That’s right, this is part III and the final installment of the Greenhouse project series. It’s been a fantastic ride, and I owe it all to my friends and family for getting me this far. Seriously though, building this greenhouse has been a really fun project to complete and will end up being extremely useful as well. At the end of my last post, I included a photo of the fully framed greenhouse, complete with door installed. Today, I want to highlight that door. I have spoken previously about always trying to reuse or repurpose things, rather than buying new. This not only helps prevent wasting resources building new items, it can also save a crap ton of money. The door that we installed on the greenhouse was found at a Habitat for Humanity Restore for $35. It’s a beautiful (and heavy) wood and glass door. Allyson and I were…

After completing the foundation, which I discussed last week, it was time to build the frame of the new greenhouse. In this case, I took some time before starting the build to sketch out detailed plans of the greenhouse. Here is the "short" wall, 12 ft long and 4 ft tall. This should allow for a row of vegetables to be planted right inside this wall. The "tall" wall, 12 ft long and about 7 ft tall. Notice the space on the right side for our door we bought from the Habitat ReStore. The side wall, about 6 1/2 ft long. I didn't add measurements for the inner studs, but measured them real time after installing the roof trusses. Sketching out the plans really helped me to visualize the design and make any adjustments I needed to before I made my first cut. Once again I was able to reuse…

Last week I introduced my failed attempt at a hoop house last year and the plans to build a new greenhouse this year. After finalizing the size and layout and then finishing up the full plans for the project, I could get started once again digging a foundation. Luckily for my back, this was a much simpler foundation to dig. I began by clearing out the area that the new greenhouse would sit and then dug trenches about 4 inches deep to set the 4”x4” Pressure Treated lumber that the greenhouse frame will sit on. For each of the walls I added 2 cinder blocks set deeper down into the dirt for added stability and to help with leveling the foundation. Halfway there. The sledgehammer was extremely helpful in tamping down the lumber to make everything level. The cinder blocks should add a bit of stability to the foundation. They…

I have a confession to make. It’s not really a confession since everyone already probably knows it, but I sometimes do not know what I am doing. Case in point: the original hoop house for our garden. It looks so good in this photo. Constructed with 2x4s, PVC pipe, and some conduit ribbing. I originally built this hoop house last summer. It was born out of necessity, and unfortunately not a lot of planning went into its construction. Here’s the full story. Allyson and I had worked very hard building garden boxes and planting a bunch of vegetables in the yard of our home that we had just bought. After a lot of work the cherry tomato plants were beginning to bear fruit, and one tomato in particular was just about ripe. This thing was gorgeous, perfectly round and about to be perfectly red. All I wanted was to come…