January 2017 in the UK has seen some windy weather, enough so to reduce our existing Halls greenhouse to a pile of aluminium struts and perspex sheets. After some righting activity I thought it was structurally solid. That same night the wind returned and crushed the structure flat. Time for a rethink..
So, greenhouses are expensive and the thought of dismantling an old one and transporting it to our allotment filled me with dread. Think of the smashed glass!
I’ve spent too much time lately perusing diy shed/cabin builds and enough time on http://www.cabinporn.com to convince me to purchase the book, which, by the way is excellent. The idea of a self thought build-as-you-go greenshed (pottinghouse) appealed to me especially using any timber and scrap materials I could find and whatever I could scavenge from the wrecked greenhouse.
First I cleared the site. It’s quite a nicely constructed plinth with a concrete centre and brick sides. A previous Tennant has spent considerable time with this.
My first win was from work. I found a building company had left two double size pallets the exact size that I needed (2.4m x 1m) to make the sides. I’ve been collecting pallets for a while now so I was able to piece together the walls…
Now. Unfortunately with the roof I needed to purchase the wood for the rafters. Not expensive but a shame. It’s a simple design but it works and its strong enough (trust me I’m an engineer).
The roofing material was lifted straight from the old greenhouse, there was more than enough to fit out the roof.
I stapled a strip of what looks like draft excluder between the rafter and the polycarbonate. It was lying around so I used it, should keep it watertight – not that it really matters.
The sides were panelled with laminate flooring which had been taken up from my grandparents flat. It’s not the most appropriate material for this purpose but again it was free.
To protect the laminate (maybe for a year or two) we painted using outdoor wood paint which we bought. That stuff is expensive.
A used door which we had taken from our bathroom and was destined for the skip fit really well with only a chop off the top.
So our greenshed is almost complete. There’s an auto opening window around the back and some shelving to make inside. Somehow I don’t think this one will blow away!