Potting Shed Plans

So this is what I'm thinking. I not only want a potting shed, we need one. Our garage is getting just too crowded over the winter. The car barely fits in there. There's just room enough to get in and out of the car. Outdoor furniture, overwintering large planters, tools, planting supplies, bags of mulch, fertilizer and more, a table saw, bikes, scrap lumber and much more all find the garage for their winter vacation.

Side view, facing the driveway.

I've been doing some Pinteresting and Googling looking for ideas on how to build sheds. I've also looked to my house for inspiration. I think I've got a direction to go in. Now it's a matter of ambition, money, and time.

I got rid of the jungle gym/playset that came with he house when we moved in 13 years ago. Our daughter got her use out of it and it really, other than a couple neighborhood kids on occasion, never got used.

Diamonds...

First thing is to have a window company come and look at the windows in our attic and have them replaced. Two of them are just plain falling apart. The others are inefficient to the point where snow's actually been seen coming in. I'll reuse the old windows in the new shed.

Diamonds...

Between the checkerboard grass-and-pavers, the diamond-shaped dwarf pear espalier, a trellis over the potager garden in the shape of diamonds, and the use of diamond-shaped lattice on the garden arbors, and even a subtle checkerboard pattern in the new scrap granite carpet I made, I have a strong diamond-shaped theme going on throughout the garden. And bonus? The windows in the attic all have diamond-shaped mullions on the windows!

Diamonds around the mirrors...

I also have an old interior glass panel door that was originally in the house in the garage that has been in the garage since we moved here. That'll become the shed door. I'll have to look to see how it's built. I'd love to make it a Dutch door, if possible.

Diamonds...

Also, I'll start this fall with laying the base for the shed. I want the base and ground outside to be flush. The interior floor will be made of the same pavers that make up the checkerboard pattern I already have in part of the garden - the area that will be in front of the shed. The whole section of that part of the garden will be based on that grid system.

Dutch Colonial Revival style of the house
will be mirrored in the shed. That round-
topped window on the third floor is
falling apart and will be repurposed in
the shed.

Our house is a Dutch Colonial Revival with a gambrel roof, which is all fancy-talk for a barn-shaped roof style, typically centered entrance, porches, and outward-swinging shutters.

Diamonds in the granite carpet...

Because I can't stop myself from over designing, I'll be adding a roof over the entrance, a water feature coming off that roof incorporating a rainchain, an arbor along the side (which will face the driveway), planter boxes, an outside potting bench (behind the shed), and a Antoni Goudi-style roof finial (or two).

The biggest project, if I go ahead and do it, and here expense may be an issue, I'd like to do a decorative tiled roof. This may be a bit ambitious for my weekend handyman skills (and patience). But after having visited Barcelona, and seeing the wonderful Gaudi roofs, I'd love to have one of my own design on a mini-scale, of course. If I can't do the tile, it'll be a stained shingle roof. No asphalt shingles.

Everything will be as repurposed as possible. I'll reuse much of the lumber from the playset as possible, old windows being replaced in the house, the old door that was in the garage when we moved here, and scrap lumber and materials from other projects. I'm looking forward to a trip to Buffalo ReUSE to find whatever else I may need. Their store carries items reclaimed from area buildings prior to their demolition.

And I'll add back in the Harry Potter Garden. More accurately, I should call it my Potter Shed.

These are the things that keep me awake at night.