Winter is upon us here in da great white nort, eh, so I have no garden to write posts about at this point in time. I've been writing about other things, and making a few videos for Dtube to continue to have content for my page. I decided that now might be as good of a time as any to look back at one of my garden projects from several years ago. Perhaps it might even inspire someone else to start their own greenhouse project.
This is the first greenhouse that I built at the place that I've been living for the past 9 or so years. This greenhouse has been since replaced by a larger greenhouse, but this first one served me well for several years. I actually started building this greenhouse in the fall of 2011. I had been thinking about starting on the project all fall, but didn't have much time to work on it. I managed to get the back wall built before it got cold, but I didn't get the post for the south east corner put in until the ground was already starting to freeze. The north east corner post for the back of the greenhouse had been part of the garden fence, and one of the other garden fence posts lined up with where I wanted the west side front post to be, so that was how big the greenhouse ended up being. The side post that became the front post on the west side was 6 feet out from the back posts, so I ended up with a greenhouse that was 8 feet by 6 feet in floor size.
I dug the hole for the remaining front post through a bit of snow and an inch or so of frozen dirt to get the post put in. Needless to say, it was a pain in the butt to dig that hole.
You can see that the fence in that area was at an angle before I started on the greenhouse.
Because the one post was set in the ground at an angle due to being part of the fence, I had to cut notches in the side of the post to put my 2X4s into for the front wall. In this picture, I have the 2X4s in place for the front wall. For some reason, I used 10 foot 2X4s on the lower part of the wall and had to cut them off. I don't remember why now, but I probably just used them because I had them laying around at the time.
After that was done, I started on the roof. I built the framework for the roof from 2X3s except for the ridge board which was a 2X4.
Because the front of the greenhouse faces south, I made the back wall and the back part of the roof from plywood instead of clear panels. All the light comes in from the sides and the front, so there was no need for clear panels on the north facing wall and roof. I used aluminum storm windows that I had gotten for the front wall. I made the bottom of the front wall solid because it was easier to fit the storm windows that way. I didn't have the east side wall framing in place at the time I took this picture.
Here's a look at the west wall framing with the side window in place. This window was another aluminum storm window. This picture gives you an idea of how big, or small, this greenhouse was.
I built the greenhouse with a door on each end so that I could walk through the greenhouse instead of having a dead end. That also made it easy to ventilate the greenhouse in the summer, just leave both doors open and let the wind blow through.
It's interesting that I didn't take any other pictures of the process of building this greenhouse. I have a lot of pictures from inside the greenhouse, but very few from the outside until 2015 when I started building an expansion to the greenhouse. This is what it looked like in 2015.
I ended up having to build both doors for the greenhouse in order for them to fit in the frames on each end. Both doors were different size because of what I had available for the window space for each door. The doors were positioned toward the north wall to allow a path through the back of the greenhouse, with all the pots in the front by the windows.
Here's a picture from 2013 of one of my early aquaponics setups. Hopefully this picture will give you an idea of how much space I had to work with inside the greenhouse. It was always pretty crowded in there before I added on to it.
In 2015 I added another 6 foot by 8 foot space to the greenhouse, effectively doubling the space. Then in 2016, we decided to build a new, bigger greenhouse with a higher roof in the front, and tear down the old greenhouse. Those projects are best left to other posts, so as to not make this post too big.
Thanks for stopping by my page to check out this post! I hope you found it interesting!
I just popped over to see what you were up too and seen your greenhouse :) We've been talking about building one ourselves. Maybe we will get around to it soon. You did a great job, especially to be working in that kind of weather. It's really cute and looks sturdy :) Good Job :)
Thank you!
Yes, that was a bit of a project working in the cold. We've since built a larger greenhouse and torn this small one down. I had written several posts about building the bigger one, but that was months ago. I should probably write another couple of posts about building the current greenhouse, I can show the process easier now than I could when I first wrote about it.
That is one really cute greenhouse!! Love it!! Weren't your fingers cold building that in the snow? Excuse my ignorance - we don't get snow where I live!
Thank you!
Yeah, everything was cold when I was out in the snow trying to make some progress on the greenhouse. :-)
I love that first greenhouse! I am always on the lookout for something I can feasibly do myself! Being in Florida, there's not so much a need for one, but I would still like to have one to start seeds in :)
If you just want a seed starter greenhouse, this is just about the right size for that. :-)
It looks sturdy ! and really green. Also the material looks simple! I think I can pass this to one of my brothers and see if he's interesting in building a small green house like that!
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Thank you!
Yes, I tried to build it as simply as possible so it wouldn't cost too much to build.
Looking good, good job... I wish I had a little land to make one
Thank you! :-)