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Recycled Garden Retreat

6 ways to to use recycled and found materials to create a personal backyard getaway

Sharon Cohoon
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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.

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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.”

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The plants

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The bricks

Lisa salvaged several truckloads from various places. She chiseled the old concrete off each brick before using it in her garden.

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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.

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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.