Lisa's playhouse
Lisa Phipps has a knack for using found materials in fresh ways.
She started recycling in earnest when she moved to a small farmhouse in Port Orchard, Washington. Like Virginia Woolf, Lisa wanted a room of her own. Money was tight, so she and her husband, Frank, used salvaged materials to build a shed.
The more you recycle, the more the ideas flow, Lisa says. “You just have to loosen up and have fun.”
Click ahead to see what she did.
Bargain door & color
Bargain door Lisa got hers from a church that was being torn down. “It cost me all of $5,” she says. The shutters, shelf bracket, and candelabra on the shelf were all garage-sale finds.
Color The cottage’s shocking chartreuse color was one of those girlfriend-plus-wine inspirations, and it proved to be one of Lisa’s best decisions. Like a parrot in the jungle, the shed seems to recede in the garden because of its vivid hue. “From most angles,” she says, “it disappears into the trees.”
The bricks
Lisa salvaged several truckloads from various places. She chiseled the old concrete off each brick before using it in her garden.
Water trough
Lisa turned the trough for horses she once owned into a water garden. Tucked among ferns and edged with baby’s tears, it contains water iris.
Treasure trove
An awkward spot where several paths intersect displays some of Lisa Phipps’s favorite finds, including a red glass slipper, a porcelain doll’s head, and a Victorian boot hook.
The pieces were set into wet cement.
