The Garden Shed: A Room Outdoors

[pb_blockquote author=”Trisha Ashley”]”There are more men lurking in sheds in my garden

than in any D.H. Lawrence novel.”[/pb_blockquote]

Almost six weeks ago, we had our old Screen House and our old shed, demolished and taken away, leaving a few sizable holes in the yard. The Screen House, which is what we called it, was an outbuilding in the middle of our backyard, which was basically a large covered porch with screened in walls. The walls were lined with fishing poles and surfboards, and there were wicker sofas and chairs and a ceiling fan. In the summertime, there was a period of a decade or so, when we practically lived out there. We ate meals and watched old episodes of The Waltons. When the kids got older, they smoked and drank out there with their friends.

But the years had taken its toll and the old girl had fallen beyond repair, We rarely used it anymore since we installed our back deck, and no one was smoking and drinking in it anymore. So soon after we began quarantining, our son-in-law’s cousin came over and took both the screen house and our old shed (which was in even worse shape if you can believe that) away for good.

We decided not to replace the Screen House and just grow grass there so we planted seed and waited for our new shed to arrive.

Six weeks later, our shed finally arrived from Lancaster (where apparently the Amish make all the sheds for the Eastern seaboard) on the back of a pickup truck. They loaded it in, and Uppie went out immediately to purchase window boxes for it. A few hours later, they were full of flowers and hung.

Uppie says it looks like it’s always lived there—like we designed the yard around it.

Now we’re just waiting for the new picket fence to come. Big sections of it finally succumbed to the recent wind storms, so it’s being replaced in sections. We’ve had a cedar, white picket fence since not after we moved in, but we are finally giving up on the white, since it makes the fence not last as long. So, bit by bit, it’s going natural, around the house, one section at a time.

It’s all a work in progress. We’ve talked about putting a border of stones around the shed, because I think Uppie wants to end up putting a slew of potted plants there, and my old birdbath (a Father’s Day gift from long ago) might make a comeback. The Chicken Coop will get a douching this weekend, with fresh bedding and a cleanup. The clothesline needs to move. The lawn is coming along, each week the bare patches fill in a little more. And we will finally be able to clean up the back deck after a hard winter and spring of holding all the contents of the shed and screen house under tarps. We’re getting there.

“Progress!” as Uppie likes to say.

Check in from time to time to see how the yard progresses. It should be fun.