September 24, 2014

DIY Outdoor Garden Storage

I have to admit. I lost my touch for awhile. And maybe that's not even the right way to explain it. I've been in a funk and haven't been posting. I wish I could say it was because of something greater than me… but honestly, I've been busy with real estate. And the shop. And family. And everything else that life continues to throw at us. And you know what also was consuming my time. Not feeling good enough. I was too busy focusing on the things I couldn't do rather than the things that I could. And the things that were important rather than the things that weren't. I was too busy comparing myself to other bloggers and other people…and their homes. But you know what? I have a home. We own it. That is such a huge accomplishment within itself! Second, we have our health. And I have the opportunity to work and provide along side my husband for our little family. Ultimately, we are more blessed than 75% of people! WHY am I beating myself up?

 I've been searching for awhile now on why I blog. And where did my fire go? Why don't I ever post anymore? Why am I so hard on my house and myself? How come I don't ever post pictures of my house and we've been here a year in a few days? What is up with that? If I don't enjoy it, why am I even doing it? Why would I even devote time to something I have no faith in?

That all needs to change today. You see, this is personal battle with myself. And I vow to overcome it! I enjoy everything about "home" more than anything! And my dream is to one day help people with their homes. I want to be on HGTV. I want to be that person that folks like to look to for inspiration, advice and everything home. I want to be well known for good things about the home. I want things for Home by Ally, large things… things that are not going to come easy. But anything worth having is worth fighting for…and guys, I wanna fight! I won't go down without a fight.

So, today, is my first blog post back here at Home by Ally after a much needed break. My goal for our cute little beachside cottage is to inject as much character, functionality, storage and personality into this home as I can! Today, we are going to touch on storage.


In my head, I love to garden. But mostly, I just love flowers. I haven't tried to really garden yet but that is coming! Since we have a one car garage and we are saving up for a shed out back, I came up with this unconventional but functional garden area for myself out back. I challenge you to look at your space in a different perspective next time you are outside and get creative! Look for unconventional spaces to add storage that will functionally make sense for you and your life.

The planks you see in the background would be part of an outdoor shower we have on one side of our home. My husband calls this "his" space. I have to say its been totally convenient being so close to the beach and coming home not tracking in sand everywhere. We just walk to the back yard, (this is right off of the side of the house.) and wash off all the sand…etc. We also use this outdoor shower to give our puppies their bathes! I love that part! Have you ever tried to bath a lab/great dane mix in a bathtub? And did I mention he doesn't like bathes? This was the best thing ever for us.

So, back to the storage. In our garage, I had all of my gardening tools and supplies in one little corner and thought they'd be better accessible here in this little storage area off the back of our garage and against our outdoor shower. This space is the location of our A/C unit which is to the right of that irrigation pump. We only had trash cans back here and some other things such as grass feeder, extra stepping stones, watering cans, etc.

So here's what we did. We took a trip to Lowes and got some thick & chunky, pressure treated wood that could serve as the shelves. And then, I re-located this iron brackets from our open shelving in our kitchen to out here. More on that later. I could see it in my head. Here's what you'll need...

SUPPLIES
Level
Brackets
Measuring tape
Treated lumber (Pick your size)
Drill
Fencing screws
A husband, spouse, friend
Sharpie

I have a really bad habit of getting excited about a project and #1, forgetting to take a before picture and #2, forgetting to take our "steps" pictures. Forgive me just this once ;-) But I will do a quick run through… for y'all and if you have any questions, please ask in the comments section!

The first thing we did was measure our boards (6') to the length of the outdoor shower. They fit perfect.  We then got out our 3ft level (Any size will do) and our measuring tape and marked off where we wanted our brackets placed and also made sure we had a level service to work with.


We then drilled all brackets in and simply placed the wood shelf on each set of brackets. We took our level back on and placed on each wood shelf to ensure we were still level. And that we were! Hubby took more screws and screwed through the tops down to the brackets for extra support.


Up close and personal view of the brackets. I will be painting those screws ORB to better match the brackets. But you can see how chunky our wood was.


This has been a wonderful space for me to store my plant food, watering cans, flower pots and anything else I can think of! I really love that it actually gives just a plain old wall some depth and character. I would love to show you this space with all of my things on it but right now, it's raining cats and dogs in Florida so I hope you can envision my pretty space :-) We also plan to add some hooks for my tools underneath this storage so I will definitely do another post after we add those!


Do you have a spot where you can add some storage for yourself? Just do it! I encourage you again, to think outside the box and create spaces that are beautiful, add storage, are functional and most of all, spaces that you love! 

4 comments:

  1. The shelves look great! I love them! They are the perfect storage solution! Greets!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Ally!! So excited to have stumbled on your blog from Pinterest!! Love your home!! Can you please share the size of the treated wood you used? Looks like the perfect size for my dining room shelves!! Thanks much!!
    ~Lisa

    ReplyDelete
  3. Share your experiences with smart water heaters. Are they worth it? water heater replacement plano tx

    ReplyDelete

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