Nesting With Grace

by Brooke Christen

Hidden Garbage Storage and Air Conditioner Unit- Plus Small Shed

June 13, 2023

Last October we built a mini shed to hide our garbages and a privacy fence for our air conditioning units. One of you reminded me I never shared it! 9 months later, I am finally sharing how we strategically hid our garbages from our backyard and street view and also our air conditioning units from our pool views. I don’t know about you, but there are some things I just don’t want to see, if we can make it visually cohesive, then why not do it? And I can say 9 months later, we are happy with what we did! Ready to see it?

Outdoor Garbage Can Area Before-

This is a perfect example, we were hosting a big party, playing pickle ball and all I was noticing (besides the fun we were having) were the garbage cans in the backdrop. My goal was to create something to hide the garbage cans.

Outdoor Garbage Can Area After-

See any garbage cans? Me neither! Let’s get a closer look at how we made our garage cans do a magic trick.

Kevin built this mini shed, for extra storage and also to strategically hide the garbage cans! We basically have all our Christmas decor in here, don’t judge, the one holiday I decorate for!

This is the exact shed we ordered. All the pieces to the shed come on a pallet. Took Kevin about 6 hours to assemble it.

We painted it in Tricorn Black from Sherwin Williams, we used this gel stain (stain and sealer) to match our fence.

We did place the shed about 5 feet away from our fence so there was enough space for the garbage cans and room to walk around. It really blends in well with the rest of the black accents, I didn’t want it to stick out.

He also built a privacy fence to connect the shed to our other perimeter fence. He basically built it like he did our air conditioning privacy fence, that you can see below.

Air Conditioner Privacy Cover-

This was another area we wanted to disguise, our air conditioning units. Our air conditioning units are right by our pool and an area we walk by often, so we wanted to cover it up.

And this is the after! Kevin built this privacy fence, it took him a couple hours, great weekend project!

There is plenty of ventilation on the top and on the sides, since the wood slates are open. We have had it here about 9 months as well and everything has worked great! We can pick up and move the fence if needed, and it also stays in place, it has never fallen over.

Step 1– Measure the surrounding of the concert slab to find the length needed to cut the pine boards.
Step 2- Cut the pressure treated post (made for ground contact) to height, we just cut them in half, ours is 4′ tall.
Step 3- Cut the bottom pine boards to length, and start attaching the lowest board to the outside of the post using a nail gun (this step is what keeps the posts in place, since we did not attach to our cement, we wanted to be able to move it if needed).
Step 4- Once bottom boards are all attached to the posts start adding alternating board widths, we used 3″ and 6″ board to match our yard fence (we did use a saw to cut the boards).
Step 5- Make a spacer to ensure the gaps between boards are the same and that the boards are level, we used a 1/2 inch gap.
Step 6- After all your boards have been added, trim the corners and middle section. We used the same 5″ boards that are in the fence.

Our air conditioner privacy cover is Tricorn Black from Sherwin Williams, we used this gel stain (stain and sealer).

Let me know if you have questions on these projects! Get all the info on our exterior on this blog post.

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PRIVACY