Our online “Show Us Your Sheds” contest brought us more than 30 examples of hardworking, multitasking outbuildings. Each of the entries offered its own lesson in how to incorporate as much funcionality and storage as possible in a shed, most were designed to complement the main building and surrounding landscape, and many were built with salvaged materials. For all these reasons, plus its style and elegance, we chose Glenn Montgomery’s Shinto shed as our winner. Following are the Shinto shed plus six other sheds we felt deserved an honorable mention and earned a place in the January 2012 magazine’s project gallery.
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The extreme simplicity of the ancient shinmei-zukuri style of Japanese architecture inspired Glenn Montgomery’s 9-ft. by 12-ft. shed. This shed is based on the design of Japan’s Ise Grand Shrine. Montgomery built much of the shed from reclaimed materials. These included 6×16 old-growth timbers salvaged during a renovation of Denver’s original Neusteter’s department store and semirotten 2×6 decking that Montgomery culled, denailed, ripped, and rabbeted to create the redwood siding.
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The steel platform was salvaged from commercial-foundation lagging, and the joists are repurposed Unistrut rescued from job-site roll-off containers. New corrugated galvanized roofing, glazing, fasteners, and some steel plate rounded out Montgomery’s materials list. Montgomery designed and fabricated the custom door pulls and hinges.
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During cocktail hour one night, Karen Metzger sketched her ideal garden outbuilding. That was all that her husband, Greg, needed to begin work on their 8-ft. by 12-ft. shed. Built mostly with salvaged materials, the shed has top-hinged windows for ventilation, a gable and loft for storage, an oversize rear door for bringing in large equipment, a potting bench, and even a place to display the antlers they found in the woods.
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“Labor intensive but fun to build” is how Philip Bowman describes his barn-style shed. Bowman kept the shed to 120 sq. ft. to meet his city’s building code for a nonpermitted shed, but its large loft area provides plenty of space for lumber storage. To achieve the desired roof shape, he wet 1/2-in. plywood to bend it. He admits that a lot of bandsaw and router work was required to accomplish his task.
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Using the remains of projects “full of goodness,” Rory McDonnell constructed this shed full of “good light and air circulation.” Too lovely to be used for storing the lawn mower and out-of-season sporting goods, the shed was claimed by McDonnell’s wife, Catherine, as a tree-sheltered retreat for dreaming, napping, and creating art.
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Built on piers so that it could be moved with a forklif if needed, this garden shed was bult for the owner’s new riding mower. The walls were sided with cedar shakes to match the house and were painted dark green to minimize the visual impact in a tree-filled yard. False windows were installed to add interest to the otherwise plain walls. Homeowner Nick Poepping says the shed was a “fun project and definitely adds a focal point” to his wife’s flower gardens.
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Architect Mark LePage says this shed “turned out to be one of our favorite projects.” After his company completed a full restoration of a 1969 contemporary house, the homeowners requested that his company design and build a modern shed to complement the house and pool.
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