An 11.5" by 34" shelf added to a corner of my French Country garden shed is the perfect solution for adding a desk to the small 12 feet square space. The garden shed serves as both an upscale garden house and as a pop-up Christmas store each December.  

Every addition to the space must be functional, be inexpensive, and be beautiful to display gorgeous Christmas decor. Many of the materials used to construct and to update the garden building are recycled, but not extremely rustic. Often rough recycled materials were sanded, stripped, refinished, or painted. Gently worn surfaces with a natural patina developed over time are the key to capturing the French Country farmhouse style found in both my home and the garden house. 

Snowy French Country Garden Shed

A French country style garden shed in the backyard is a delight all year, but even more so for a few hours in winter when covered in a light dusting of snow. Nature waved a magic wand and sprinkled soft white snowy layers that softened the harsh contours of winter. 

The garden shed is beautiful any season with its French country roofline, french doors, and white  limestone exterior. With snow, the shed is transformed into a blue and white winter scene. 

French Country Christmas Garden Shed Exterior

Dressing the French Country garden shed inside for Christmas is a tradition, and this year the exterior is all dressed for Christmas also. What started as a plywood garden shed years ago evolved over time into a stone-clad garden house that deserves beautiful Christmas greenery. 

Dark fresh greens contrast with the white native Texas limestone, white lanterns, and white pedestal ceramic urn. Beautiful, but not expensive Christmas greenery, relies on supplementing existing evergreens with seasonal touches. 

Bird's Nest in Christmas Tree | Table Top Tree

A German folklore promises good health and prosperity to one who finds a bird's nest in her Christmas tree. Who could not use good health and prosperity in the upcoming year after this year filled with uncertainty in both? To my delight I found a real bird's nest in the fresh-cut Christmas tree I bought at the local home improvement store's garden center. 

Each year at least one small table top Christmas tree is part of the season's decorations in my house and in my small garden shed. Instead of buying a small table top tree from a tree lot, I buy a 4'-5' fresh-cut evergreen tree to cut the top off to use as a table top tree. Then I use the rest of the tree for fresh greenery in flower arrangements, garlands, wreaths, and sprinkled in Christmas decor. 

French Country Christmas Event 2020 | Small Business Adapts

This year, 2020, is the TENTH year for the French Country Christmas Event. Can a small business offer its customers a beautiful Christmas shopping event in a safe way? How does a small business adapt to new ways of doing business during an international health crisis and provide safe shopping experiences? 

The answers lie in following health officials' guidelines. 

• Wear a mask. 
• Wash your hands.
• Distance yourself from others by at least 6 feet. 

To comply with these guidelines, my small business has found new ways, to my business, to implement safety precautions.  

Read about how I have adapted to provide a safe shopping experience for my customers, and look at this year's garden shed photos to get ideas about how to arrange Christmas decor in your own home. 

Midnight Blue and Gold Fall Decor

Instead of relying on tradition for colors with which to decorate, branch out from the usual fall color palette, and select colors that coordinate with your home's everyday colors. Not only does all of the decor harmonize, a fresh color palette of midnight blue and gold creates an upscale decor for fall and Halloween. 

Midnight blue instead of black and gold instead of orange are perfect substitutions for traditional fall colors. Subtle touches with pumpkins, chrysanthemums, birds, feathers, and Halloween message signs add items distinctive for the season. There is no mistaking fall and Halloween are in the air, just not in the expected colors. 

Instead of black crows, how about midnight blue birds with gold crowns and white feathers stamped with gold French script? Just a slight shift on the color wheel from black, midnight blue works to give the dark tones of Halloween, but coordinates with blues found in my home and garden shed. 

French Country Fall | Elegant Gold and White

This fall, my new gold and white shelves we built in the garden shed in September inspired dressing them with French Country elegant fall style. As fall arrives with cooler temperatures and a changing landscape, it is only natural that our homes undergo changes also. 

Let me share with you ideas about how I added a fresh fall look to the new open shelves. 

The color palette was already determined... gold and white. 

