4 | Old-Soul Sheds
What’s old is new again. Gently whitewashed by the hands of time, a she shed in the vintage style celebrates the aging process. These sheds may start as new structures but are then transformed into vintage structures with an abundance of details that reflect another time and place.
The use of weathered wood for floors and trim, painted wood doors, divided light windows, natural fabrics such as canvas and cotton, rag rugs, and antique decorative accessories are good ways to capture the vintage look. A bonus to choosing this style for your shed is that so many wonderful things can be found very inexpensively at flea markets, estate sales, and online.
Then there are those old, battered structures in countless backyards, sometimes forgotten and falling apart. While tearing down these structures and building fresh is tempting (and also has several advantages), evaluate the situation carefully before making your decision. If the foundation and overall structure is sound, it might be wise to use what’s there. You can merge old and new by tearing out rotted boards and replacing windows. A big part of the shed movement is about respecting the structure’s history and avoiding waste.
Allie’s Hen Hut
In times past, tending to the chickens may very well have been a rare period of serenity for busy farm wives—a place to think and dream as they fed their flocks and gathered eggs.
The Rieder chicken shed was built next to the chicken coop as a place where Allie Rieder and her friends could come to hang out, help with the chickens, and tend to some of the seedlings grown on the family’s Santa Barbara ranch. “I love going out in the mornings to feed the chickens,” Rieder says. “The chickens all come running, looking for handouts when they see me opening the door.”
The shed’s beautiful aged patina is the result of new construction using old materials. Designed in a basic saltbox style, the structure has walls of old barn wood harvested from torn-down barns in the Midwest. Rieder’s father, Jim, and a crew of painters used faux painting techniques to create an aged look on the windows, door, and the cupola.
To let in light and air while keeping out errant chickens, the shed has a Dutch door painted a faded white. Simple in aesthetic and in its function, Rieder’s shed offers a regenerative space to a busy young woman with happy dreams of the future.
Photography: Jeff Doubet
Copper detailing on the cupola roof and around the cedar shake roof adds a rich metallic element to the shed.
To give the “new-old” shed a sense of place, rustic fencing attaches the structure to the chicken coop and garden. The fence gate was made with grape stake boards. Flame grapes grow along the split-rail fence.
The interior walls are old redwood planks installed horizontally. Rieder and her friend Olivia share a workbench that was made from leftover barn wood, which was also used to make open shelving.
A glimpse of the other side of the shed from the workbench reveals that it is also a place for tools and feed storage.
Dinah’s Rustic Retreat
At 68 and 80, Dinah Lundbeck and her husband don’t move as quickly as they used to. Still, the rustic she shed they built on their expansive San Luis Obispo property was completed in less than three months. The structure, Lundbeck says, was influenced by the raw materials on their property and the design of the existing buildings. “We have a village-like quality to our living space, so the separate shed fit in well.”
Lundbeck wanted her she shed to double as a guest bedroom and her own retreat to rest and think about her family. She decorated the shed with family photographs that had been packed away for years. The simplified “shabby chic” design worked well for the couple, who are handy but not finish carpenters.
Lundbeck made the stained glass windows; her husband hand-milled the pine siding from pine trees on their property felled by a fungus several years prior. “We felt good about putting those trees to good use,” Lundbeck says.
The shed is completely wired with two outlets and lights, including an antique chandelier that glows invitingly in the evenings. Lundbeck enjoys lying on the day bed and communing quietly with family members, both living and gone. “My little she shed gives me the place to honor them and stay connected.”
Photography: Sarah Greenman
A comfortable day bed commands the interior space, and it is surrounded by shelves and a faux mantel filled with framed photographs of Lundbeck’s family. Lundbeck made the bed pillows using lace, crocheted doilies, and buttons from her grandmother’s collection.
Note how the exposed wall studs, painted in a contrasting color, serve to frame the various-sized photographs. A decorative corner cabinet maximizes space.
Perched on the edge of a canyon, Lundbeck’s pine-clad she shed is part guest bedroom, part family gallery. The French doors open fully for an indoor/outdoor experience. Sheers can be pulled down to help screen out insects.
