What I Did Last Week

According to the calendar, spring is near.  Weather-wise last week, spring was very evident ... temperatures far above average, with light breezes, some cloudy days and some sunny days.  You will not be surprised when I tell you that I spent a good part of the week doing things outdoors.

1.  At this time of year, my main focus is on my responsibilities as the manager of the rose collection at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond.  (Our rose volunteer day is March 19, six days from today.)  In February and early March, I use whatever nice days we have to go to the cemetery to visit all of the roses to assess their condition and to note make notes about what work they need.  As of now, all of the roses have been evaluated, and their location is verified on the cemetery map.  All that's left to do is to type up my notes and turn them into instructions for each volunteer team next Saturday.

Dorothy was helping me work on the map.

2.  Last weekend, I attended the American Rose Society Colonial District Pre-Spring Meeting.  I love having the opportunity to get away to be with my rose peeps, to listen and learn at the presentations, and to catch up with friends.  During one of the breaks, I was approached by the District Director and asked if he could appoint me to be the Old Garden Rose Chair for the District.  I agreed ... the appointment was made ... and now we'll see exactly what this position entails.  I'm pretty excited about it.

3.  On the way home from the rose meeting, I stopped by one of my favorite stores, Old Covesville Store on Route 29 south of Charlottesville.  There are always amazing and wonderful things in there for sale.  On this trip, I spotted a large Steiff tiger that is similar to a smaller one that I had when I was a child.  No hesitation ... I scooped that tiger up and happily brought him home with me.

Here he was in the store.

and on the seat of my car.

4.  I have known for a while that the windows of my greenhouse needed some work.  The glazing compound in most of them is dry and cracked, and largely missing on some of the windows.  (This can be the downside of using salvaged windows for a project.)  This winter, as some of the window panes began to fall out, I knew that the job of reglazing the windows needed to be pushed to the top of my list.  Turns out, when these windows were made in the 1960s, the manufacturer only used glazing compound to hold in the glass ... without glazing points to mechanically pin the panes into place.  

The only way to finish a project is to get started, and I did just that on Wednesday.  It takes me about an hour to do one window ... to scrape out the old glazing compound, reset the glass, and put down the new glazing compound.  This is a project that I will work on a little at a time.  Hopefully, by the end of summer, I will have most of the 46 windows done.  (My REAL dream is to finally have the greenhouse glazed, sided and trimmed, and painted by fall.)

Not perfect, but good enough.  I will scrape and prime the windows once the glazing compound cures.

I saw this reflection as I was working.

5.  My other outside project is the reclamation of the Rambler Fence.  It's the same situation as the rest of my gardens, where weeds sprouted in unnatural concentrations and took over in what seemed like the blink of an eye.  With the Ramblers, there was the added complication of their rampant growth ... and they became hay stacks on the fence while my attention was elsewhere for the past couple of years.

Little by little, I have been cutting back the Ramblers and training what remains onto their wires on the fence.  They are small and kind of pitiful right now.  I have also dug out a couple of duplicate Ramblers, and one that had Rose Rosette Disease last year, and replaced them with ones from my stock pile of pots.

When I originally designed this garden in 2007, I planted Tea roses between and in front of the Ramblers.  Some Tea roses can be a bit winter tender ... the winters of 2013 and 2014 were brutal and losses to these roses were catastrophic.  Instead of lamenting their loss, I see this as an opportunity and space to plant eight new roses in the empty spots.

Ramblers cut back, dead Tea roses dug up, and the beginnings of landscape fabric laid in this part of the garden.

Yesterday, I finished the landscape fabric and laid mulch around the roses themselves.  I have to get more mulch in order to finish ... which should happen over the course of the next week.

6.  With nice weather comes convertible season!  I was out in my Mustang twice last week, practicing with its new stick shift.  I'm getting much better at it ... and I almost don't panic if I have to stop and then pull out on an incline.

I have been using the uphill part of our long driveway to practice.

All in all, it was a VERY good week.  How about you ... what have you been up to?

