20 Favorite garden cottages & sheds

Martha Mendoza’s days are filled with deadlines, after-school commitments, and other pressures. Yet the celebrated journalist, teacher, wife, and mother―who won a Pulitzer Prize at age 33 for an investigative series on the Korean War―leads a surprisingly balanced life.

Her secret? This tiny home office, housed in a converted potting shed in her Santa Cruz, California, backyard. Here she can steal away from her domestic responsibilities to write, study, and pursue breaking news stories for the Associated Press. "Being detached from the house is key."

Boston ivy–draped walls and schoolhouse windows lend character and romance to this garden bathing pavilion.

An old garden shed a few steps away from her back door gave homeowner Kathryn Allen a solution to a pesky problem. “Our master bath

had only a slender shower stall, and I was desperate for a bathtub,” she explains.

In a moment of inspiration, she saw Cinderella potential in the 9- by 11-foot backyard shed. Kathryn and her husband, David, cleaned and painted it, put in a new terra-cotta tile floor, added schoolhouse (awning-type) windows, and trained Boston ivy on the outside walls.

Original article and pictures take http://www.sunset.com/home/outdoor-living/great-backyard-sheds-and-cottages-00400000058405/ site


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