A shed of one’s own

My husband and I have decided we need separate rooms. For more than a decade, we’ve shared a home “office” that hasn’t worked well for either of us. There’s no room for flat files for him, nor is there the quiet retreat I crave for writing. I look longingly at our friend John’s backyard music studio and our neighbor’s tiny garage-turned-dance studio. I find myself eyeing our garden shed and our son’s long-abandoned tree house with an “I wonder if …” sense of hope. Serendipitously, this was all on my mind when I stumbled across Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways by Debra Prinzing in a Library display.

I am now convinced that I need a shed of my own, and I’ll take any of the 28 backyard retreats, offices and studios featured in Prinzing’s book. With just 50 square feet of space, an old potting shed has become journalist Martha Mendoza’s reporter’s office. It might be teensy, but it’s well insulated, secure and beautifully designed, and, most importantly, it’s separate from the house. Novelist Amy Bloom has a 14-by-14-foot writing shed nestled into the woods behind her home with natural light flowing through cottage windows. I can’t stop looking at these photos (by architectural photographer William Wright), and daydreaming of a space and desk (pictured left) just like the one where Bloom wrote her most recent novel, Away.

I’ve long enjoyed Prinzing’s writing on design, gardening and landscaping. Gardening books by the former Seattleite (she wrote for Puget Sound Business Journal and The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, among other publications) include The Abundant Garden: A Celebration of Color, Texture and Blooms, Washington and Oregon Gardener’s Guide: Proven Plants for Inspired Gardens (with Mary Robson, Seattle Times columnist), and Pacific Northwest Garden Survival Guide.