You have an old, not-so-attractive shed…your kids need a
place to hang out…combine the two and everyone wins!
We had only lived in our house for a week before the view
off the back porch began to irk me. The
bright green of the lawn, the classic picket fence, the aged patina of the brick
carriage house turned garage…and the previous owner’s shabby, not-so-chic
storage shed. While the rest of our house
had an aged, nostalgic quality I had already fallen in love with, the shed felt
as original and unique as any of the other storage units that line the parking
lot at the local Home Depot do.
Sheds are a tough home element to get excited about, because
unless you would like to spend your life savings, they usually are about as
utilitarian as it gets. On top of that,
if it is an old shed, but not a super-old shed, it has the unattractive
wear-and tear of 10 years of service as opposed to the charming rustic nature
of one that has been around since the Kennedy administration. The middle ground between customly built new and
charmingly quaint old is a no man’s land of design, and with all of the other
projects already mounting, the shed felt like a makeover indulgence I didn’t
have the time to tackle.
Then came a request from child #2. “The shed out back next to
the garage…can I have it?” Hmmm…an interesting notion…between the garage and
the basement we already (theoretically) had more than enough storage, the kids
could use a hangout spot (the graduation from a playhouse of their younger
years) and a project to work on, and I would be justified in “helping” and
improving my back yard view at the same time.
With this in mind, work began.
Initial improvements were made by my pint-sized project
manager and my father–roped in via email to come visit and add windows on
either side and to turn one of the two double doors into a dutch door. She also requested a clock, air conditioning,
and an under-the-counter refrigerator, but quickly reality set in and these
lofty goals were minimized. A random assortment of yard sale items were
collected and one afternoon of sibling painting crew effort resulted in some
progress, but the inside still felt a bit dark and dreary, and the outside a
little barn gone bad. And then the snow
came…and 4 months later, the view was unfortunately still…unfortunate.
As Spring emerged, there came a magical week at the end of
June where my teaching for the year ended and my children’s school calendar
still had a week to go, and I decided then and there to halt the wallpaper
removal in two rooms in the main house and abandon the trim painting on the
second floor to make this outbuilding overhaul a reality. The base had been built, so now it was time
to solve a few nagging problems and make everything pretty.
I started with the interior–whitewashed the walls to bring
light into the space, and painted the plywood floor gray to hide years of wear
and tear. Using wood crates and leftover
plywood from a previous project, I built a bench along the back wall that could
be used for seating or as a work/eating surface (not a fridge, but at least
refreshments from the main house had a place to sit!). A narrow shelf on one side was also
whitewashed and then the lower half of it curtained off to add color, softness,
and a place to hide toys, games, and occasionally a neighborhood child during a
game of hide-n-seek. Air conditioning
wasn’t an option, but the previous owner had wired for electricity, so a fan,
clock, and lighting were all installed.
When it came to color, the brighter the better, so three
Target shower curtains hide a multitude of sins and added pattern, and pillows
made out of beach towels and outdoor tablecloths brought comfort and
durability. The ceiling was dressed up simply with disposable plastic
tablecloths (in shades of blue to reflect the sky and make the ceiling feel
higher) and Japanese lanterns from the dollar store, and prints from old
calendars and posters were decoupaged onto canvas boards to serve as artwork.
On the floor we settled on a remnant of bright artificial grass that was soft
enough to flop on for a board game but durable enough to handle whatever might
be tracked in from the back yard.
More storage was added in the form of French buckets and a
store display shelf that was picked up for a song at a yard sale years ago, and
the added bonus was that the majority of the kid paraphernalia from the garage
now had a home in what was deemed “the clubhouse”.
Then it was time to have a little fun on the outside. I
decided to take my own advice from many blog posts ago and try out the house
colors I thought I might employ on the main house once our budget was ready, so
we used a deep gray for the siding and black for the trim, the result of which
I have fallen in love with. Using the
existing panel in the left side of the double door, I created a faux window
with paint, then used lathing strips for a window grid. Flower buckets, a hand-painted sign, metal
star, and coordinating landscaping completed the look, which for a simple shed
might have felt too fussy, but for the clubhouse, seems to fit.
So a year after my children claimed ownership, the clubhouse
had now become a group endeavor that has surpassed our expectations. I love my view, my children and their friends
love their privacy, and a lesson has been learned–even the simplest, saddest structure, with a bit of effort, can feel
pretty, charming, and personal. J
