A year ago yesterday, I got my dream shed!
For a long, long time, I wanted a garden shed for our yard. As a child (probably like most little girls), I longed for a playhouse -- an enchanted cottage. But this would be different. Now that I am an adult and an avid gardener, I wanted a working potting shed. A place where I could start seedlings, repot plants, and store rakes, shovels and hand tools. A chance to get the dirty lawn mower and stinky gas cans out of the crowded garage. We spend a lot of our time working in our back yard. Having a garden/tool shed there would make it easier to access our tools.
After saving our pennies, we started planning what the shed would look like and where it would go. I spent the entire winter of 2012 - 2013, obsessing about every detail of the shed. Where the doors, windows, and skylights would go, where the shelves would go, even where our individual tools would be stored. I agonized over paint colors. And, let's be honest, there was a fair amount of Enchanted Cottage dreaming going on!
After years of dreaming and months of planning, the shed was ordered from the manufacturer. It was built in panelized sections at the manufacturer's warehouse in Ohio and trucked to our site on a flat bed. The guys arrived at 6:55 AM.
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| There's my shed! |
I knew the build would go quickly, but it still amazed me how quickly and efficiently the guys worked, and how fast the shed went up. By 11:41 AM, they were done with the building, had cleaned up the site, and were gone!
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| Done! |
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| Pinch me! I must be dreaming! |
The pictures of the empty interior make it look gigantic. In reality, it is 10 feet deep by 16 feet wide. The double doors didn't open fully because we had not excavated enough soil on the left side of the shed.
In these two shots, above and below, you can see the skylights. A wise friend advised me that if we were not planning to run electricity to the shed, we would need windows and/or skylights to make the shed usable. Otherwise, it would be too dark inside, even in broad daylight, to be useful.
There is a one foot deep loft shelf above the double doors.
On the right side of the shed, a two foot deep loft shelf and one foot deep shelving below the loft.
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| A warmer, dryer day. |
Because it was so cold and damp the day the shed was built, we had to wait about 6 weeks for the shed to be painted.
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| Autumn outside the shed. |
And now, a year later, am I happy with the results? Absolutely.
Are there any details of the shed that I would do differently? Not at all. I think reading books about building a shed, spending so much time planning it, and talking to so many people about our plans, we were able to make wise choices the first time. If we ever move and have to build another one, I will probably build exactly the same shed.
How's the storage working for me? I love having our tools right there at our fingertips. I have not had the nerve to actually hang the tools up yet. I am agonizing about the best way to hang them and the best ordering system. I have hesitated because I want to do it right the first time. So, for now, the tools are leaning up against the walls.
What about the lawn mower and gas cans? Well, they're still in the garage. If you could smell how awesome the fresh wood smelled and how nice the interior looked when it was brand-new, you'd understand why I don't want the smelly, dirty mower and gas in there. I keep saying that maybe later it will be allowed in my shed, but I don't think that is likely.
I also don't ever see myself repotting plants and starting seeds in the shed. That's not how I roll. I leave the seed starting to more determined folks, and I prefer to pot up plants on the patio, near a water source.
And what about my dreams of an Enchanted Cottage? Okay, so it is a bit of a playhouse, I'll admit. I wanted the outside to look charming because it is such a prominent feature in our small backyard. That's the reason for the symmetrical layout of the front door and windows, the custom roof pitch, and the curtains in the windows. And parts of the interior are pure playhouse. I have a round table and chairs in the shed that I usually have set up for a "tea party" and there are some purely decorative things on display. But make no mistake, the shed is a serious garden shed when it comes right down to it.
