Text by Hannah Nance
When Ragan Cain purchased her charming home, dubbed Breeze Hill Farm, in 2016, the pool house in the backyard needed more than a little sprucing up. But with inspiration and creativity overflowing, Ragan, the voice behind The Frances Flair blog, got to work giving the dilapidated shed a whole new lease on life.
Ragan felt the space would make the perfect potting shed, but she didn’t want to lose the practicality of the pool house. “I wanted a spot for friends and family to escape from the sun—somewhere that could hold up against wet feet and children’s Popsicle sticks,” she says.
With this in mind, Ragan made sure that nothing in the cottage was too precious, opting for antiques that donned patina from years of frequent use. To find the perfect pieces, Ragan enlisted the help of friend and antiques store owner Barbara Atkins. Barbara sourced both the sink and the workbench in the potting shed, two pieces that bring beautifully aged elegance to the space.
The newly redesigned structure also gave Ragan a spot to let her love for terra-cotta pots run wild. From an urn filled with miniatures in the fireplace to overflowing shelves on one end of the shed, the pots make appearances all throughout the space. Their orange hue brings beautiful contrast to the deep-green latticed walls, a feature Ragan loves about the shed, and complements the original stonework of the fireplace.
Right outside the potting shed, outdoor seating tucked under the shade of trees is the ideal spot for friends and family to relax by the pool. With the indoor-outdoor style of the tiny cottage space, the new design is exactly what Ragan was looking for.
