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 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 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.



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 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.


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.


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.




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.


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 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.