Cruise through a few intown neighborhoods and you'll see them there, scraggly, old and forlorn, lurking near the edge of side yards or hiding behind overgrown shrubs in the back.

Left to their own devices, they can pose a danger, but with some attention, and a little care, they can become productive members of neighborhoods and communities.

Copyright 2007 William P.Wright (ENLARGE)

In 'Sheds,' Mary Martin and her cockapoo Wallace were gracious hosts, serving guests champagne, cookies in strawberries in her 'little house.'

Photos Sidebar: 'Little house' brought fond memories of family | Old shed might have new potential More Garden stories Holly's symbolism at Christmas goes way back  Mushrooms fill a variety of vital roles  Explorers brave Asian wilderness to gather seeds  Native grass gets intervention at Panola Mountain  Landscaping book a helpful design reference  Back to Home & Garden page

We're talking about sheds.

In her new book, "Stylish Sheds" (Clarkson Potter, $30), author Debra Prinzing, along with photographer William P. Wright, takes on the idea of the garden or potting shed and how it can be reclaimed or reimagined.

She and Wright traveled from coast to coast exploring and photographing sheds humble and grand, generations-old and brand spanking new. They interviewed their owners and sometimes the architects who helped build the hideaways.

Among the featured structures are a few from metro Atlanta. One of them, in Buckhead, is a beautiful re-creation of a childhood treasure, a log cabin playhouse that belonged to the late Mary Martin. Martin, an artist and designer who studied painting at the University of Georgia's School of Fine Arts, spent many hours in her replica before her death in May.

Also featured is a series of sheds, breezy and cozy, that dot 12 wooded acres of Brenda and Gerald Lyle's Douglas County property.

Both Martin's and the Lyles' structures are as well-appointed as any home. But not every example in Prinzing's book is as lavish, supplying inspiration for homeowners with old garages or outbuildings on their lots. With a little elbow grease, that 1930s lean-to might actually have some life left in it.

Q: What was it about sheds that captured your attention?

A: Anyone who likes to garden or likes being in the garden is predisposed to having a shed of some kind. And I'd always admired potting sheds and little structures that could be fanciful. I'm drawn to beautiful and little pieces of architecture.

I'm not talking about the prefabricated, Rubbermaid storage bins with the door, but anything charming that defines the garden. I came at this thinking these would be potting sheds, but I realized there are so many other passions that draw people into these 100-square-foot spaces.

Q: When you say the term shed, you generally think dilapidated. So many in the book are anything but.

A: It does connote something old and neglected. But there's a spectrum. There are some very humble structures in there. The one in Santa Cruz [Calif.] is about 49 square feet. It's a 7-by-7-foot potting shed that [the owner] converted into her office. She's a Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press reporter, and I think she did that whole renovation for $1,500.

Then on the other end of the spectrum you've got that gorgeous glass and steel conservatory in Manhattan. You want to live there! So these sheds range from $1,500 to $150,000.

Q: What about covenants if you live in a neighborhood with them? And what about city codes? It's hard to just build something without a permit.

A: I'm a huge proponent of utilizing all the space that's available to you, because renovating an old garage or potting shed is often so much more affordable than building an addition. That said, there are certainly people out there who are doing this kind of renovation without a permit, off the grid or beneath the radar, but it's best to check your municipal codes and zoning requirements.

Usually there's a dimension under which you don't need a permit, so sometimes if you don't want to hassle with the codes, you just build it slightly under that size. Or some people create their structure so it can be knocked down, like a greenhouse, or like ours in Seattle; we put it on a gravel foundation. You can do things that fit within existing code and not create a whole lot of expense for yourself.

Q: With so many people moving back into core cities, people often tear down the little house and the little detached garage that won't hold the big SUV. Your book seems anti-big.

A: People are drawn to these backyard spaces as a way to hit the pause button and step away from demands of their everyday life and seek sanctuary. A place to step out of the rat race and escape even if it's for half an hour.

The act of walking outside of your home and crossing into nature and entering a new space, tiny as it may be, it has some kind of meditative quality to it. It gets away from the computer and phone and all the electronics and detaches from the over-Blackberried world.

Q: So we have more space than we need?

A: Or we have more space than we realize we have. Mary Martin lived in Buckhead in a very elegantly appointed home, but where she was happiest was out in her little cabin puttering and painting and writing and sipping iced tea on the screened porch. To have that little framed print of her pink playhouse when she was a child on her desk. It's so poignant to me that she kind of went full circle in her life and was recapturing those memories of being in the garden as a child and giving herself that adult version of it [with her shed].

Q: So is this about the small-house movement that's gathering steam?

A: People say, "Sheds, I don't get it." And I'll say, "Listen, did you have a fort or a treehouse?" For me it was a blanket draped over the card table and you'd go play underneath. These are just adult versions of that experience. I think everybody can relate to that sense of your secret hideaway.