06 Sep How a Stilla shed made Emilia and Scott’s backyard a better place

When Emilia and Scott McMillan moved into their forever home a couple of years ago, they had quite a bit of stuff to put into the old shed.

They recently replaced it with a new Stilla shed, and they couldn’t be happier.

“We had a really old, rusty, small shed,” says Emilia.

“It was on the ground, too, so it didn’t keep things dry all the time,” Scott adds.

“There was a lot of stuff that we put in there,” he says, “like the lawnmower and tools, but also other stuff we needed to store.

“The shed was too small to fit all of it so it was sort of overflowing.

“You had to pull a lot of stuff out to get to what you wanted, and it was pretty hard to find stuff because it was just such a big jumble of stuff in there.”

In fact, Emilia found it too much of a challenge, and says she left it to Scott.

“I actually avoided it completely. I thought: ‘there’s no way I’m going to find anything in there, because everything was on top of other things’.

“I kind of gave up in advance, thinking I’m not going to go looking for anything because surely I’m not going to be able to find it, and I used to let Scott take care of it.”

With the arrival of their third child, it was time to get their backyard in better order, and one of the key changes was to get a decent shed.

They went with the beautiful Stilla Willow 12×8 Western Red Cedar shed with a heavy-duty floor kit, which Scott assembled – with a little expert help.

“It’s a breath of fresh air to have space to actually walk around within the shed and not just have everything right up in your face when you opened the door,” Emilia says.

“It’s a place that we even let our kids go into now.”

With some decent shelving inside, Scott is much happier knowing there’s a place for everything.

“When I first met Scott, one thing I learnt about him fairly quickly was that he was extremely organised and pedantic,” Emilia explains.

“Much as the old shed started off being organised, there just wasn’t enough space to do justice to the way he could envision it and would like it to be.

“But now in this new shed, the bikes are all in one section, the paint’s all in one section, the tools are all in one section, there are little containers and tubs, and you can see straight away that things belong together.

“It’s a much better reflection of Scott’s personality and helps us feel more at home.”

Scott says anyone thinking about getting a better shed should do it.

“It just makes everything a lot easier, having enough space to keep all the things that you need in there and be able to store things in a way that you can access everything.

“You don’t have to keep piling up things in the house that would be better off out in the shed,” he adds.

And let’s not forget the aesthetics.

“Compared to the old shed it makes the whole yard look a lot better,” Scott enthuses.

“Rather than an eyesore it’s like a highlight of the backyard.

“It’s a big improvement.”

The kids think so, too. With a three-year-old, a two-year-old, and a nine-month-old, Emilia and Scott are now thinking that they might need to get them a ‘shed’ of their own.

Now if they can just figure out how to put a Stilla cubby house in the backyard and hide it from the kids until Christmas morning ….