The first steps for styling an area for me is to ANALYZE  

• the space dimensions to see what sizes of objects are needed

• what items I have that coordinate in color

• how to add French Country design 

• what flowers are available 

• how to incorporate items for the season 

• what object(s) can be focal points with PIZZAZZ! 

Garden Shed DIY Budget Open Shelves

Garden sheds can be beautiful on a budget. DIY open shelves made from real wood and metal shelf support brackets from a home improvement store gave my garden shed French Country elegance I love. 

White-washed wood shelves and gold-painted brackets coordinate with the fleur de lis topped mirror. Sturdy, functional, and beautiful elegance!

A list of materials and sources is at the end of the description of how these shelves were built. 

Garden Shed DIY New Shelves | Extra Space With a Touch of Elegance

New shelves in my backyard garden shed will provide needed storage/display space and some French elegance to the hard-working little shed. The French Country garden shed in my backyard began life as a utilitarian plywood garden shed. Then the little shed was transformed into a special Christmas retail shop for a French Country Christmas Event each December. 

After the Christmas sale each year, the little shed reverts to more of a garden shed with only a few Christmas items stored between the yearly Christmas events. Seed packets, flower pots, gardening cloches, and a fluffy long-haired concrete bunny take over the center table. 

Kitchen cotton towels with lavender and hydrangea designs replace the red-and-white Christmas towels with amaryllis, holly, and poinsettias.  

The French Country Christmas Event has grown over the years, and the shed is now packed each December with special finds that pass the test, "Would this live in my house?" Each year I have to look at the space and create vignettes to display all of the treasures so shoppers will be inspired with Christmas ideas for their own homes.    

The little garden shed needs more shelves! 

French Country Christmas Event 2019

The ninth annual French Country Christmas Event is on two Saturdays, December 7 and December 14, in my backyard French country style garden shed. If you are in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, take a drive into the countryside to shop in a seasonal pop-up shop filled with home and garden French-inspired decor. 

Do you love wood, metal, glass, fabric, paper, but not plastic or resin so much? Yes? So do I. 

In this age, it is harder and harder to find beautiful things made with wood instead of MDF, glass instead of resin, cotton, wool, or linen instead of polyester. But, all those natural materials are what I seek out to stock my French Country Christmas Event each year. 

Take a tour of how the garden shed is decorated for this year's Christmas event. Most of everything shown is for sale, with the exception of some display furniture. 

I love collecting beautiful, natural material things all during the year to offer as an alternative to big stores. 

Peach Greenhouse New Deck

The greenhouse created from salvaged old doors and windows got a new/old deck earlier this spring. Salvaged redwood deck boards now allow an easy transition from the greenhouse's peach French doors into the small adjacent garden. 

The deck boards came from the old deck removed from my house. Not enough boards could be salvaged to create a new deck on the house, but there were enough boards in good condition for a small greenhouse deck. 

French Country is in the Details

{Disclosure: If you purchase items from Botanic Bleu, I receive compensation for your purchase. See my Disclosure and Privacy Policy for more information.} 

French Country style is in architectural structure, large furniture, and small details added as accents to a room. 

Do you have a she shed? One designed with your personal style and personality? My garden shed is my she shed and has evolved over several years from a utilitarian unfinished plywood structure to a beautiful white limestone French Country garden house. 

Welcome to my garden shed/house in the country filled with French Country style beginning with the style of the building. Take a look at the details from earlier this spring that lend French Country design to this special space where I dream, create, and share with others. 

New Wood Chandelier for the Garden Shed

{Disclosure: If you purchase items from Botanic Bleu, I receive compensation for your purchase. See my Disclosure and Privacy Policy for more information.} 

A new wood chandelier in the garden shed was added above its sink by replacing the new chandelier's hardwired connections with a lamp plug-in cord. 

Summer is a great time for sprucing up the garden shed with both a new chandelier and fresh interior paint. Fresh paint is exciting, but not as exciting as a new chandelier. 

The ceiling in the garden shed/house is vaulted and has a ceiling fan / four-light fixture combination in the center of the room. While working at the sink along the wall, I had to work in my own shadow caused by my body being between the light source and the sink. 

