Upcycling business is coming up roses for village woman

The Waringstown woman established her unique home business while de-cluttering the shed. ‘The Posy Barn’ was born after clearing out the golf clubs, lawnmower and welly boots and opening up the space for a country flower studio in her garden.

Kathryn has always shared an interest in flowers and plants with her parents who owned Creative Gardens garden centre, located next door to Kathryn on Mill Hill.

Kathryn gathers a lot of foliage and flowers for her arrangements and weddings from her own and parents’ gardens as well as the hedges and lanes nearby.

“We go to a very small church in Magherally where they pretty much give me free reign with flowers,” She said.

“That’s where it started. As the business expanded I converted the shed into the Posy Barn. We’d turned the shed into a den for the teenage kids to have their own space when my elderly father-in-law came to live with us. We got it insulated and got electric put in. They didn’t like it because it had no wi-fi and it soon became a place where all the clutter accumulated.”

As well as a home for the flower studio the barn is also used by Kathryn’s husband Paul who sings bass in the church choir. “It’s good that he can go somewhere where no one else can hear him,” said Kathryn, a former primary school teacher.