I’m joined by my friend and party hostess Kathy Fries. We’re standing in front of her rustic shack-turned-Doge’s Palace, built by John Akers

The Seattle sun was shining, perhaps a little too brightly, on Saturday, May 17th. In fact, I heard later that temperatures reached close to 90 degrees, a record high for that date in history.

Kathy Fries, aka Shed Diva (she owns four of them!) and her cast of talented gardener helpers, nannies and caterers, threw an unforgettable garden party to celebrate the launch of Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways. Scheduled as an open-garden, which encouraged guests to stroll the peaceful, shady paths through the Fries property, the party paid homage to the fanciful little buildings we captured in the book. The man of the hour, shed-builder John Akers, was “missing,” but we know he likes to avoid crowds. His artistry was well received, oohed and aah-ed over, and festooned with bouquets and champagne. Good job, John! Wish you had come!

The menu included plump strawberries with brown sugar and Devonshire cream, meringue cookies, little sandwiches, iced tea, champagne . . . all served on Kathy’s potting bench-buffet

With more than 120 in attendance, the three-hour event was a bit of a whirlwind. Bill Wright and I felt like we signed books nonstop, greeted friends, hugged and thanked the owners of no fewer than 10 of the sheds featured in our book, and then signed more books. Gillian Mathews of Ravenna Gardens was our cheerful bookseller. She figured out how to get a copy of Stylish Sheds into the hands of anyone who wanted one, even if that meant raiding Kathy’s personal stash or taking orders once she ran out of inventory. We were truly touched with her support. You can find signed copies of Stylish Sheds at her stores.

Xander Fries, collecting eggs for the pages of our book [William Wright photo]

Thank you, Kathy and Ed: you threw a doozie of a party. I have spent many fond hours in this magical landscape, but honestly, it has never looked more beautiful. The flowers bloomed larger and brighter, the vines threw out new, spring-green tendrils, the ferns glistened in the dappled light. Our guest-signer, Xander Fries, who is featured on page 73 collecting eggs from the Palais de Poulets, charmed guests by autographing “his page” of the book.

A highlight for me was seeing so many dear friends in my (former) Seattle gardening community. It has been nearly two years since I left for LA, and it was a treat to return for this celebration. Owners of all nine Washington sheds featured in our pages came to help celebrate. Without them, we wouldn’t have completed this awesome project and we are honored they came and helped mark the publication!

Bill, Steven and Sylvia Williams, and me

But the prize goes to Sylvia and Steven Williams, who traveled from Texas to attend the party! Only two weeks after throwing a party for us at Stonebridge, their garden in Bertram, Syliva and Steven flew to Seattle to join us. They represented their home state in Texas style, dazzling everyone with their out-sized friendship, not to mention cowboy hats.

 

The party treats were simply fabulous, including Kathy’s elegant version of my amateurish “shed cookies.” She gets the “Martha Prize” for decorating with a piping tube and marbling the frosting. Really, Kathy. You are amazing.

 

Los Angeles Convention Center – BookExpo 2008

I’ve heard about Book Expo for years and lucky for me, the venerable trade show and book-sellers’ extravaganza came to Los Angeles this week.

We authors often toil alone in our little offices, sitting at keyboards, staring at monitors, listening to the phrases roll around in our heads and banging out one word; then the next one, plus one more . . . all to string together a well-crafted sentence. I’m very dependent upon my sources, designers, gardeners and homeowners who generously share their stories with me. But in the end, I am alone with my words.

So the 65-mile drive to downtown LA was a big adventure that got me out of the office, into the car (fueled by $4.09/gallon gas) and on a route involving no fewer than five freeways! I arrived at the GIANT LA Convention Center on Figuero Street around 10 a.m. and found a $10 parking lot across the street.  Thank goodness for my Garden Writers Association Press Pass: it easily earned me a badge and press access to the giant exhibition hall.

Some people would be overwhelmed by the aisles and rows of publisher displays. But not book people. It’s reassuring to see how many titles are still printed (albeit in Asia). Ink letters appear on paper pages, 4-color photographs are splashed between blocks of text. Hundreds of sheets are stitched together with thread and glued into a hard-back binding to build a book cover. It’s then wrapped in a colorful jacket and included in a sales catalog. And eventually, that book is touched by the hands of a customer, which is our ultimate goal, isn’t it? Sharing words, photographs and creative ideas with readers. It’s still a noble pursuit and a rewarding profession.

