Blank canvas.. need advice/suggestions for colours and theme

hello866

Hi, we’re at the early stages of planning our garden at our new house. See picture, we brought the shed/summerhouse with us from our old house. We have plenty of ideas for the space however can’t decide what do do about the fence and summerhouse. We would like to paint them a shade of grey but don’t know whether to do the summerhouse the same colour or to use something a bit wild like bright pink! We live by the sea so could have a beach hut theme. We also have 3 kids so would like the garden to be a fun outdoor space for them too. We plan to build raised beds around the fence using timber to add a bit of green etc. These could also be painted too. Any advice and suggestions greatly appreciated. Feel free to post pictures of your projects. Thanks

Thanks 
Ross

amancalledgeorge

I'd go for a pale grey fence and maybe a creamy/stone colour for the summerhouse. After all you want the plants to be the highlight of the garden not the wooden structures. Good idea about the raised beds as new built house gardens have notoriously awful soil. Good luck with your projects.

philippasmith2

Before you decide on your colour for fence and summerhouse, it may help to think what plants/shrubs you intend to grow and how they will blend in or be a contrast to the overall colour scheme. You appear to be quite overlooked by the neighbouring house at one point so are you planning to try and screen that area a little more ?
You've got a lot of timber there which may mean a lot of work and expense if you don't take into account what you plan to grow and how it will work for your kid's Fun Area
As for the seaside theme, I've got a feeling that either GW or Alan Titchmarsh did a programme on that - worth checking out but unless you can actually see the coast from your garden, it may look a wee bit odd ?
Your garden and your call of course - early days yet and others will hopefully have info and advice/ideas for you

Busy-Lizzie

We painted our shed with Willow by Cuprinol. It's a few years old here, can't find the newly painted photo. But people have different tastes so have a look at paints, maybe Google sheds and choose something you like.

hello866

amancalledgeorge said:

I'd go for a pale grey fence and maybe a creamy/stone colour for the summerhouse. After all you want the plants to be the highlight of the garden not the wooden structures. Good idea about the raised beds as new built house gardens have notoriously awful soil. Good luck with your projects.

Thanks, whilst out and about today we have definitely decided on the pale grey for fence. Maybe once that’s done it will be easier to. Decide what’s best for the summer house. It’s a bit of a mess at the minute from moving but is actually fully insulated and used as our office space. Your right.. new build gardens are awful. The lawn is a mess too and requires a bit of levelling and new turf. Hopefully get it transformed soon for the summer. 

hello866

philippa smith2 said:

Before you decide on your colour for fence and summerhouse, it may help to think what plants/shrubs you intend to grow and how they will blend in or be a contrast to the overall colour scheme. You appear to be quite overlooked by the neighbouring house at one point so are you planning to try and screen that area a little more ?
You've got a lot of timber there which may mean a lot of work and expense if you don't take into account what you plan to grow and how it will work for your kid's Fun Area
As for the seaside theme, I've got a feeling that either GW or Alan Titchmarsh did a programme on that - worth checking out but unless you can actually see the coast from your garden, it may look a wee bit odd ?
Your garden and your call of course - early days yet and others will hopefully have info and advice/ideas for you

Thanks for the advice. Your are right, we are over looked by a neighbours teenagers bedroom.. they hardly have the blinds open so isn’t a big issue however I would like to do something to screen it a bit. It was the only negative part of the house when buying and all the positives outweighed it. That’s a good idea, I’ll have a think and visit the garden centre. Ideally some low maintenance flowering scrubs would be good. I’ll have a look for the Alan Titchmarch programme. Although you can’t see it in the photos we are approx 350m from the sea. The recent storms have washed up some lovely rounded pebbles so I may have to get some!

hello866

Busy-Lizzie said:

We painted our shed with Willow by Cuprinol. It's a few years old here, can't find the newly painted photo. But people have different tastes so have a look at paints, maybe Google sheds and choose something you like.

Thanks, it looks good and has lasted well. How did you find Cuprinol paint? I’ve been looking at the Ronseal fence life pro and at using the sprayer. Lots of mixed reviews for both brands. We’ll get googling will hopefully find lots of inspiration!

Busy-Lizzie

It was easy to paint and was meant to show the grain of the wood. But it's now about 3 years since that photo and it could do with another coat. But I suppose 8 or 9 years isn't too bad in this climate of SW France, been down to -10° up to 40° and has poured with rain at times.

Songbird-1

Hello and welcome to the forum @hello866. How about a strategically placed small tree in the lawn so that when you look up, from the back of your house, it will “ cover” the neighbouring window when in leaf? Perspective comes into play with it. The proposed grey paint for the fence etc will look lovely. 

We are having ball in our garden after only moving in 14 months ago. We have taken time to see where the sun rises and sets, to get an idea what to plant and where, given that some plants like the sun and other prefer the shade. We haven’t any plan ,as such, the garden is evolving around our likes and preferences for plants, flowers and shrubs( we are getting a greenhouse put up as soon as the weather turns warmer) but it’s mightily exciting.

Good luck and enjoy. I don’t envy the joy of sorting the lawn out though! We are in the middle of doing that here, and it’s not a new build, but the soil and ground is as bad as a new build in places! All part of the enjoyment though😁