Sunday, July 25, 2010

Potting Shed Tour, Enjoy the ride.

Years ago in a far away land the Witch was dreaming of a perfect garden shed or outbuilding to store all of her gardening goodies. After much searching she found a picture and some plans but it wasn’t quite right. So Hubby came up with some ideas to make it perfect.

This is the shed we fell in love with. Ours is modification but you can still see the bones of this design in it.
This is the picture which inspired us. It’s from a Reader’s Digest book called "Dream Backyards" but we also found full construction plans in the July/August 2003 edition of “The Family Handyman” magazine.
“Ultimate Garden Shed.
This 8 ft. x 9-1/2 ft. storage area has loads of room for your lawn and garden equipment, while the smaller front room makes the ideal potting shed. The floor is built using heavy timbers and large cement pavers. The structure also uses cost-effective barn sash windows, board-and-batten siding and metal roofing.”
is how the building is described in “Dream Backyards”.

So, three years ago we spent quite some time in the spring making and adjusting plans for our own version of this cute little building and it became Hubby’s building project for his summer vacation. It was a good experience for him and he spent quite a lot of time mooning over it much like he is doing now with the gazebo.

The Witch’s Potting Shed
The first thing you have to know about the potting shed is that it has two completely separate rooms, there’s no connection between them. That’s good because I like to keep my side neat and orderly and Hubby, well, not so much so.

Hubby’s side is very utilitarian. He uses it to store his lawn tractor, the winter tires, the grass-whipper, the snow blower and some other stuff. The place is pretty jammed; I don’t know how he works in there.

The back side of the shed where Hubby stores his rotiller and wheelbarrow because he can’t cram anything else in his side.
The bat box above Hubby’s window was graciously returned to us by the folks who bought our old house.
My side has a sink and running water to wash the dirt from the veggies and just to clean-up. The sink was purchased for $10 at our local ReStore which sells used building materials to fund Habitat for Humanity building projects. The water comes from the house via a buried garden hose which then goes on to supply the gardens at the back of the yard. My side also has a solar powered light but it doesn’t get used too much. How often are you going to be potting plants after dark?

The sink in the potting shed is great for washing muddy hands and veggies so that the dirt doesn’t make it into the house.
The wood we used for the countertops and upright is from a church pew we bought years ago. We cut it down from its original length of 15 feet to a more reasonable 5 feet and made a nice bench for our front entry but then we had all this beautiful old wood left over. This was a great way to use it up and it suits the space so perfectly.

The upright for the sink counter is the end cap from an old church pew. You can still see the row marker if you look closely.
I made all the curtains myself to hide the junk under the counter. Yes the Witch has junk but it is all well organized. It looks so much tidier to have all the bags of soil and dirty flowerpots neatly tucked away behind the curtain.

I like to keep my side nice and neat. A place for everything and everything in its place.
As you can see all my garden tools have their own space. Most of the canisters were purchased at yard sales along with the hanging black rack, which I use to dry my herbs. The bookrack is the hymnal holder from the back of the church pew.

This old pot rack is great for hanging herbs to dry out.
We keep our reference material close at hand.
This is a great place to store all my garden tools so that they are protected from the weather but still just a few feet from the garden.
The shed has 3 nice sized windows which were the single most expensive items we bought for this project. Hubby tried building his own copies of the ones in the plans from old window sashes but they leaked. He had to replace them with these nice vinyl ones the next year. Anyway, they are perfect for looking out over the garden and the back of our house. They also give me a great view of the gazebo.

This is a nice cool place to watch Hubby slaving away in the hot sun on the gazebo roof.
The Witch on the front door is one I made. I used to work in a craft shop while I was earning my engineering certificate and I made dozens of these while I was there. I also painted the design on the floor but it got too tedious to continue it all throughout. The grape vines growing up and over the arbor have some history for me, too. We brought them from our first house when we moved and they are doing great in their new spot. Last year they provided just enough fruit to make a nice batch of jam. The grapes are too tart to eat right off the vine but the Waxwings love them and they’ll strip them clean if we’re not paying attention. They just have to learn to share.

The Spells witch welcomes me to the Potting Shed.
This design was supposed to cover the entire floor but I never got it finished.
The grapevines love having the arbor to climb on.
The potting shed was a great project and we use it almost daily at this time of year. Hope you have enjoyed your little trip through the best garden shed ever.

11 comments:

Sara said...

This is awesome!!!

Definitely the best potting shed ever :)

its me, sam said...

I love it! It makes me almost want to garden. But I could use it as a secret hideaway.

Canadian Saver said...

That is an awesome potting shed!! I love it! You guys have a beautiful house, shed and soon to be gazebo!

I may need to ask for your jam recipe as we have grapes too, 1 really big vine and many transplants that will start producing lots. Our biggest competition with the grapes are raccoons!!!

Nakamuras on Saipan said...

Ok...I'll trade all my beaches for your potting shed and yard...I LOVE it!

Gill - That British Woman said...

I love it, I love it, I love it!!!

I want that shed....

Gill

Sisters of the Blog said...

What a beautiful potting shed! Thank you for sharing it with us.

megan

~Kim at Golden Pines~ said...

HELLO!!! First of all, THANKS for stopping by my blog and for your comments! I have to admit that I enjoy hearing from you--I think we have a lot in common! :-)
I think with my company I somehow missed this post and am glad that I scrolled back to see what I've missed--You (and your hubby!) really have a great eye for taking an idea and making the project your very own--You did an amazing job and were so resourceful because you thought out all the details of what you wanted, used what you had, and created something that's perfect for you!

Wide Span Sheds said...

Hay Nice...

This will help a person to prepare a nice plan for them Shed. So, please keep updates in it. & yes

Thanks for sharing this great information with us.

The Heimlich-Martin gang said...

Hi. Many years later I am finding this on my search for the actual height of the original plans. Your hubby adjusted the roof height DOWN which I think I will need to do, in order to avoid some electrical lines. Can you give me some details on those dimension changes?

The Witch said...

For the Heimlich-Martin gang:

The trusses for the tractor side are 10 foot 3 inches long at the bottom chord with a height of 30 inches. For the potting shed side the dimensions are 75 inches long by 24 inches high.

The tails extend past the walls by about 16 inches on all the trusses.

I hope this helps.

H.

The Heimlich-Martin gang said...

Thank you for the feedback, and details on your roof dimension changes. Our sod is now torn up, so hoping for some good weather to start laying out the shed.