Look v-e-r-y closely. You can see Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways between the heads of the two women in Crown’s booth.

I knew that Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways wouldn’t receive much play in the ENORMOUS Random House/Crown Publishing booth. Let’s call it a quadruple booth! Filled with slim, stylish marketers and aloof publicists with interesting eye wear, the RH team had hundreds of titles to publicize and promote. And, as I had been told ahead of time, the emphasis at Book Expo is on fall 08 catalog titles, not spring 08. So, there wasn’t really an opportunity to be the star of the show. My expectations were low. But still, I had to check it out.

I really did find my book on the back shelf in the booth. And, hey, I’ve got connections! As I was standing there, hoping to meet someone interested in talking with me, who should walk by but a college friend of mine who is PRESIDENT of a major university book store Co-op! I haven’t seen him for years, but we rowed crew together and had an immediate recognition and friendly reunion. I actually “sold” him my book while standing in Random House’s booth. How cool is that?

Debra with Roger Waynick, president & publisher of Cool Springs Press

Next, I ventured over to see my former publisher at Cool Springs Press, Roger Waynick. Bless CSP, which “birthed” two of my books and is – remarkably – the ONLY publisher from which I’ve ever earned royalty checks! CSP is still selling The Abundant Garden (with photographer Barbara J. Denk) and the Washington & Oregon Gardener’s Guide (with co-author Mary Robson).

The Abundant Garden (left) and Washington & Oregon Gardener’s Guide (right)

Roger & Co. were actually happy to see me. They wanted to brainstorm ideas for the future. It was really nice to feel welcomed. My pal, Nan Sterman, author of the California Gardener’s Guide, did a book-signing and was enthusiastically greeted by convention-goers. I was proud of her and her wonderful book.

Investigating Book Expo was educational and insightful. Books are still alive and well, and cherished. I’m glad I took the time to attend – and I’m grateful for the connections I made today.

Here are links to a couple recent media mentions:

The first comes as a complete surprise from Newsday’s “Garden Detective” columnist Jessica Damiano. On May 22nd, she ran a column called New Gardening Books, from organics to landscapes:

“It seems every year around this time, bookstore shelves swell with gardening tomes. Most go back whence they came after I drain my latte cup. But a select few stand out. Here are my picks for books that should actually make it out of the store. Drink up! . . .

The Abundant Garden: A Celebration of Color, Texture, and Blooms (Cool Springs Press, $29.99), by Debra Prinzing with photographs by Barbara J. Denk, is one of those books you flip through, drool overthe photos and then try in earnest to recreate what you see in your own patch of dirt. And that’s pretty easy, as the photo captions actually include names of plants depicted, a rarity in the garden-book world. But this guide’s beauty lies deeper than its color glossies. There’s actually a science to the beauty of abundance, which is defined, in part, by the lack of visible soil or mulch between plants. Readers learn nine specific design principles of creating abundance by studying photos and descriptions of gardens on Bainbridge Island in Seattle.”

It’s so wonderful to receive a review from someone like Jessica, a Master Gardener and editor who is a passionate plantswoman. It’s even more gratifying that she could sift through three years’ worth of garden book releases to unearth and highlight our book. Thank you!

Next, thanks to Diana Ransom, a small-business columnist for Smart Money, who features three Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways shed owners in today’s story about creative home-office solutions. Entitled: “Designing a Dream Home Office,” the article includes quotes and Bill Wright’s gorgeous images of our “shedistas” and their locations: Joseph Marek (landscape architect), Liz Lyons Friedman (print maker) and Amy Bloom (best-selling novelist).

The key to a perfectly productive work space, says Debra Prinzing, a Los Angeles author who has interviewed a number of home-based business owners for her new book, “Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways,” is detachment. “You have to be able to walk into this space and have it be fully dedicated,” she says. A truly separate space boosts productivity – and “quality of life so so much more enhanced,” she adds.

Wow, that’s a lot of good news for one day. Nice to end the week on a high note.

 

Mary Martin, with Wallace, her cockapoo; photographed on July 5, 2007 by William Wright

Mary called me on May 15th from Atlanta to tell me of her sudden diagnosis of brain cancer. Four days later, she died, after doctors tried to relieve the bleeding and remove her tumor.  How can one so vibrant and full of creative energy disappear from our lives so quickly?

Featured in “Personal Space,” one of the first chapters in Stylish Sheds, Mary Martin was a consummate Southern lady. She embraced this book with incredible passion and support, investing her own time, money, and energy to promote it to clients of her fine gift business, Mary’s Garden Champagne Savers.

