Beach Shack She Shed

The dilapidated garden shed in my backyard that I converted to a beach shack last month has now been upgraded to a She Shed. The function of it is mostly decorative, but the project allowed me to bring things out of storage in my garage and I’m glad of that. Back in Orange, California, I had a very large covered porch. Here at my Kansas home, covered space is at a premium… really just the small front porch. With the harsh weather conditions here, I didn’t want my stored beach decor items to be ruined, so they were packed in boxes until now.

Painting the inside of the shed was one of the most difficult painting jobs I’ve ever done, not even counting the 100 degree temps. Nails from whoever put the roof on decades ago, poke through (ouch!), and the wood is rough and peeling and just awful. I wasn’t going for a look of perfection, thank goodness, because it’s not even close to that. It’s very rustic.

I used some white paint I had on hand from painting a bedroom when I first moved in, and some light turquoise left over from a project back in California. The turquoise is just on the ceiling area (I used as much as I had and wasn’t about to buy more) and adds not only to the beach look, but also, per something I read about online (haint blue, per Wikipedia), the color wards off evil spirits, ghosts, and more importantly, wasps! When I first got the idea to convert the shed, it was with great trepidation that I opened those rear-facing doors… it felt creepy to me. Sure enough, as soon as I opened the doors, I noticed wasp nests hanging, and a very large black wasp flew at me and stung my stomach (more ouch!).

I painted a very simple mural on the warped back doors, to remind me of a favorite place… a remote beach on California’s Central Coast called Cambria. I’ll eventually get some sort of rug for the floor and will be doing a few modifications to make the shed a bit more weather-proof, but for the most part, it’s done. I now have a Beach Shack She Shed, and a bit of California feeling in Kansas. ~SueBee