Chip and Jo’s four children are eager gardeners-in-training and have helped their mom tend to her roses, herbs and succulents. "Now that the kids are a little older, it’s the perfect time to build a larger garden and a garden shed," she said. Jo being Jo, the "garden shed" she envisions belies its humble name: She plots out a 300-400-square-foot space to house her library of gardening books, indoor plants and a large work table that can double as a dining space. "I don’t wanna eat anywhere there’s insects and bugs, unless they’re in the sandwiches we’re eating," Chip said. "Maybe shed is the wrong word," Joanna conceded. "Maybe it’s garden house."

Bordered with a simple, classic white fence, this just-finished space blends in with the rest of Chip and Jo’s property.

With antique doors, textured-edge shingles and a porch built with wood salvaged from a barn’s threshing floor, the potting shed pairs beautifully with the Gaines’s 120-year-old home. "Jo really is funny," Chip said. "She wants the challenge regardless, so if it’s a new house she wants to make it look old, and if it’s an old house of course she wants to make that one look new."

Joanna had been saving this massive antique for the perfect space—which just happened to be her own. "Really the whole project was built around this window," Chip noted. "Was it worth it?" "It was worth it," Jo said.