The beauty of a Rummer home, is that it allows you to extend your living space to the outside. This starts as you enter the house into the atrium. And then when you are in the house the floor to ceiling back windows just lead you to the outside world.
As you look across the house, the outside is just calling to you to come and join its splendors. So, we decided to take full advantage of this by building two outbuildings.
After completing the bocce ball court, it seemed like a natural spot to put a covered outdoor living room area next to it. This way you could have snacks awaiting and a place for beverages in between bocce ball tosses. Because we live in Oregon and you never know when we might have a little rain shower in the summer months, it also made it so you could entertain outside without having to run everything inside at the last minute.
Concrete slabs were poured and cured before the buildings were started. During this time the sliding door for the She-Shed was ordered as was the Eichler siding from Calif. We also contacted the roofers so the membrane roof could be coordinated with the framing phase.
We utilized the same post and beam construction technique, materials, and scale for both of the buildings. They will be painted the same color as the house. My husband drew up the plans and gave them to Otis Wardlow from Hypotenuse Works! LLC that we hired to build them. He had done a lot of the work on the remodel, so we really trusted him.
When coming up with the design, since we had put all of this nice bamboo along the back fence, instead of having a solid back wall, it was done with vertical slats so light and air could move through, and you also enjoy the swaying bamboo from inside the house living room windows. On the side of the shed is a storage closet. This outdoor living room will overlook the Japanese garden area and water feature we are also putting in. And the front of it will have more outdoor space for additional furniture in the summer if we want
On the east side of the house we built a gardening shed, or as I like to call it my She-Shed. We are planning to locate our vegetable and cut flower garden here. This side of the yard is not visible from the main living area. We will have raised beds in front to the shed. The shed is situated across from the 2nd bath that has a door to the outside. This will make it handy to be able to come inside and clean up after a rewarding day working in the garden. When we did the concrete pour we created a small sidewalk on the backside of the shed so the garden trash bins could be stored out of sight, but easily rolled. The garden tools are also accessed through a door in the back and separated by an interior wall from the front of the shed. The front part will be a spot to keep vases, inspirations, seed starts as well as all that She-shed sort of stuff!
We can’t wait for them to be painted this spring, and then get some stuff in them.
The outdoor living room with primer, waiting to be painted in the spring
The outdoor living room at the end of the bocce court.
The gardening or she shed with primer on it, located across from the external door to the 2nd bath.
The gardening shed, or She Shed with the primer on it, waiting to be painted
