Once upon a time there was this cool, shady area leading to the potting shed.  But then the maple tree shading it fell over during the 2008 winter snow.  The ivy was too active, crawling out into the path and up into adjoining trees--not a good thing.  I decided to pull it out and see what else could be done with the area.  Then we ended up needing more living space, and this seemed the logical spot to locate our cottage-to-be.

Same area with the maple tree gone, the ivy removed and several scraggly privets which had aspired to tree-dom, but which dropped zillions of seeds (all of which wanted to sprout in my garden beds) extracted.   It looks a little scary, but I reminded myself that it was just an intermediate stage--a work in progress.  I took out the cobblestone pathway, too, and will reuse the cobblestones for new paths.

I'd seen some nifty/impressive utility buildings from Better Built Barns in Salem on display at Jerry's, our very cool Eugene home improvement store.  Paul and I went to Salem, looked over our options, and signed up.  Because they put together many similar buildings, the Better Built crew has their construction down to an efficient routine.  This picture shows the work about an hour into the build.

Applying siding to the end nearest the potting shed.  There's a space of about 11 feet between the two buildings.  I plan to create a nice shady garden nook there.

All the framing arrived pre-cut, some of it in sections, which made the construction go quickly.  It's got the same standard 2x4 framing as a house.

End view, the same one as in the first two pictures at the top of the page.  Our fig tree with its many trunks is in the foreground at left.