We need to talk about your shed. In a manner similar to that of the deck and the sandstone patio, Celtic Tiger hivemind syndrome continued full throttle when it came to the shed. Historians will cite the years between 2001 and 2007 as the golden era of the timber garden shed. An uninitiated visitor would be forgiven for thinking there was some sinister State administered one shed policy in place such was their proliferation in the suburban setting. It was illegal not to have one.
 |
| Do You Still Love Your Shed? |
There were two to choose from, 6’ x 3’ or 8’ x 4’. The lads would arrive with all the pre made bits on the back of the mini flat bed truck and throw her together in about fifteen minutes. All you had to do was provide a bit of level ground and a few four inch blocks and voilá the magical realm of Jenga style exterior storage was yours. Back then on any mundane local errand it was most unusual not to encounter at least three of these trucks heading hither and thither. We had shed fever and there was no known cure.
No cure, that is, until the bould Daithí Drumm and the boys decided to end western civilisation with their shoddy commercial practices. Little did they realise, as they orchestrated the end of the world, that the first and most crucial bit of collateral damage would be the garden shed. They just don’t think, those guys. There’s only going to be one winner when it’s a head to head between paying the gas bill and providing a suitable storage setting for your indispensable and painstakingly accumulated collection of home fitness paraphernalia.
So there it still is, marooned down in the corner of the garden looking so sad and disheveled. Apart from a few kids’ bikes and trikes I know you don’t know what’s in your shed so let me tell you; half a bag of hardened skim coat plaster, three empty bean tins full of used paint brushes, seven cracked terracotta plant pots, a mattress, three opened boxes of tiles, a cable reel, a caulk gun, four and a half litres of Magnolia weather shield paint, the charcoal barbecue, three quarters of a bottle of white spirits, a bale of briquettes, a set of socket wrenches and an Aldi full body wet suit.
Since the more weather appropriate profiled metal variety arrived a bit late in the day the chances are that what you have is one of those bevelled wafer board panel jobs with the door at the end and a square window on one side. Some of them even came with the house, a little moving in gift from your local benevolent property developer. They were all heart, those guys.
So how does it look now? All that staining and preserving you promised you were going to do, did you ever do it? It was right at the top of the list of must haves, the shed. The feeling was that no matter how much or how little stuff you had the shed was magically going to accommodate it all, even if it necessitated the odd bout of shed roulette trying to extract the young fella’s hurley. And don’t even think about trying to extricate the power washer in there at the back, I shudder at the thought of the avalanche that would be initiated in the process.
Anyhow for better or worse they’re still here, slowly rotting away. Hats off if you can still find it in your heart to love your shed. If the thrill is gone there’s a lot you can do, in keeping with the spirit of the times, to reimagine and reinvigorate it. Change its orientation, remove one side, add a porch and pergola, paint it and hey presto you’ve made the existential leap from shed to pavilion.
You’ve entered a new dimension. Just like that.
Leave a Reply