I met Mary through Atlanta landscape designer David Ellis, of Landshapes Garden Design. I fondly remember when Wendy Bassett, my Atlanta “shed angel” (aka fairy godmother), drove me to meet Mary and see her little cabin on a chilly day in January 2007. We came down the driveway, turned the corner into her gorgeous backyard (even in winter, it was in perfect, tip-top shape!), and were immediately drawn down the curving stepping-stone path toward a charming split-log style haven.

A curved path made with stepping stones large enough for two to walk side-by-side travels across the lawn from Mary’s house to her personal backyard retreat

While she wasn’t sure of its provenance, Mary guessed that the rustic, 1930s-era shed might have been purchased by earlier owners from a mail-order catalog, perhaps as a potting shed. She updated the 240-square-foot hut, painted the board-and-batten walls of its two interior rooms in pistachio green, added a fresh coat of  bay-green paint to the two cottage doors and “moved in.”

Beyond the walls of her rather grand Southern Colonial-style home, Mary could be found, secreted away in her backyard studio, which served as a potting shed, storage for beekeeping and honey making, a painter’s easel and a writing room.

“When I first saw it, I thought, What a wonderful place for gardening, but it has also become a nice little project building,” she told us.

Her love of this little building, which Mary later expanded by adding a 16-by-17 foot screened room, was rooted in memories of a childhood playhouse. She played outside and cooked on a real stove inside a little pink playhouse her father, John Martin, built for Mary and her younger sister, Ann. On her desk inside the cabin, Mary kept a framed photograph of the tiny, sweet structure.

“I do think my childhood memories of that pink playhouse tie into my enjoyment of this very private, peaceful ‘retreat’ where I feel hundreds of miles away from the city when I’m inside it,” she said.

I spoke today with Janell Knox, a friend of Mary’s since college, and she told me that Mary faced the news of her illness with incredible courage. “She was out in the cottage on Sunday,” Janell says. Later that day, the pain in her head was so severe that doctors had her taken to Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta. Efforts to relieve the bleeding failed. In her last moments, Mary was surrounded by friends and loved ones, including her parents, John and Elizabeth Martin. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s obituary of Mary aptly described her as having “enthusiasm for life.”

Selfishly, I am so pleased that in her last year, Mary befriended Bill Wright and me. She had an intensity about everything she did in life, including the way she devoted herself to friends. We will miss her spirit, although having a glimpse of her in the pages of our book is a quiet comfort.

I end with a quote that Mary loved. It is from her late grandfather, Rudolf Anderson, who was a landscape designer and widely known for his camellia and azalea breeding throughout the Southeast. It sums up her philosophy, as well, evident in the way Mary drew her beloved plants and garden into her life.

“I’ve always felt that anybody looking at beauty in nature cannot help but have more noble thoughts.” (Rudolf Anderson, 1967)

Design/construction by Harrison Bates for Loretta and Terrill Fischer [photography by William Wright] 

“Plant conservatory meets pool party when a brother-and-sister team designs a steel-framed backyard shed.”

This opening line to the “Mod Pod” chapter in Stylish Sheds introduces one of the hottest projects we’ve come across. It resides in a modest Austin backyard. Owner Loretta Fischer wanted a greenhouse to store her tropical plants during the winter months. When she asked her brother Harrison Bates to build it, the project quickly changed from ordinary to outrageous. These two know how to have fun. Their project started out as a rectangular building with a traditional pitched roof. Things changed dramatically, seemingly overnight, when Harrison’s wild imagination exploded to create the hippest greenhouse ever built.

Here is the original design, sketched by Harrison on a post-it note:

As Harrison recalled when I interviewed him last year: “Loretta said, ‘why don’t you build me a greenhouse?’ So I gave her a sketch and said, ‘here’s your greenhouse with a little pointy roof.'”

The rest is history. For his second version of the design, Harrison addressed Loretta’s concern about wanting to see into her yard (she didn’t want the shed to block her view of the rest of the garden) and to save a mature bur oak. 

According to Loretta, Harrison’s new design blew her away: “The next day he brought me this elaborate drawing of a fancy, modern greenhouse. I don’t even know what he was thinking. We both love modern architecture, but I was really surprised with his sketch.”

Here’s what the Pod schematic looked like after Harrison “tweaked” it.