A recycled fireplace mantel makes a wonderful shabby chicstyle display shelf.
Lundbeck made the shed’s two stained-glass windows herself.
Mary Lou’s Colonial Potting Shed
For eleven years, Mary Lou Adams saved photographs of some quaint little sheds she saw in the colonial historic district of Williamsburg, Virginia. The village, with its rich history and simple clapboard structures, stayed in her imagination. She wanted a piece of it transplanted to her Leetonia, Ohio, home.
“My husband didn’t want to build a shed for me, but I finally talked him into it,” Adams laughs. Using the photos as a guide, Adams’s shed was built with narrow cedar siding, square-paned windows, and a steeply pitched roof. But when her husband argued that the cedar should just stay its natural color, Adams balked. “I wanted it a muted gray-green, just like my house,” she said.
Adams initially intended her shed to be for potting plants, but it turned out so beautifully that she changed her mind. Instead, the shed is a quiet retreat, complete with a couch, writing table, and elegant decorative touches.
Occasionally Adams hosts summer garden parties, laying tables with white tablecloths, laden with cookies and drinks. But most of the summer afternoons are spent gazing out the French doors on her couch, enjoying the soft sound of the wind through the trees. “It was there when I wanted to get away from everyone and everything,” Adams says.
Photography: Brian Snyder
An avid gardener, Adams surrounds herself with whimsical garden décor that adds cheer to the somber green walls of her shed. Multiple pathways, border gardens, and landscape vignettes create a beautiful setting.
Adams found some long boards and, without any building experience, simply nailed them to the studs horizontally and painted them in a cream color. Her husband taught her how to tape off the wood floor, which she then painted in a dark gray-and-cream diamond pattern.
The main window juts out a bit from the wall, letting in more light and creating a small shelf inside the shed.
Nestled back on the fringe of her large wooded lot, Adams’s colonial-style she shed seems a natural extension of its environment.
Salvaged She Shed
Many people have old, rundown sheds in their backyard. Jenny Johnston’s shed is old but in an entirely different way. The shed was made from scratch with materials that were nearly all salvaged or recycled from other old buildings. The result is an outbuilding that seems right at home, blending harmoniously with its natural surroundings in this East Texas home.
A self-described collector of “junk and treasures” for many years, Johnston finally had the chance to display all of it. She met Mark Gaynor of Living Vintage, whose company creates homes, studios, and sheds out of the salvage they get from old building demolition sites. He and his business partner/wife, Kim, designed the shed using both their own materials and Johnston’s. They built the shed on a unique foundation made with upended pavers that create a border around brick. The structure’s bottom plate rests on the brick pavers; buried posts that hold up the porch overhangs on three sides of the shed help keep the shed securely in place.
Johnston was ready with piles of images, inspirations, and designs she had been collecting for nearly ten years. Pinterest was a huge source of ideas, and Johnston also joined the She Shed Sisters Facebook group. Living Vintage designed the shed to integrate things, such as Johnston’s large collection of old windows and doors.
The end result reflects Johnston’s connection with her garden, with times past and present. “I can feel the history and the stories from these wonderful pieces around me,” Johnston says. She often welcomes her adult children and her grandchildren into the shed for meals and family gatherings.
Photograpy: Mark Gaynor
Johnston can often be found on her front porch, eating or sipping a beverage, and gazing out on her lush, mature garden. The shed sits on a foundation of one-hundred-year-old bricks.
No paint was used on the inside of Johnston’s shed. She filled it with children’s and grown-up furniture that has history. Burnished old bricks serve as flooring.
Jenny Johnston’s welcoming rustic she shed is made completely—except for four boards—from reclaimed lumber. She liked the remnants of chipped paint on the boards and didn’t add any new paint. The twin arched front windows are actually door fronts to a dining room corner cabinet from an older house nearby.
An old picket gate becomes an outdoor art piece to grace the side porch. All of the beams, posts, and siding are about one hundred years old.