Debra Prinzing

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Sheds and hideaways like you’ve never seen before

May 8th, 2008

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 Edwards Forkner’s garden trailer

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

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3 Responses to “Sheds and hideaways like you’ve never seen before”

  1. Lydia Plunk Says:

    You can come save my shed anytime! It started out with GOOD intentions- but the state it is in now is closer to “before” than “after”.

    Stylish Sheds has reinvigorated my drive to complete the project as it was originally intended. To be my grown up playhouse.

  2. Lorene Says:

    YIKES! Now I’m on the hook! Congratulations Debra (& Bill) on speaking to so many of our hearts!
    XO Lorene

  3. Dee/reddirtramblings Says:

    I think you should save the shed for her. It’s almost comical that they ran the two stories side by side.~~Dee

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