Elevation of new shed

Floor plan, showing where the shed wraps around the bur oak

Site plan showing how the footprint of the Mod Pod fits into the Fischer backyard

Harrison designed the asymmetrical, V-shaped structure with roof sections tilted at shallow angles. He used combinations of 7-foot squares and right-angle triangles to engineer this wildly imaginative building. A slant on its south side wraps around the oak tree and juts toward Loretta and Terrill’s house.

I love this story about Loretta and Harrison because it encourages the breaking of conventions, the bending of rules — coloring outside the lines, so to speak. Who says a greenhouse has to be shoebox-shaped? Why can’t it be a parallelogram? Surrounded by a pentagonal moat-fountain? Built from conventional materials in an highly unconventional manner?

Today I stumbled across a surprise from Harrison. He visited our book’s page on Amazon.com and posted photos taken from design-through-construction of his sister’s playful structure. Here is the link. You’ll enjoy the slide show! Thanks, Harrison – you rock!

P.S., I couldn’t resist this photo of the Bates kids playing in the swimming pool one Texas summer decades ago. With their brother Doug (left), Harrison (center) and big Sis’ Loretta (right), this Polaroid shot hints at the future pool-inspired water element that Harrison and Loretta created surrounding her Mod Pod (Photo and illustrations: courtesy Harrison Bates)

Marty Wingate’s review of Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways appears in today’s issue of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

My former colleague, also known as The Grounded Gardener, devotes her column to “Retooling the old garden shed.”

I love the way that Marty weaves an engaging tale about the relationship between garden-makers and the structures that occupy their landscapes.

These new “garden accessories,” as one of my editors describes the architectural gems cropping up between the herb garden and the mixed perennial border, are places that draw us outdoors, to spend even more time in the garden. Marty writes:

“Once the denizen of dusty corners in the backyard, the garden shed has emerged to become an outdoor living space. No longer does it store lawn mowers, bags of grass seed and rakes – or if it does, you’d never know by its exterior.”

Marty’s piece features Bill Wright’s photography of Jennie Hammill’s lovely glass house in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood. First of all, we should acknowledge that Gillian Mathews of Ravenna Gardens suggested the inclusion of Jennie’s delightful “room with a view.”

Out of the blue, as often happened during the course of working on Stylish Sheds, I received a letter in the mail. It read:

“Dear Debra, Gillian, of Ravenna Gardens, tells me that you are writing a book on Garden Houses. I wondered if you would be interested in mine. It was designed by Randy Keller, ASLA, and I built it. Randy has a really neat garden house as well, built of of recycled windows and doors (as is mine)….please feel free to call if you would like to come visit.” Sincerely, Jennifer Hammill.

I remember visiting Jennie and her husband Tully on a misty June morning in 2006. After walking through their bungalow (where there are two side-by-side grand pianos occupying the heart of their living room – Jennie is also an accomplished pianist and teacher), we exited the kitchen door onto the back porch. As I noticed the fabulous glass house, constructed with no fewer than 43 recycled and hand-built windows and doors, I nearly began to hyperventilate with excitement.

Like a miniature conservatory, the glass house is fascinating to study (Volunteer Park Conservatory, seen at left, has crossed windows that inspired those on Jennie’s structure). She calls hers the Teahouse. Light pours into, through, and out of the 10-by-14-foot shelter. The divided windows – glass squares, rectangles and triangles — form the shapes between mullions and render a slightly surreal scene. Depending on where one stands, at dawn when the garden day is awakening or at dusk when Ballard’s sky is illuminated by a setting sun, the distinct shape of each glass pane is outlined in sharp detail.

While she first worried that the teahouse would crowd her garden, Jennie says it has done the opposite. “I thought it would make the garden look totally minuscule, but the garden feels more spacious now,” she says.

Randy’s tiny glass house at Rosentangle, his garden

Her partner-in-design, Randolph Scott Keller, ASLA Landscape Architecture, has been urging Jennie to get into the glass house-building business. An accomplished fine cabinetmaker who owns Ballard Woodworks, Jennie has many beautiful pieces of furniture and cabinetry to her credit. But this project is probably her most personal. And she’s not ready to build one again for a long time. I like to imagine that Jennie’s time is divided between teaching piano, building exquisite cabinetry, and spending moments in the teahouse. That’s pretty satisfying.

Good news: The Los Angeles Times has a wonderful “Web Exclusive” featuring Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways in today’s HOME section.

