wooden fence

And it is 15feet off the property line in this direction–to about the chain link fence.

Set the post in concrete

Mr. Delicious wears a tool belt!

Above is the view up to the house or the view down to Copper Top Cottage. The roof will be a steep pitch so that the copper will shine in the sun and draw attention to it. Now copper cost an arm and a leg so a friend of mine told me about a tin roof called copper penny. It looks just like copper but is a fraction of the cost. Here is her shed she made from re-purposed barn wood.

I helped her with her gardens and window boxes along with planters for her shed. She’s an interior decorator and was a lot of fun to work with. We used impatiens, rex begonias, fuchsia, ferns, non-stop begonias, and illumination begonias along with many other shade loving plants. The area was covered in caladiums, azaleas, rhododendrons, and Japanese Maples. I need to go back and get an updated picture. You’re just so busy when you are working that you don’t stop to take the pics and at the time, I didn’t have a blog. See her tin roof called copper penny—it looks like real copper.

Well…my shed isn’t to that point yet—but we/Mr. Delicious is getting there.

Now it is further into November-in fact, this was yesterday the 13th. It was cold and rainy. The floor is almost done and next the walls will make it start to take shape. The structure is 10X13. We had to wait for the town to do an inspection before we could start putting the floor down.

I can’t wait!!!! I’ll keep you posted.

Inspiration For My Window Shed

STYLISH SHEDS AND ELEGANT HIDEAWAYS by Debra Prinzing and with photographs by William Wright is the most treasured book in my garden library. I received the book a few weeks ago and have referred to it every day. With the passing of each page, I see ideas that would be perfect in my new little shed. 

 

About two years ago, a life long dream began to happen and now it’s ready to be finished. Several old windows had been given to me and were piled up everywhere there was a spare place to hide them. Thirty-six windows sat looking lonely for months and months. But along came Stylish Sheds and now I have vision and purpose for the old windows.

It is hard to find multipurpose sheds of the kind I wanted to build. Most people use a shed to store tools and never give a thought to its many other uses. My desire was to have a garden sanctuary where creativity could thrive. I wanted to start a few seedlings, hang a few bird’s nest, display memorabilia important only to me, and stock it full of books about the things I love. The book Stylish Sheds does just that and in so many unique ways.

I searched the Internet and bookstores for inspiration hoping to find colorful pictures and descriptions of how other people had accomplished such a retreat. And then one day, Shirley Bovshow of Edenmakers’ Blog told me to take a look at Debra Prinzing’s Book Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways. There is a website called Shed Style that is Debra Prinzing’s blog and information site for all things sheds. 

Southern Comfort is a chapter of Stylish Sheds And Elegant Hideaways filled with ideas on how to give your property a  heart and soul. The couple featured in this article have outdoor living spaces and a stand alone area that flow from one to the next. Old jars, birdhouses, antique gates, and a most interesting iron chandelier are part of the Southern Comfort chapter. 

 

Each mini chapter of this book is an adventure telling of the families who desired a retreat of their own and the instructions on how to do it yourself should you wish for one too. You will take something with you from every page.

The following information was taken from the site,  Shed Style

Recently transplanted from Seattle to Southern California, Debra Prinzing is a garden and design features writer. For the past year, her “NW Style” column appeared in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. She has recently begun to contribute stories to the Los Angeles Times’ Home section.

She has a background in textiles and journalism, took her Master Gardener training with King County (Wash.), and studied landscape design and horticulture at South Seattle Community College.

Debra is the author of four gardening books, including “The Abundant Garden” (2005) and the “Pacific Northwest Garden Survival Guide” (2004). Her articles have appeared in Fine Gardening, Cottage Living, Sunset, Better Homes & Gardens SIPs, Seattle Homes & Lifestyles, Alaska Airlines magazine and Romantic Homes, among other publications.

Debra Prinzing  a site about her work and other publications she has written.