Breaking ground never seemed so sweet. We are finally breaking ground on the long overdue garden house, and I couldn’t be more thrilled!
In my longest, most wildest garden house dreams, I didn’t think that this day would ever come, but ever the optimist, I always hoped. I wrote about, and shared with you my garden house design board and inspirations what seems like eons ago. Here’s a refresher..
A structure built mainly of windows; a herringbone patterned brick floor, a potting bench area, a couple of rattan winged back chairs, a table and chairs, and whatever else I have stashed away to make my dream escape just that. Every spring I would have high hopes that my garden house build would be the summer project, but other projects took precedence. Now! Now I come to you, excited as ever, exclaiming from my front porch (I can’t go higher because I’m terribly afraid of heights) that we have broken ground on my long awaited garden house.
Y’all know me well enough to know that I’ve been saving and collecting materials for my garden house for YEARRRRRRRRS. Bricks have been stacked and on stand by under perfect tree for almost two years. I have these winged back rattan chairs in our basement that we’ve stored for – I don’t know – seven years??? Whatever, this project is happening. And I have makings right down to the square inch. I talked my friend Melissa into helping me with the CAD design as I have no knowledge of that design program what so ever. Here are the drawings to show you the layout and specs of the garden house.
We will be adjusting some details, such as the foundation will be poured rather than built with cinderblock, and we will most likely come across an obstacle or two that we will need to manoeuvre around. Par for the course.
We had these grandiose ideas to build this thing on our own, but when we finally got it through our thick skulls that it was well beyond our skill set, we called in our handy guy, RTB, Rob The Builder. I kinda had to beg this guy to fit us in and build it, as he is always busy on a job, and a hard core builder/roofer/deck-designer-builder-don’t-give-him-anything-fluffy kind of guy.
But all that is good news to me because it’ll be built in no time at all, with RTB at the helm. Get it done so he can move on. So let me do a recap: The garden house will be built of windows, with 6″x6″x12′ support beams, studs and trusses and a legit roof. The windows I’m using came from Sean’s uncle’s warehouse, that were castoffs and headed toward the trash. The smaller ones I did rescue from the side of the road. One man’s trash is my treasure, and these windows are perfect. The bricks for the floor were found on Facebook Marketplace for free and all the other stuff, well do the Brooke math on that; I’ve been salvaging and saving for years.
This garden house is going to be half a green house, and half an entertaining space. I’ll sow seeds, pot plants, arrange flowers and we will entertain there, hosting cocktail and dinner gatherings, along with providing some quiet time. It’s not just for me, but open for all. Sean’ll either run power from the garage or we’ll install a small solar panel so I can have an iron chandelier hanging in the center, an outlet or two, and outdoor lighting installed by both doors.
The garden house project will be a new series on my YouTube channel, where I will share the latest and greatest videos on Mondays, with building how-to’s, testimonials, interviews and laugh-worthy shenanigans. Videos you won’t want to miss!