How To Build a Greenhouse

Who has a greenhouse? ME! I am so happy about it; it’s the only thing I could think about at work today. When can I get the shelves in? How many trays do I have to fill up with seeds, etc.

The greenhouse is my birthday present, but we have had it for several weeks now. We decided to get started on it this weekend while we were at breakfast (mmm….La Madelein). Saturday we went to the specialty lumber yard (because, again, the cosmic donut hates me) and this place is the only one in town that carries 4x6’s. We bought the items we needed for the base and headed home.

And then we started calling people to come over and help. This is generally a good idea because if other people around, Doug and I won’t kill each other. My mom came over and then Wolf showed up.

The base was built in the garage and was then carried outside to the back yard and its FINAL resting place. I went to the soil & gravel supply store and bought ½ yard of pea gravel to put in. Sadly, it wasn’t enough and I had to go to Home Depot to get some more…by the bag…way more expensive…still hate Home Depot. Instead of men standing around treating me like I didn’t know what I was doing, there were crickets chirping…no one. My mom and I had to load up and lug around those freaking bags on our own with not so much as a peep from someone offering help. Not that I would have taken it, but geez…at least offer.

Note: I do not build things with wood that involve power tools. I don’t understand it and I did really well in math. But you say the word build or power tool and measurements and my brains start oozing out of my ears. I CAN NOT for the life of me figure that crap out! That being said, whenever Doug starts building something, I feel like I need to interfere help, which usually ends up with one of us sleeping on the couch…that would be me. In my defense, I wasn’t the one who screwed up the math this time. It was Wolf. I’m only ratting him out because I don’t need any help screwing things up. All of that boils down to the fact that we cut the wood too short on the 2x12 pieces. Well, that and the fact that the instructions SUCKED. PERIOD. After some rigging and another trip to Home Depot, we got it done.

Moving on…here are some pictures of the base with the gravel.


Sunday, Doug confidently told me that we (him, my mom, and I) could get the rest of it put up in one day. Clearly he has more faith than I do. So we got started. Here it is in the box:

First, we nailed the frame to the base. At the same time we realized that the greenhouse was longer than our base. WHAT!?!?! It measured out exactly! We fixed it with a 2x8. Bastards!

Then we got up the frame:

Then we had to put in the windows…this was when we kind of starting having a hard time. We didn’t tighten up stuff too much, so that it had some give. So the window didn’t want to cooperate. Our marriage started getting a little rocky at this point. So we moved on to the panels. I would rather have my kneecaps broken than go through that again. As a matter of fact, I am typing this with my pinkies because the rest of my fingers are bruised and near falling off from trying to get the damn clips around the panels.

But it was more than worth it!! Here is the finished product:


Happy Birthday to me!! Happy Birthday to me!! Oh wait…that’s not till April. Oh well…Happy Birthday to me!!