13 Inspiring Tips for Backyard Sheds

As we hit the peak of the summer gardening season, you may be craving a better space for the tools and pots compared to that cluttered corner in the garage. Or perhaps you are at that point where your current shed is a mess that looks beyond hope. Whether you are sketching out strategies or dreading cleaning up, I’ve lots of beautiful examples which show off some fantastic ideas to help you get going. Here are enviable garden sheds where I would be delighted to destroy a manicure.

CHEATHAM FLETCHER SCOTT ARCHITECTS

CHEATHAM FLETCHER SCOTT ARCHITECTS

1. Make your potting shed a garden folly. This magnificent potting shed in Augusta, Georgia, adds elegance to the house with its formal fashion, weathered brick and custom windows. Its siting at the edge of the oval garden past the quatrefoil fountain recalls the way European landscapes have follies throughout.

Custom closets, a gravel floor and a workstation that includes a sink make it a dreamy escape for a gardener.

Historical Concepts

Historical Concepts

2. Choose rustic materials which are not too precious. This gorgeous carriage home is new but was created to look like a barn that might have served the Lowcountry house in a different age. It serves many purposes, including holding automobiles, but my favorite is the gorgeous potting shed.

Bin pulls, wood countertops and a brick flooring give it charming antique style. It not only has room for preparing plants for the garden, but also includes a spout so the owners can prepare floral structures.

Theresa Fine

3. Add furniture that is comfortable . Over at Shy Rabbit Farm in New Hampshire, the new potting shed serves not only as a spot for tending to the herb garden, but also as a relaxing escape for those homeowners.

Theresa Fine

A comfy chair gives a cozy spot for reading novels and gardening magazines.

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4. To get a new shed, select materials that work together with your own landscape. In Langhorne Lodge in New York, a charming stone potting shed plays the property’s beautiful stone walls. The adjacent Adirondack-style chicken coop suits the woodsy land to a T.

Princeton Design Collaborative

Princeton Design Collaborative

5. Allow it to be contemporary. In this New Jersey backyard, a contemporary shed crafted of cedar siding, metal and copper plumbing pieces coordinates together with the adjacent modern arbor.

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Groundswell Design Group

6. Create connections between the shed and the home. In Princeton, New Jersey, the landscape architects at Groundswell Design Group were tasked with producing a landscape which connected the historical main house to the 1800s potting shed. They crafted an arbor from vintage streetlamp articles, made a bluestone terrace and added feminine Amish-crafted doors to provide the potting shed the presence it deserved.

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Groundswell Design Group, LLC

Giambastiani Design

7. Organize ladders, tools and other things. On this estate in the Berkshires, antique ladders, carts and tools add to the ambience. Neat shelves full of terra-cotta pots lend an organized appearance.

Giambastiani Design

Mark Hickman Homes

8. Space from the home or garage. The doorway on the right gives simple access to a garden shed here. The interior has an innovative organizing system.

Mark Hickman Homes

9. Give yourself a tool silhouette guide. The tools on the right are easy to fit in their proper spots together with the clever matching silhouettes.

Mark Hickman Homes

How smart is that?

Avant Garden

10. Try out a kit shed. Within this artist’s garden, mini trellises, a sculpture and a door with a window add character to a simple kit.

The shed is perched between a dog run and an arbor in this garden.

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Avant Garden

Conservatory Craftsmen

11. Make it a greenhouse too. This gorgeous conservatory works hard like a greenhouse, potting shed and refuge with a backyard view.

Conservatory Craftsmen

Conservatory Craftsmen

The greenhouse is decorated similar to an outdoor room, combined with interior decoration, such as the chandelier.

12. Consider cargotecture. Can you think this transport container was transformed into a charming outbuilding? While the clever homeowners use it like a hay barn, it may easily be made into a potting shed.

Learn more about this amazing transformation

Norris Architecture

13. Look to rural buildings for wall inspiration. Reclaimed timber, bare walls, beadboard and board and batten siding are all wall treatments that lend the ideal appearance to potting sheds.

This was among the very popular outbuilding photographs on in 2012, therefore it has to have just about everything right. The pragmatic sinks, barn lights, farm worktable and mirrored wood-clad walls ooze charm.

Next: More great ideas for outdoor living | Inspiring backyard retreats

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