Bad news: The article surrounding this gorgeous photograph/caption puts us smack next to a very strange neighboring article with the off-putting headline: “Confessions of a chronic shed slob.”

EEEK! Stylish Sheds is the antithesis of that notion! Kinda worrisome to see our gorgeous, design-driven book about small architectural gems appear side-by-side with an essay by a gardener who calls herself a “shed slob” and basically treats her shed as a storage unit for “. . . Christmas ornaments of a festive but forgetful lodger who moved out in 1998, a Food 4 Less shopping cart filled with kinked and leaky hoses and broken sprinklers, a toilet with a cracked lid, sacks of concrete that set without ever having been mixed, mismatched curtain rods, rusting tomato cages, and all manner of paper files that became somehow hard to throw away.”

Even after she cleaned out said shed, scheduling a “Bulky Item” pickup with the LA Bureau of Sanitation to get rid of her junk, this woman still isn’t using her shed to its highest and best potential. She appreciates the tools nearby and at-hand, resting inside the doorway, but it doesn’t seem like she uses the shed, either for gardening or a higher purpose, such as a backyard retreat. What a lost opportunity! Maybe I need to write a new article: “Can this Shed be Saved?”

To me, when presented with a little building in the garden, even one that was once packed to the gills with clutter, it is inconceivable to ignore its design potential. As my friend Lorene just wrote to me: “I was immediately transported by your lovely words exhorting us to find a place of solace and sanctuary – at home!” And then she added: “This is the summer I do the trailer!!” (that’s for Lorene, and not me, to write about though. Mosey over to planted at home, her fun blog, to learn more).

Lorene and Jimmy’s trailer-retreat-in-the-garden

You know how they say “everything is bigger in Texas”?

When it comes to throwing a party, I think it’s true!

Last weekend, Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways was feted at two separate gatherings: one in the country; another in the city. Our hosts are some of our favorite Texas shedistas, who invited their friends, family and fellow master gardeners to toast this project. Here is a recap:

HILL COUNTRY HAVEN, Steven and Sylvia Williams

Sylvia and three of her talented friends, Claire, Suzi and Nancy, pulled out all the stops to create a dazzling spring-afternoon-in-the-garden last Friday. We arrived, champagne in hand, to find these four doing the creative cooking of an entire catering crew in Sylvia’s kitchen. These gals were also “on-location” with us last April 2007, when they posed for a tea party portrait in Sylvia’s garden shed. We laughed and giggled our way through a very fun photo shoot. The final party photograph didn’t make it into the pages of Stylish Sheds, so I’ll share it here:

From left: Suzi Campagna, Nancy Kinard, shed owner and hostess Sylvia Williams and Claire Harrah [William Wright photo]

Stonebridge Gardens in Bertram, Texas, the site of last Friday’s book party, was in its glory. The charming limestone rock garden shed that Sylvia and Steven designed (built by Sylvia’s son Brad McCasland and Paul Solis) was at the heart of the celebration. The menu included delicious garden-inspired food, floriferous cakes and little edible “flowerpots” that fed the eyes as well as satisfied the palate. We greeted 60 or 70 of Sylvia and Steven’s friends and signed copies of Stylish Sheds. Thank you to local, independent bookseller “The Bookshop” in Marble Falls, Texas (and owner Dortha Feaster-Coalterand her daughter Robin) for handling the book sales and sending everyone home with a gift tote-bag!

Robin and Dortha of The Bookshop – happy book-sellers

Bill and Debra meeting Sylvia’s son Brad and granddaughter Jessica inside her wonderful shed

Party Number Two: 

MOD POD, Austin, Texas

Loretta and Terrill Fischer, owners of a wild-and-crazy modern greenhouse-inspired shed in the heart of Austin, threw their shed shindig  on Saturday night, drawing nearly 100 guests. It was a perfect foodie occasion, featuring Loretta’s famous cheesecakes. She pulled out all of those secret recipes from her days of owning Loretta’s Fabulous Cheesecakes of Texas, a popular Austin bakery. Jalapeno cheesecake, anyone? Bite-sized chocolate and original mini-cheesecakes with a fresh raspberry on top! I’m ready to promote her as the next hot cookbook author after sampling a savory Gorgonzola and onion cheesecake, which Loretta served like a spread (you just scoop up a bit with the knife, slather it on a cracker, and you’ll never think of an ordinary cheesecake again!).

