Outbuildings
A Romantic ‘We Shed’ on the California Coast
The charming hideaway built from reclaimed materials serves as a quiet backyard retreat with bay views
This rustic shed in the backyard of a home in the California Central Coast town of Los Osos serves as a cozy getaway with views of Morro Bay. Homeowners Vanessa Henson and Pete Riolo bought it from Dana O’Brien, who, with husband Sean, designs and custom builds backyard “she sheds,” studios and other outdoor structures.
The back wall features a picture window that is a repurposed sliding glass door. The roof is corrugated metal with clear polycarbonate roof panels that act as skylights.
The interior is furnished with a small vintage sofa, a brindle cowhide rug and a vintage chandelier from Three Speckled Hens, a biannual vintage and antiques show on California’s Central Coast. The curtains are sheers hung on scraps of rebar. O’Brien says she hung them in the corners to soften the structure.
Find a chandelier
The interior is furnished with a small vintage sofa, a brindle cowhide rug and a vintage chandelier from Three Speckled Hens, a biannual vintage and antiques show on California’s Central Coast. The curtains are sheers hung on scraps of rebar. O’Brien says she hung them in the corners to soften the structure.
Find a chandelier
There are repurposed windows throughout the shed. The most fun feature is a drop-down door that becomes an exterior bar. For that, O’Brien used an antique five-paneled solid wood door and hung it horizontally. She kept the doorknob, which is now used to open and close the bar.
Urban forested Monterey pine was used to build the shed. The two windows on the front and side walls were once in a local orthodontist’s office. “We love that our materials tell a story of their prior life,” O’Brien says. “Each structure we build is a labor of love, with the refurbishing of reclaimed materials and the hand selection of those materials.”
Tell us: Do you have your own cozy backyard shed? Please share a photo in the Comments!
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Tell us: Do you have your own cozy backyard shed? Please share a photo in the Comments!
More
11 Nominees for the ‘She Shed’ Hall of Fame
How to Add a Backyard Shed for Storage or Living
Find an architect or designer to help you build a backyard getaway
Backyard Shed at a Glance
Who uses it: Vanessa Henson and Pete Riolo
Location: Los Osos, California
Size: 90 square feet (8.4 square meters); 9 by 10 feet
Designer: Dana O’Brien, owner of A Place to Grow
The tiny structure sits at the back of Henson and Riolo’s property on a hill and serves as a “we shed” shared by Henson — who uses it to relax, study and sometimes enjoy a glass of wine with Riolo — and Riolo’s daughter, a schoolteacher, who takes advantage of the quiet space to grade papers.
For the backyard sheds and other structures they create, O’Brien and her husband use vintage windows and doors and “urban forested” lumber — wood they mill themselves from downed trees that have succumbed to storms, disease and other maladies. For this shed’s front entrance, O’Brien used a wood door she found in a field, replacing one of the panels that had been a pet door with a pane of glass.