Home & Garden Potting Bar Ideas

[Jesssh]

I have a small area beside my garage that serves no purpose. It is about six feet wide and a little over a car length deep. The neighbor's bathroom window overlooks it. A six foot privacy fence borders it in the back, and lots of shrubs tend to hide it from the front, although it can be seen from the street. So it is somewhat private, but still accessible from the front yard. It's actually kind of a nice place to hang out, although I don't know why anyone would want to do that.

I painted the house white, so the area is basically a big white wall with lap siding on one side, and the neighbor's shrubs and trees on the other side.

I recently purchased a cute big red watering can and the ideas started.....

What if I decorated the white wall with gardening supplies so that it looked like the old Smith and Hawken stores? I loved those stores! I could stare at their store display walls for hours and zen out.

Then I realized that I had a few things I could use in the garage to create a potting bench. Since I don't garden much, a potting "bar" might be more useful, then I could participate in driveway parties with a tub full of ice and beers.

Here is a montage of the kinds of things I already have (not the actual items - just a similar representation).



The cart I have is actually a natural butcher block cart without the lattice part, and I could paint it green, maybe using a distressed technique, or not. I could paint the stools to match. The cart could be placed against the big white wall, and I could decorate around it. At a minumum I would want storage for my garden hose, preferably attached to the white wall in an attractive way.

(The cart was planned to be donated. I won't have room for it inside the garage once I buy my table saw.)

I'll post some of the items I would have to buy next.

 

[Jesssh]

My house is a little modern - the gutters are silver metal (galvalume) faschia style. An industrial motif with silver galvanized surfaces would fit with the gutters (although they are not on that side of the house).

Here are some of the items I thought I could use:



I could put a row of hooks above the potting bench to fill out that part of the wall, and hang small tools from it for decoration. (I would probably attach them with zip ties to discourage theft, since I have my dirty versions of these tools inside the garage.)

The tub would be for beers and ice, additional hooks for a garden hose, a solar lantern for lighting into the evening (although I would keep it in the garage or backyard when I didn't need it so that no attention would be drawn to that area at night), maybe a hook to hang the solar lantern.

I also have a large outdoor terra cotta thermometer. And a pot in the post above that I can plant something in to make the area cuter. The planter pot is large and would sit on the ground.

I have some small flagstones I could use to make stepping stones into the area.

The main idea is to have some usable attractive space, not ugly for the neighbors to see, and to have a little fun with it. If I did driveway parties, the beer and wine table could be back there, with a couple of stools. I would need stackable chairs stored in the garage, maybe some stackable end tables too. The driveway itself would be surrounded by trees and flowers.

Ideally the investment would be minimal and nothing out there would be tempting for a thief.

This is just a start. Do you all have any ideas that could make it really cool? Or inspiration photos?

The products above are not exactly what I want, so I'll need more places to look for stuff.

Style is somewhat minimalist and I can't grow plants close to the house except in containers.

TIA!

 

[Jesssh]

I'm thinking about going with a black wrought iron theme instead of a silver industrial theme. I have black wrought iron in the front yard but not attached to the house since it really doesn't match the house. Most of the hose hangers I like are decorative wrought iron, and I can always remove them if I want.

Then I could use a couple of the $5 black glass solar lanterns I got at home depot last year for the front entry path, and hang them from black hooks attached to the wall.

Above the bench/bar, I could hang little colored pots like this:



I could stagger the pots, maybe with the lanterns, and use a limited palette like green, white, beige, red, brown and black to keep the look natural. I may not plant anything in them since I don't want to maintain much.

I wonder if I could paint the terra cotta thermometer.....