Backyard sheds become at-home getaways

Whether functional or whimsical, backyard sheds hold the potential for a ton of charm, beckoning as at-home getaways where the phone doesn’t ring and the clutter doesn’t close in. We talked to three area women whose sheds serve diverse purposes and take decorating to another level – one that doesn’t have to obey the rules of the house.

Glenna Lowe’s shed gives her a place to sew – with room to have others join her – along with an excuse to decorate vintage-1950s style with the things her mother used in her sewing when Glenna was a child.

The second shed, a backyard retreat, is just like another room in Marylee Guy’s house – except that it’s plopped in the middle of the yard. The windows open out on birdhouses in the trees, and a small white electric fireplace will make it cozy this winter.

The third shed was built by Jana Hollingshead’s husband and promptly filled by Hollingshead with her collection of garden items. There’s no room for real gardening to take place here, but Hollingshead had something else in mind: the playhouse she always wanted as a child.

Sewing shed

Glenna Lowe inherited her shed with the circa-1950 house that she and her husband, Steve, bought in north Wichita a couple of years ago.

“We downsized when we moved to this house, so I lost my sewing room,” said Lowe, who had the idea of fixing up the outbuilding to serve the same purpose.

The shed, presumably also built around 1950, had most recently been used as a garden shed and was pretty run down. The Lowes had new aqua linoleum and new wiring installed, and the old cabinets were painted fresh white. The wood paneling stayed, lending to the ideal canvas for vintage decor, including the blue canning jars and sewing patterns that had belonged to Glenna’s mother. The jars are now filled with spools of thread and other notions and are lined up on sunny shelves over the windows. The patterns for little-girl dresses that Glenna wore as a child are framed and hung on the wall, as is a clothesline from which doll dresses are hung.

“I liked being able to have a place where they’re out and can be seen,” Lowe said of the keepsakes, which also include her old toys as well as books and puzzles that belonged to her sons when they were young.

Lowe went with a retro color scheme of aqua and red for the shed, cutting up vintage tablecloths to make into curtains and moving in a red chrome dinette set. She has plenty of room and two sewing machines so that friends and relatives can join her on sewing projects in the shed.

“Isn’t it adorable?” asks Hollingshead, who lives in the house – and shed – next door.

Garden collector’s playhouse

Hollingshead’s husband, David, built her a shed in their backyard in 2010; the sign on the door reads: “Welcome to Greendipity doodah.”

David Hollingshead used old windows and an old door in the shed, giving it a vintage feel that is only heightened by the contents: Jana runs the twice-yearly Unique Antique Market, and of course she doesn’t just sell antiques – she keeps them. Her collections line the walls, windowsills and floor of the shed: hose nozzles, garden forks, hand whisks, rusty rakes, watering cans.

“I had no idea I had that many of those,” Hollingshead said of the nozzles fringing the bottom of one window.

A chandelier that holds votive candles can be raised to and lowered from the ceiling with a pulley. A chair and desk are among the spare furniture pieces in the shed.

“It’s basically more of a place to store my collections. It has gardening things in it. It’s not a functional garden shed like a potting shed. It’s purely decorative. You can take a nap. I have a little cot in there, and we have parties in our backyard, and I have it open, and people like to go in it and sit.

“My husband built it for me, and after I got my stuff in there, the more I crammed in it the less room there was. I got out there sitting in my little chair and I said, ‘Why did I have him do this? It serves no purpose.’ But it does. I always wanted a playhouse growing up, so it’s my playhouse.”

Backyard retreat

Marylee Guy of Augusta is closing in on retirement Dec. 11. She and her husband, Dennis, had a shed built this summer as a combination retirement/65th-birthday present for her as an alternative – similarly priced – to a trip to Europe for two.

“In the winter instead of sitting inside, I do painting, and I thought I could come out here to sit,” Marylee said. A small white electric stove will provide the heat.

The Guys hired a builder because they didn’t want the overhead storage of the prefab sheds that they saw; they already have a shed for storage. And they went with a 10-by-12 size, because it was the biggest they could go without incurring inspections of everything, Guy said. The shed has a vaulted ceiling, with a ceiling fan that they searched how and low for and finally found in New York to fit the narrow confines. “It reminds me of a boat propeller,” Guy said.

The shed has a combination of splurges and bargains. Outdoor recliners from Lowe’s were chosen for the furniture because of the extremes in temperature in the shed. The carpeting is of a good indoor type, but most of the other furniture is estate-sale finds that Marylee has painted.

But the shed also has given her a place to use her mother’s dining room table that had been in storage for 10 years. Guy had the table cut in half to fit and attached it to one of the walls for her crafting work. Photos of her mother and other family members are arranged on the table.

Marylee Guy saw a red, gray and black floral fabric that she loved, and it became the guide for the shed’s color scheme. “I’ve never done anything in a home in red. It was fun.”

Next year the Guys plan to add a porch to the front of the shed.

“When you sit in there and you have the windows open, we have all these birdhouses, and you can look out and see the birds,” Marylee Guy said.

“The rule is: no cellphone. This is our place to just come and take it easy.”

This story was originally published November 14, 2015 at 8:27 AM with the headline "Backyard sheds become at-home getaways."