The Gardens Around the Shed

It's been a while since my last garden shed update and I've done a few more things. Not directly on the shed itself but around the shed. You'll see in the pictures below that there are two distinct garden areas near the shed. One directly in front of the shed and the other to the left (eastern) side. In between the two gardens is a grass pathway plenty wide enough for people to walk through and easily wide enough for a riding mower also. Today I'll show you an overview of the gardens (which of course are still a work in progress - isn't it always?) and tomorrow I'll show a few of the plantings.

Here's the front of the shed and the main planting bed. On the left you'll see a 'Shenandoah' switchgrass with a sunflower peaking out from behind it. Directly to its right is a planting combination of Russian sage, rudbeckia, and Shasta daisy. Stepping stones were collected and placed where the gardener (that means me) has easy access to the front door by traversing through the garden.

Here's a close-up of the stepping stones. I'm a big fan of natural rock in the garden.

If we slip a little more to the left you can see how the garden fits the front. I haven't measured it but since the shed is twelve feet across the garden should be somewhere around 16-17 feet long and about 5 feet wide. Eventually I hope to construct a small walking bridge out of reclaimed lumber to the right side of this garden where the willow tree in the distance can provide plenty of summer shade. It should make a nice garden setting.

 This shot is more of the plants in the eastern bed but I had to sneak in some plants! Sunflowers to the left with seed sown cosmos popping up here and there. The big silver plant is a favorite of mine, 'Powis Castle' artemisia, that I grew from a little cutting.

Come back for more from the Garden Shed!

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Tinkering Away

I've been gradually tinkering away at the garden shed. A few tasks are underway that are necessary before the next big step for the outside - painting! I've been busy sealing up the cracks around all the openings with caulk. I think I'm just over halfway done with the caulking on the outside. The caulking around the big windows on the east and west sides is now finished as well as the front right window but the other windows and the trim around the windows is still in progress.

The caulk is important to maintain the garden shed's temperature in the winter but right now is turning it into a hot house. I need to get an automatic vent opener I can use to open the vent window in the back of the shed.

Once I get the caulking complete (which should only be a few more work hours) I can begin painting the outside. I can't wait to get the outside all finished up. One of these days I might get to use my greenhouse garden shed!

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A Small Garden Shed Update

Here's a just a short update with what's going on with my garden shed.

• Bought three colors of paint (two gallons of the main paint and one each for trim and doors). I'll let you know what the color scheme will be later but it will blend with our house.
• Bought glazing to fix and repair the old single pain windows.
• Cleaned the large picture windows, front doors, and back door to see what needs cleaned up before painting begins.
• Inside I've been adding the brick flooring but need to redo the brick pattern so that the bricks work out evenly.

Hopefully I'll have more to update over the week!

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A Little Closer to Finished

Corner Trim on Garden Shed

Every day that I get a few minutes to work on the garden shed I get a little closer to finished. Of course I'm still not close enough for my tastes but I'll keep plugging away at it and eventually it will get completed. A couple weeks ago I managed to add the trim to the corners on the outside of the shed and yesterday I did some gap sealing in the eaves. I used a can of spray on insulating foam to enclose the gaps. Now that I've done that I can add insulation to the inside eave areas. I have plenty of extra leftover from insulating the underside of our house.

The other thing that I need to do very soon is seal up any gaps around door and window trim areas as well as the corners. I want to get it ready for painting soon but I still haven't decided what colors I would like to use so any suggestions are welcome!

The recent floods didn't hurt the shed any. Water did rise up and flow underneath the shed and came in one side then went out the other. I went inside while it was raining to see exactly what was happening and saw a steady water flow. The water cleared out fast because of good drainage and everything should be fine. It does bring to mind a couple other tasks that need done either this summer or in the fall.

• Implement a French drain on the west side of the shed.
• Grade the ground to create more of a slope to the drainage areas. 
• Build a small "rain" wall from concrete blocks to redirect the water down the aforementioned slope.

I'm hesitating to do much soil grading until fall because I would still like the area to be grass and fall is the best time to seed fescue and other cool season grasses.

Garden Shed

After I finished spraying the foam yesterday I went through and did some clean up inside the garden shed and put many of the leftover pieces of plywood in the rafters. I just can't bring myself to toss out anything that I could potentially use later! Just call me "Dave the pack-rat."

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Garden Shed with a Front Porch

Last weekend I put together a small front porch for my garden shed. It's nothing fancy - just a small platform measuring 8'x4' made from pressure treated lumber. It's wide enough to fit a couple chairs when needed and provides a platform for entering the garden shed.

The deck is free floating and can be moved if needed. It isn't attached to the building but appears like it is. It has corner posts and a center joist at 24 inches.

There's still a lot more to do but with warm weather and gardening in full swing it's been hard to find the time to tinker on the garden shed. The next course of business is completing the two missing pieces of siding. Then I'll tackle the corner trim and begin the long tedious process of caulking and sealing the gaps.

Inside there's all kinds of stuff that needs done. Last week the temperatures got up over 100 degrees inside the garden shed. I ended up covering one of the big windows with a large sheet which lowered the temperatures about 8-10 degrees. I'm waiting for the leaves to fill out on the trees to see how much additional shading I'll need to add. It's been very hot lately hasn't it?

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Gables Covered!

While I'm excited that the gables on the garden shed were covered this weekend I'm a little disappointed the garden shed siding isn't finished. As it turns out I ran one piece of siding short of finishing the job! It's an awful feeling to realize that you're only a couple steps away from completing a task but you can't.  The areas that still need siding are on the left and right sides - one piece will do it.

When covering the gables I decided to try a slightly different approach than I originally intended. I began thinking I would go horizontally all the way up to the peak. What I ended up doing looks much better as it gives the gable area a little more character - I went diagonally. I began with the top pieces - cut them to fit then measured all the pieces below it. Then I came back and put the pieces on from the bottom and layered up.

The front of the garden shed only needed two layers of siding while the back needed three to completely cover the gables.

I still have some work on the inside to complete, which is mainly covering more walls with plywood. Hopefully this week I can complete the siding and put up the plywood then I can begin sealing up the air gaps. Now that will be time consuming! It won't be long before I can start some cuttings in the garden shed!

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Cabinets for the Garden Shed

Please ignore the mess of bricks and leftover lumber lying on the floor at the bottom of this picture. Instead focus on the cabinets! Family friends were cleaning out their basement and passed on quite a few pieces of lumber and odds and ends they thought could be reused. The cabinets came along for the ride too. With a little sanding and a paint job (when I get to it!) they will blend in perfectly.

In total they gave me three cabinets. Two are in the picture above and one more has yet to be hung.  The two cabinets in the picture were actually several inches taller and needed to be cut to fit the space beneath the windows. After that I cut 4 pieces of 1"x4" and attached them to the back of the cabinets so that I could hang the cabinets to the wall. The white piece of lumber on top isn't for the top of the cabinets but was attached to one of them and had to be removed before I could cut the cabinet to fit.  In between the two cabinets I left a small space of about 11-12". Soon I'll hook in some brackets for a few shelves for the in between space and it will look like one large cabinet.

The other cabinet will fit above the window but won't run the whole length of the space, although I might be able to add a couple shelves to utilize all the space!

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