Room of the Day: Potting and Puttering in Toasty Warmth

Winters can be extra tough on Minnesotans who love to garden. A small addition to her 1919 bungalow allows this passionate gardener to keep her hands in the dirt all year long while protecting her favorite potted plants. “We wanted to make the new addition look like it had always been a part of the home,” says architect Meriwether Felt. The potting room mimics a porch, but heated floors keep the homeowner toasty during the harshest cold months. Trimmed out in gorgeous oak, the room also doubles as a mudroom and pool house, and even contains a half bathroom that currently serves as a dog shower and changing area.

Photography by Susan Gilmore

The new porch looks as if it has always been a part of the 1919 bungalow. Materials like the dark-stained oak trim, the matching windows, the mix of metals and the basket-weave marble floor help it blend right in. The floor is laid atop low-voltage heating to keep the room toasty during fall, winter and spring.


The new room also fits in seamlessly on the exterior of the home as well (it’s on the right side of the house). It looks like a porch that’s always been there.

The homeowner lets the neighborhood kids swim in her pool; they use the potting room and its adjacent half bath as a pool house.


The homeowner overwinters plants like begonias in the potting room and drags in potted plants from around the pool, like fruit trees and firs, to help them survive the colder months. She also grows plants from seeds here.

“We mixed a lot of metals out here, like nickel, zinc, oil-rubbed bronze and antique brass,” says Felt. The powder-coated-metal shelf provides extra room for seedlings; it gets plenty of sunlight and breezes, thanks to the double-sash windows. Intricate brackets from Van Dyke’s are a great touch that fits in with the home’s pedigree.

Just out of view to the left is a half bath and a shower, which currently serves as a dog washing station. However, the homeowner wishes to age in place in this home, so should she ever need one-floor living, she can move her bedroom down to her first-floor office and use the bathroom here.

Ceiling fan: Acero by Minka Aire; floor tile: Opus Antic line, Walker-Zanger; counter: zinc, Raw Ürth



The zinc countertop is durable and looks as though it is original to the house, thanks to its wonderful patina. Felt opted for slatted drawer bottoms for the gardening tool drawers because they’re easier to clean off than solid, and because she and the homeowner didn’t want the drawers to look like regular cabinetry; they wanted the room to be unique.

More about zinc countertops

The basket-weave marble mosaic floor is often wet between the plant watering, the dog washing and the kids’ coming in from the pool. Felt added an intricate bronze drain with a Greek key pattern
around the edge of the room. “This really is a Swiss army knife of a room,” she says. “It has many uses.”

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