Used materials are reborn into charming garden sheds

LIKE MUSHROOMS in damp autumn woods, Bob Bowling's sheds are popping up all over South Whidbey Island. Small enough to squeeze into a garden corner or side yard, yet large enough to house chickens, hold a yoga mat or tools, the sheds are drop-dead charming.

Is it the peaked roofs, the cupolas and aged windowpanes that lend a sense of history to each tidy little footprint of a building? Perhaps it's that Bowling has mastered the perfect proportions and garnishes to appeal to our fantasies of a sweet little destination shed. Gardeners seem to share a universal gene for outbuildings, and Bowling has tapped right into that.

After his success at the past few Northwest Flower & Garden Shows, where he won "Best of Show" in the exhibitor category, Bowling is busy building custom designs.

Don't be tricked by the cute window boxes and clever cupolas. These sheds are practical. The windows hinge wide open, the roofs are sturdy galvanized metal with overhangs, and the chicken coops come with nesting boxes and windows low enough to give the birds a view out into the garden.

How did Bowling hit on the formula for irresistible sheds? "I never draw them, they just evolve," he explains. Kind of like how he got into building sheds in the first place.

After working as a flooring contractor in Riverside, Calif., Bowling moved to Whidbey with a now ex-girlfriend, and started crafting birdhouses and benches. He moved on to sheds after discovering the abundant supply of recycled materials on the island.

Now Bowling starts his days poking around the woodpile at the local construction dump and visiting Island Recycling. "I mill around and some days I hit gold," he says. He stockpiles old doors and windows, and buys bits and pieces on eBay, like the $5 metal spheres he uses as finials.

So what are the specific elements that make these rustic sheds so covetable? First, they're a manageable size. Most Bowling buildings are 5 by 5 or 4 by 4 feet. Yet they're tall and transparent enough that they don't feel dark or cramped. "I'm 6 foot 4 and I need to be able to walk in without hitting my head," says Bowling.

Despite windows, doors and siding old enough to make the buildings look weathered in place, new underlying framework assures they're structurally sound. "Nothing is going to blow them over," he says.

Because Bowling builds with materials on at least their second lifetimes, each shed is unique. If wood or metal doesn't look sufficiently vintage, Bowling adds patina with a vinegar wash. Old saws, axes and trowels are put to use as door handles and brackets. He constructs cupolas out of metal chicken feeders, funnels, stove pipes or pot lids — whatever ends up stacking in an eye-pleasing and sturdy way.

Bowling's sense of proportion and detail comes into play from roof to doorknobs. The former is usually steep and galvanized, the latter a worn tool or beveled glass. Dutch doors, weathervanes and window boxes large enough to hold a few herbs or pansies add yet more charm.

While Bowling usually sticks with his square little footprint and tried-and-true proportions, he is sometimes asked to come up with new shapes and sizes. He built an octagonal building he describes as "Gothic" to fit into a hillside garden in Burien. "The largest shed I ever built was 10 by 12, and we dry-walled and insulated it for a studio," he says.

His sheds have been used as outhouses, chapels, outdoor showers, playhouses and simply as garden focal points. So if you can imagine it, Bowling can build it.

The power of a few well-chosen words

The moon vine in the backyard has entwined the empty chicken coop and is now launching an assault on the Mexican petunia next to it. The vine's large blooms are white and diaphanous, like tissues left on a make-up table in the dressing room of a Broadway star.

I'm only imaging this, though once I had occasion to go backstage before a Broadway play. It was a subterranean chaos, chattering people in various states of undress scurrying to and fro in a catacomb of small, low ceiling rooms. I've also stood outside the stage entrance after a performance watching fans and actors as they emerged from the theater. Moments earlier they had been elegant and dignified, full of purpose, the height of sophistication. In the light of the street, they were kids with backpacks, in T-shirts, jeans and Nikes.

In its own way, a flower garden, too, has all the magic of the theater. With its ever-changing cast of butterflies, hummingbirds and bees, a garden has all the elements that draw humans to Times Square: drama, beauty, sex. Though the action may be more discreet, it's all there for the patient and knowing observer.

Standing amid the color, beauty and movement, a flower garden can be a meditation, a gentle way to ease into a stressful day. Most mornings a perky hummingbird -- think Rodgers and Hammerstein -- is usually the first actor to take the stage. Clad in an iridescent green coat, he hovers in front of the Turk's cap, trumpet vine and the black and blue salvia. Most days he's all business -- pausing between each flower to take stock; occasionally he will linger for a second at eye-level an arm's length away, as if to say, "What are you doing here? Friend or foe?"

In the South, gardening is one of the many distractions we have to help us endure our crazy hot summers. There are plenty of others -- among them, watermelon, ice cream, fireflies and America singing "Ventura Highway."

I love to get emails with a quote at the bottom. Here's one that accompanied a recent message from Allison Barnette, a Caledonia 8th Grade Social Studies teacher:

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood, and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."

-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900-1944); aviator, writer

Amazing the power of a few well-chosen words strung together in the right order: "... the endless immensity of the sea." Makes you want to get on a sailboat and head for the south Pacific.

NPR's Scott Simon the other day offered a tribute to Jack Layton, a Canadian politician who recently died from cancer at the age of 61. This from Simon's report:

Layton joined the liberal New Democratic Party, and lost several elections -- for Parliament, and mayor of Toronto--before winning his first seat in the House of Commons in 2004.

He brought the New Democrats to their biggest victory in history in May. But by July, Jack Layton's cancer returned. Two days before he died, he wrote a letter that his family released this week. It is graceful, blunt and personal.

"Unfortunately my treatment has not worked out," he writes, but tells others afflicted with cancer, "please don't be discouraged that my own journey hasn't gone as well as I had hoped. You must not lose your own hope. Treatments and therapies have never been better. ... My only other advice is to cherish every moment with those you love at every stage of your journey, as I have done this summer."

And then, a man who gave his life to politics closes with what amounts to a personal credo:

"My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world.

"All my very best,

"Jack Layton."

Maybe I'll use Jack Layton's quote at the bottom of my e-mails: "Let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world."