Garden Sheds & Structures – Let Your Imagination Run Wild!
Let’s go on a journey to find the garden shed of your dreams. Utilitarian garden structures are available from all sorts of sources like Home Depot, Sears, Lowes, local garden centers, outdoor furniture stores and a host of online sources which are also at your disposal. Is this what you really want?
Let’s explore why you need a garden shed, potting shed or tool shed? Probably because you’ve run out of space in your garage or mudroom, your’e tools are leaning against the garage, the mower is parked on the front walk, and your pruning shears are always in your kitchen, but not necessarily. Maybe you want something that is more convenient to your gardens, a more central location; a structure that actually compliments your landscape. For me that would be the essential place to start when thinking about adding a garden structure to my landscape – something that fits in with the overall design of the gardens and even the main house and garage. Personally I’m not going to buy something that is made of plastic or cheap metal. They are a dime a dozen and I mentioned where you can get them. They are not for me and I bet I’m not alone. They may even be the reason you’ve been putting off having a structure in the first place.
When I go out in my beautiful gardens with all the well thought out themes, I don’t want my focus to be drawn away from the beauty of the landscape by a bright colored plastic structure that looks like it came out of a toy store. I don’t want a dull aluminum badly constructed metal shed either. I want a building with a steep sloped roof line, cottage style windows adorned with window boxes and shutters that actually open and close. I want a little house with working doors, windows with working sashes and even a skylight or two. It doesn’t have to be something out of a Harry Potter movie, but that’s not a bad idea either. A little fairy tale potting shed or a larger stylish structure that could house your mowers, trimmers, a few unused pots, rakes, shovels and the rest of your gardening artillery.
Hiring a local carpenter or even a builder to design and build your fantasy garden structure might be a great way to go. Maybe you posses those types of skills. You still have the option of buying an existing wooden structure from a garden shed retailer and modifying it into something that will compliment your gardens and fit your needs. Take some time and design your own or redesign an existing structure. Make some drawings and compile a list of the things you’d like your structure to contain like shelves, storage boxes with locking lids or a small porch with a potting area and running water. A water source is a great idea to add to your garden structure. Even a sink or two with one sink that might even have a mesh bottom for washing stones or other materials – sort of like panning for gold!
I know I’d like my garden shed to have one side that opens completely with double doors and a sloped graded area leading to the shed just to make moving materials and equipment in and out of the shed a little easier. It would be in the back of the shed away from the focal point of the garden. A brightly painted cottage style door on the front would be on the front of my structure with a winding stone path interspersed with flowering thyme and bordered by my favorite perennials. It might even have an arched gate guiding you to the garden path that leads to your fantasy garden building.
This is the garden shed of my dreams. Is it the shed of your dreams too? So build your fantasy garden shed. Design it so it blends with your landscape, compliments your garden themes and above all contains all the amenities you’ll need to make your gardens explode with ideas and color.
Potential source to enhance your existing structure or to build into your new structure – Building Salvage, Restoration Stores, Antiques Stores
