Last time I mentioned I was going to build a greenhouse. Well, I am. I bought a kit for a 9×6 greenhouse. It came in 9 boxes:
Well, seven boxes and two really long tubes. It took me most of a morning to unpack and I ended up with a deck full of parts:
Plus a few things stacked behind the shed:
Which left a pile of empty boxes:
The instructions are about 156 pages long covering about 137 total assembly steps. I’m up to step 14 and this is what I have so far:
and from the side:
It’s taken me three mornings to get this far. There’s a lot left to do. I can only work on this in the mornings as it just too hot in the afternoons and … well my back starts complaining after about 20 minutes of work … sigh …
The next step is to level and square everything up then I can start putting on the side panels and the roof — it came with a roof — somewhere in one of those boxes were parts for a roof. Right now I figure it will take another week of mornings to complete. I couldn’t work on it today as we had major thunderstorms and the lightning kept me indoors.
That’s it for this week, if you need me, I’m looking for my back brace.
I can now say that I’m finally, totally, almost 99% done with the deck. I’ve got a little varnish to put on, but other than that, it’s done. Here’s kind of a timeline of the construction:
What was there before:
It was wobbly, creaked in the wind and provided no shade. I tore it down.
Then I found an irrigation pipe leak and it became a construction zone:
Yes, it was a lot of work and my knees still hurt thinking about it. I removed most of the pavers in this area.
Then I built a new deck:
This frame sits on concrete posts and supports the rest of the structure:
Here’s what it looked like in winter:
Now it’s done and here it is as we use it:
I added shade curtains on two sides. We mostly use this as a morning seating area by afternoon, it’s too hot and not even curtains help. There are also some solar lights that make it look nice at night. The last detail I added was a railing on two sides:
Don’t want to push back on a chair and find myself going head over heals on to the ground. This railing still needs a bit of varnish to protect it before winter. We use this most days to sit outside and drink our morning tea.
I have started on a new project — a greenhouse for Heather. More on that later. If you need me, I’m looking for a brush and that can of varnish I just bought.
It’s weird weather here in the high desert. Hot in the afternoons with occasional flash floods. No floods at my house but about a mile away six houses were badly damaged a couple of weeks ago. Last night it rained overnight and now it’s like a million degrees outside. We do yard work when it’s cool in the morning and then I retreat to my shop and the A/C. Here’s some of the things I’m working on:
I found this highland cow pattern in a scroll saw magazine and couldn’t resist. I actually stack cut three of these:
They didn’t show up well, but the long white thing is a row of bunny rabbit napkin rings I’m going to cut out. I’ll be selling these this fall at a church sale.
Then I felt like something different to make I found these on my favorite scroll saw pattern site, Sheila Landry Scroll Saw Patterns:
There are three different sayings and this is the first one. Likely these will become Christmas gifts. The wood is some walnut left over from a past project that I just wanted to use up.
And speaking of using up material, here are some planter boxes I made out of the deck boards I had left over from the deck build (not all pictured but I was able to make six before I ran out of material):
Here’s a close up:
The lawn we put these on is a area we’re changing from just grass to more of a shrub, wildlife garden. Over time we’ll take out the lawn and put in either rock or pavers. The soil in this area is so poor that nothing really grows in it but in a planter box they thrive. It will be a long term project but so far I think it has possibilities. We just need some sculptures and yard art.
I have plenty more stuff to make in between thunderstorms so if you need me, I’ll be going through the scrap pile looking for things to make into yard art.
Heather and I just got back from a couple of weeks in England visiting her family. Not too much to say other than we had a great time and her family is all doing well. I will say that as I get older, I’m finding traveling much harder than it used to be. Distances seem further, suitcases heavier and the effects of jetlag much worse. Still I love being there, just don’t like the traveling to there part.
Here are a few pictures:
One of the things we did was attend The Three Counties show — An English county fair. Animals, food, shows and fresh air. Nice day altogether.
Here they are getting ready for the horse jumping competition:
A couple of days later we took a walk on the hills above the show grounds and I got this picture of the from high above:
Turns out that the show grounds covers around 80 acres and looking down at it, I doubt we walked more than a 10th of it.
We had another nice day out walking around an old country house. Brockhampton House is managed my the National Trust. Here’s a picture of the outside. I didn’t take any pictures inside. I should have but didn’t
After visiting the family in the midlands we traveled down to London and took in a show in the West end:
Yup, the Lion King. Fun show and just plain good entertainment — nothing intellectually challenging just music, dancing and a few bad jokes — loved it. We went on a weeknight and discovered a lot of school groups joining us for the show. Their young excitement just added to the energy of the evening.
On our last day we visited the Victoria and Albert Museum. Heather had been wanting to see this for years and we weren’t disappointed. We took a guided tour, had lunch in the cafe and then walked around until we couldn’t walk much more. I was so interested in the exhibits that I only took this one photo of an exhibit on marquetry (one of my favorite woodworking arts):
We also managed a walk through Kensington Gardens, had dinner at a nice place near Paddington station. The hotel in London was small and overpriced but that’s true for most things in London. Still, we had a great time. I will admit that age is slowing us down a little and instead of trying to get around on the underground, we mostly opted for taxis as they got us point to point with the minimum of walking, stair climbing and rushing around.
That’s it for this week. Now it’s back to garden, woodshop projects, and all those quilt blocks I promised to make. If you need me, I’m studying my todo list.
Andrew's View of the Week 