Details

The weather is changing and it is definitely October!

The project is almost finished, except for some trim pieces and that door, but we will have to wait for a couple of warm, dry days to work on it, it needs to be sanded, painted and of course, installed. 

As the greenhouse is mostly waterproof and quite sheltered from the winds there are opportunities to complete some details inside the structure and here are photos of some of them :

The shelf in the front right corner, two brackets and a piece of wood, we will be making a couple more brackets in the next few days and placing a very similar shelf in the back right corner.

The two shelves on the left hand side with pegboard between them, a place to hang all the tools. These windows are the sliding ones, so plenty of additional ventilation will be available in the summer months.

It was a blustery, wet day and we installed the edge and painted it, once again we are running out of paint, but there are only pieces of trim to be done, the door will be white and we already have good quality Dulux exterior paint for that, so that is covered, or will be after we have sanded it.

Less Air, more Wood

The end of the week, smashing weather for October yet rather chilly first thing.

What we like to call the gable ends are now completed, except for a few trim pieces that have been painted and will be installed in the next couple of days. It seems that we are always "almost there" as we also have to install some lower retaining blocks inside, along the lower part of the gable, plus more shelving.

However, we are very close to addressing the one last big hole in the greenhouse, and also, as you may have noticed, we should clean those windows.

Installed, well almost

The four end gable windows are now installed on the top edge, additional wood, brackets and screws will be added over the next few days and the OSB will be cut to further fill in the holes. 

In addition, a shelf on the right hand side has been installed and a sheet of pegboard awaits.

You can see the peppers that have moved in, they have become a little bit of a nuisance as we have to shuffle them around out of our way, however, they are very welcome to stay and we will see if the greenhouse will extend their season so they can provide food for our table.

The final holes in the gable ends will be filled with wood of some sort, probably the free OSB that we picked up early in the project, we may also add some air vents.

Cured!

The four fabricated windows, waiting to be painted :

These will be installed either Wednesday or Thursday, weather looks like it will be good and the four will be the last windows to be fitted.

Today we filled some holes in the greenhouse walls, installed more "nail strips" on the installed windows and painted the above, a few hours of work and we are both a bit tired after it. It will be interesting tomorrow to see if we can gather the enthusiasm together to get out there again.

Waiting for the cure

The end gable windows are still clamped and curing, We checked our test piece today and the glue works, but we will leave them for another 24 hours before painting and then hopefully fitted by the weekend.

Today it was quite busy. On marketplace a local was giving away some wood, so we arranged to pick up this morning, after that it was a little cool so we decided to wait until the afternoon before starting some essential preparation work.  

All the other windows are installed now, except for that polycarbonate one in the middle, which will be retained tomorrow with some wood strips, the amazing thing was that a single 2' x 4' piece of polycarbonate was good for two end gable windows and the remaining piece fits the gap exactly, another one of those sizing coincidences on this job.

Some of the wood we picked up this morning is perfect for the top retainers for the patio door windows, so they were cut to size and painted today, along with other essential pieces to be installed before the "final four" windows. In addition, an assortment of pressure treated 2x4 for free was very welcome for filling in some of the holes, when they are all done we know that we will be starting with the door.

"Put wood int' 'ole"

In addition, the greenhouse has some residents now, the peppers are now squatting which would never have happened if we had fitted a door.

Bring all the clamps

After making a cardboard template of the gable end and test fitting on all four, we cut some polycarbonate with the measured angle and created frames on both sides, the wood being attached to the plastic using exterior carpet glue, very sticky stuff, bought from a marketplace vendor for two whole dollars.

They will be clamped while the glue cures, we may add a couple of screws later.

 Like we said, all the clamps.

We noticed that they look like old fashioned tennis raquet heads in the straightening frame.

Window Ledges

A couple of days when a lot has been done but nothing feels like it has changed.

Although yesterday we agreed that we are getting there and that is very evident by the dwindling amount of materials we have left, we originally bought a box of 900 screws, 3" long, and we have perhaps 40 left, we estimate there are over 1100 screws in the structure so far, and not finished yet.

The trim work on the left hand side is done and painted with half of the exterior stain that remains, we probably have an inch or so left in the tin, it will all be used. As you can see, there are short lengths of trim to be added on the bottom windows, they're not really needed, but we will add them, same is true around the big "patio door" windows, lots of little jobs and everything needs a lick of paint.

Added yesterday were the window ledges inside.

The inside needs painting, we have some of that interior latex left, so that will do, we will painting the window ledges, which are pressure treated wood, with the base color, we have some of that left and it is "good stuff" and we do not want to waste it.

The definition of "good stuff" is oil based stain that smells unhealthy and cannot be cleaned up with soap and water, nowadays the stuff they call paint thinner does not work either, we think there is an inch of that stain left in the tin and it will be used so that we only take empty containers to the disposal yard.