Garden Shed to Garden Room

Staying very close to home this summer was just the impetus we needed to jump in and make a huge change to our back garden.  When we first bought the house in 2012 my husband built this lovely garden shed in the flattest spot in our garden.

This also proved to be the sunniest spot in our garden.  Our house has a lovely back patio, but it loses the sun quite early on in the day and frankly it's windy here!  We are smack dap between the local glacier and the Pacific Ocean, so we seem to always have a cool breeze.  We decided to take down the shed and build a garden room/green house.

Once planning permission was approved my husband started taking apart the garden shed, board by board.  

Between Ngaire and Michael the shed was apart in no time.  Ngaire and I had the fun job of pulling out all the nails and carrying the boards and plywood away.  It was a super hot day and I must admit those sheets of plywood are heavy!

The next task was to get rid of the grass and this sod cutter was just perfect for the job.

Michael had to move all the underground sprinkler lines from under what was going to be a gravelled area.

We were well into week three by the time we were ready for the gravel to arrive.  We had it dumped on our driveway.  We had to move it around the house, dodging the veggie pod and through the gate to the back garden.  This was no mean feat for Ngaire and I. 

Meanwhile Michael was leveling and setting in the base in place for the greenhouse.  Our plot tilts both sideways and forward and this proved to make his task slow to say the least.

Then it was dig, dig, dig to set the base and the concrete piers underground, inevitably he hit rocks, lots and lots of rocks.  Big heavy rocks....it seems we were plagued with rocks!

The base is set in place, the landscape fabric is spread and the gravel strewn about.  Now Michael is setting the steps in place.

We had decided to use some concrete slabs that we already had for the greenhouse floor.  We did have to buy more, but using what we had was a lovely bonus.  Ngaire was the floor setter and I was the gopher, keeping her supplied with pavers and sand.  She did an amazing job!

We were ready for the green house by the fifth week and then we waited and waited and waited.  We expected the greenhouse to arrive in six to eight weeks, the reality was much longer and we only got the greenhouse a week ago....but it's worth it!

The patio furniture fits in beautifully.

Sitting in this lovely warm space is going to make our winter so much more enjoyable, we get a lovely view down the garden and the trees in the distance.  What happed to all the garden tools from the shed?

Michael was able to reuse the hardiplank from the garden shed and build this wonderful shed to house some of our tools. It snugs right up to the house under the eaves.

Pretty nifty isn't it?