Clearly, the food was swell. So was the music, the candle-lights and lanterns, and the centerpiece of the party, the stunning garden house. Designer and builder, Harrison Bates (Loretta’s creative brother), was on hand to shyly accept kudos. Thanks to sister Pam for handling book sales (thank goodness she’s in accounting) and to Terrill, husband extraordinaire, who bar-tended and kept everyone happy. Loretta – you are amazing! We loved every moment and even though I didn’t go to bed until midnight (and then had to get up at 4 a.m. to race to the airport), it was so worth the jet lag and sleep deprivation to celebrate with you!

P.S., It was great fun to meet Cindy Widner, managing editor of The Austin Chronicle, who attended the party and posted a blog about Loretta’s awesome “shed.” She took a little video of Loretta and bro’ Harrison as they “discussed” who gets design credit for the fabulous Mod Pod. Typical sibling rivalry, to be sure. Fun to see them rib each other. Cindy wrote:

Another excuse to navigate the McMansion debris and bewildering streets of West Austin (the better to appreciate the Fischers’ classic gem) came last weekend in the form of a book release party for Debra Prinzing‘s Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideways, an addictive tome that features William Wright‘s pretty much perfect photographs of fetching outbuildings, including Fischer’s greenhouse and two other sheds from Central Texas (though hailing from Cali, the nutty Norwegian-wood pavilion with grass roof might be my second favorite).

Out-takes from the April 2007 photo shoot. Top: Loretta and Terrill Fischer; Bottom: Harrison Bates (shed designer and builder), hams it up with one of Loretta’s orange balls [William Wright photo]

Showin’ off Stylish Sheds in Austin

 P.P.S., “Style Matters,” a blog by Austin American-Statesman columnist Melanie Spencer, highlighted Stylish Sheds in the May 15th issue.  The headline reads: “Sheds can be a Stylish Retreat.” Melanie writes:

‘Stylish Sheds’ fetes backyard retreats

When it comes to sheds and outbuildings, most of us think of them as utilitarian storage facilities, but some envision a creative, calming or fun backyard retreat. The latter is the case in “Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways: Big Ideas for Small Backyard Destinations,” by Debra Prinzing ($30, Clarkson Potter Publishers). The book features lavish color photographs by William Wright of sometimes chic, sometimes rustic guest houses from across the country, including writing retreats, gardening cottages and everything between. Of four structures in Texas, two are in Austin, one is in Fredericksburg and another is in Bertram. All will make you yearn for a hideaway of your own.

“Old garden sheds can see new life as office space, artist studio, dining pavilion, party room or just private hideaway.” 

Alice Joyce, author of Gardenwalks in California and Gardenwalks in the Pacific Northwest, wrote a very kind review of Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways in yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle. We couldn’t be more excited to read her generous words describing this project:

Here is an excerpt:

“Maybe you’ve conjured up a funky backyard folly purposefully set aside for daydreaming. Or considered adding a sophisticated retreat in which to enjoy cocktail hour, an intimate space separate from the home yet connected in spirit. If so, you might be inspired to take action after perusing Prinzing’s handsomely produced sourcebook, with nearly 30 projects pictured, five in the Bay Area. . . .

“Whether restored, refitted or built from the ground up, the ‘cool backyard structures’ presented are brought to life by Prinzing’s engaging writing and Wright’s alluring photographs, revealing personalities and design sensibilities.”

Riding on the celebratory wave of two festive book parties in the Austin area, we are so thrilled with Alice’s affirming review. Here is a link to the full article in the San Francisco Chronicle, May 3rd.

Tom Spencer, Debra Prinzing & Bill Wright – on location

Bill and I had a wonderful experience today, taping an 11-minute segment on Stylish Sheds with Tom Spencer, host of “Central Texas Gardener,” a popular show on the Austin PBS affiliate, KLRU.

The show will air on June 26th – stay tuned for a link to the segment.

Tom was a delightful host, a kindred spirit in the conversation about gardening as sanctuary, sheds as shelter, places for meditation and destinations for creative expression.

Our thanks to producer Linda Lehmusvirta, who not only “gets it,” but who helped me find many of our Austin shed locations when I was scouting here in January 2007.

Here is a peek of the Austin/Hill Country structures we found and photographed last year. We’re lucky to feature four terrific Texas sheds inside the pages of Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways:

Sylvia and Steven Williams’ “Hill Country Haven”

Loretta and Terrill Fischer’s “Mod Pod”

Beverly and Eldon Sutton’s “Texas Teahouse”

Carol Hicks Bolton and Tim Bolton’s “Heart’s Content”