Unique garden shed

By Kate Lovelady

Greetings! I joined Wild Ones last year, and it’s been great getting to know people who are also obsessed with gardening and especially with native gardening and sustainability.

We have a small yard in the city, and we needed a small tool and gardening shed. There’s so much rehabbing of older houses going on St. Louis, I decided to build a shed out of reclaimed doors. Basically this shed is simply four old doors screwed together and attached with metal brackets to a foundation of left-over treated 2x6s, sitting on an existing crushed-rock foundation. I chose two doors with windows to let in light, and two solid doors so that I could hang shelves on the back “wall” and pocket holders on the inside of the front “door.” (I got the doors from a guy who had been collecting them from alleyways.)

Garden shed made of recycled doors - in progress

Shed in progress
(click for a larger view)

The doors weren’t the same height, so I build a shed roof (that’s actually the name of those roofs that are higher on one side than the other) using reclaimed corrugated plastic. I filled in the extra space with scrap window-screen—it keeps out most rain and allows for ventilation. The only materials I had to buy were the brackets to attach the doors to the foundation, and one new door hinge (my poor old doors only had one hinge left between them, but I was able to reuse a door handle).

Here’s a picture of the shed in progress. You can see the foundation and the “walls,” with a reclaimed 2×4 “door” header to add stability (and a helpful friend; doors are heavy—Thanks Joe!)

Garden shed made of recycled doors - outside view

Outside view

And here’s a couple pictures of it completed, with paint that was also salvaged. I decided not to decorate it as an outhouse or a Tardis (Google it), though in a few years when it needs a new coat of paint I’m open to a new look!

Garden shed made of recycled doors - inside view

Inside view

This project was fun to design and build, and it was relatively easy and forgiving of imperfect carpentry skills. You could easily scale this up with more doors if you wanted to make a bigger shed.  When you need new storage structures of any kind, I recommend trying to use as much reclaimed material as you can—it saves the energy needed to manufacture new material and keeps existing material out of landfills.

7 Comments

  1. Brilliant! I love both the reclaimed materials, and how it looks! Thanks for sharing!

  2. Ana Grace Schactman

    Great idea! Did you seal the top and bottom sides of the doors to protect them from moisture?

  3. Wonderful. It is really inspiring to see someone keep things out of landfills while putting them to practical, and eye-appealing use in gardens that are repairing the environment. High fives all around 🙂

  4. I saw it in person when I was there for a yard tour. It is a great idea.
    Kathy B

  5. Thanks for the comments! Ana, I soaked the tops and the bottoms of the doors with deck sealant (also leftover from another project).

  6. Absolutely great! There is far too much wood ends up in landfill or just rotting away.
    Love this, very clever!

  7. You see an interview with Kate on The Bill & Frantz Show:
    Vimeo
    YouTube
    Facebook
    (same video on three sites)

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