A little creative thinking for installing a ceiling light above the sink was all it took to solve the working-in-a-shadow problem. 

Backyard Meadow | How To Grow Through The Seasons

Growing a rye grass meadow in the backyard is easy and looks good through three seasons of the year in north Texas. See how to begin and to grow a grass meadow with no pesticides, with no fertilizers, and with little supplementary watering. 

The backyard meadow shown is part of a two-acre lot in the countryside outside any city limits in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. Where you are located has a major impact on what your yard must look like. City codes regulate yards, and close neighbors in housing subdivisions expect lawns to look uniform. 

Spring Baskets Ceiling Display

{Disclosure: If you purchase items from Botanic Bleu Square Market, I receive compensation for your purchase. See my Disclosure and Privacy Policy for more information.} 

The backyard garden shed is filled with Spring inspiration, and the ceiling has a display of Spring baskets hanging from ribbons. 

What was my inspiration to hang baskets from the ceiling? When I was thinking about what represents this season of the year, my mind began to think of Easter which led to Easter baskets. 

Greenhouse Dreams | Foxgloves, Chandelier, Glass Table

When you daydream of a perfect greenhouse, do you see old pots, reclaimed glass French doors, chippy cabinets, brick floor, baskets, and foxgloves growing in sunlight? A rustic retreat filled with a jumble of clay pots, potting soil, seedlings, and watering cans scattered about in disarray on weathered wood shelves?  

Or do you see deep burgundy painted walls, white shelves, a carved pedestal with a glass top, plants in French urns, and a chandelier? Not so much rustic, but rather a working space in a well-worn gentil  (genteel) French florist greenhouse? 

Garden Shed Fresh Paint

G A R D E N   S H E D   F R E S H   P A I N T 

and a new exterior light fixture 

The garden shed, known affectionately as the Jardin Château by my family, needed some fresh paint after braving the first six winters of its new life. 

The beautiful little Jardin Château is home to my French Country Christmas Event each December, and you have seen lots of pretty pictures of it decked out in its finest. 

Today you are getting to see real life and how to deal with it so the little shed will continue to be beautiful for many more years. 

The French doors were looking a little shabby due to their paint exposed to the elements. 

Plus, the fascia board above the front French doors was suffering from moisture damage and beginning to look a little moldy. 

Garden Shed Budget Wood Butcher Block Counter

Countertops Part 3 | Garden Shed 

Butcher Block 

The third in a series of three posts about budget wise countertops. 

Garden sheds are buildings made from dreams, after building the main house. Years of sketching diagrams on long winter nights, of saving reclaimed materials, and of collecting photos stuffed into shoeboxes and garden shed Pinterest boards keep the dream alive. 

Most often a garden shed is built with an even tighter budget than your home. Salvaged windows, doors, sinks, faucets, and counters along with DIY homeowners play major roles in making a garden shed affordable for most of us. 

The le jardin château (garden castle) in my backyard fits that description almost to a T. 

Magnolia Garden Ideas To Make Your Own | Part 3

Have you planted your tomatoes? How about sugar snap peas? Or sweet pea flowers? Spring is THE time to get our gardens planted, but it also the time to try out some great gardening ideas you found in seed catalogs, gardening centers, blog posts, Pinterest boards, and visiting gardens in person.

If you want a little more inspiration for your garden STRUCTURES, take a look at what I found in my visits to Magnolia Market in Waco, TX. 

This is the final post, Part 3, in a series of Magnolia garden ideas to make your own. Links to Part 1 and Part 2 are at the end of the post. 

🌿 Garden Idea ❹ : STRUCTURES    

• G A R D E N   S H E D  

Christmas Potting Bench First Look

A potting bench full of Christmas greenery makes a porch an inviting place during the holiday season. Friends and family love seeing touches of Christmas all through the house, inside and out. Paperwhites are favorite winter flowers that gardner's dream about for their greenhouses, conservatories, garden sheds, and potting benches. 

First Look at a Christmas Potting Bench