The Greenhouse: From the Start to Where It Stands Now

My greenhouse is finished ... at least to the point that it is usable and functional and will get me through the winter.  It's been a long road, with unexpected delays and challenges.  I am incredibly satisfied with the way it's turned out so far.  To celebrate, let's step back in time and take a look at this project from the beginning.
 This greenhouse is a testament to recycled materials and out-of-the-box thinking.  For the whole summer of 2008, I prowled Craig's List and salvage yards collecting windows and other materials.  Once I had enough, I used graph paper to design the greenhouse structure to best use the available materials.  (The greenhouse is 12 feet wide and 20 feet long.)

It's hard for me to believe that this is the first photo I have of the greenhouse construction.  Normally, I would have details of how we sited it, construction of the foundation (made from salvaged 6x6 timbers), and so on.  At this point, the foundation is finished, the gravel floor is in place, and we have two walls up.

I hired a handyman to help me with the initial framing.  I hate ladders (though I use them when I have to) and it seemed most prudent to use skilled labor to help get the frame up quickly and efficiently.  This decision wasn't without problems, because it was difficult for him to come into a project like this ... an out-of-the-box design wasn't what he was accustomed to doing. 

The handyman came in most 'handy' for the roofing and skylights ... since I avoid ladders, remember.  The skylights are another Craig's List find, salvaged by a builder on a remodeling job he was working on.

At this point, it's late October 2008.  The weather is turning cold and I have to get this greenhouse into service to hold my roses over the winter, and the handyman and I are having a disagreement about how to best install the salvaged windows to close up the building.  MY project ... MY design ... no arguments allowed.  Because I was running out of time with winter approaching, and it was more important to USE the greenhouse than anything else.  I sealed the building up by wrapping the walls in greenhouse plastic, and this is how it stayed for THREE years.

FAST FORWARD to this summer.  

The greenhouse, still wrapped in plastic, was perfectly functional ... but less than the lovely element in the landscape that I envisioned it could be. I vowed that was the year that I would FINALLY install the windows and finish the greenhouse according to my original plan. 

I stripped off the plastic, removed the window framing that had been installed by the handyman, and I set off to finish this project alone.

Functional, but ugly.

I can see daylight.

Ready for action!

What a view!

Each window fits into a specific opening, and I laid them out ahead of time to make sure that the plan would go together like I imagined it.  Having gathered sets of windows from entire houses helped this process immensely ... all of the windows I used are 28 inches wide, with groups of them the same length, so they could be arranged fairly logically.  (The graph paper plan was a BIG help figuring this out!)

To actually install the windows, I first screwed 1x6 pressure treated boards to the outside of the 4x4 frame members, creating a 1-inch lip in each opening on the inside of the greenhouse.

The windows on the top row are each screwed to this lip from the inside, using 2-inch exterior grade screws.

The second row of windows is hinged so they can open to ventilate the building in summer.  I screwed a strip of 5/4 board to the bottom of the top window, clamped the second window into place, and installed two galvanized hinges on each bottom window.

Instead of using hardware to keep the windows latched, I put a screw in each bottom corner form the inside to hold the window closed.  In summer, I will simply remove the screws and prop the windows open.

There's that view again!

Bottom row ... finished.

It was the same process for all four walls of the greenhouse.

In order to use the smaller windows I had on hand, the north wall has three rows of windows.  The top and bottom row are fixed, and the middle row is hinged.

Here is the view toward Hartwood Winery on the north side of the greenhouse.

The space below the windows on each wall is covered with plywood.  I would have loved to continue the windows all the way to the floor, but having the plywood base makes a much stronger and more stable building.  Each opening below the windows needed a little bit of framing to support the plywood.

It took a couple of days, but soon all four walls of the greenhouse had their plywood and things were beginning to look almost finished.

Next step ... trim and corner boards.  These decorative elements are actually functional, sealing up the spaces between the windows and the plywood.

The corner boards are not pressure-treated, but they have two coats of primer on their back sides to protect them from the moisture inside the greenhouse.

Last week, The Husband helped me install the ceiling fan ... which creates air circulation and keeps the expensive propane-heated air off the ceiling and down by the roses where it belongs.  I spent an afternoon caulking and weather-stripping the cracks around the windows, and the greenhouse is finally finished ... for now, that is.

Next year, when the weather is warm, I get to do the fun part of this job.  The plywood in the gable ends will come out and be replaced with glass ... those large spaces are framed to accept the Gothic church windows you saw at the beginning of this post.  The plywood panels at the bottom of each wall will be covered with decorative shingles (left over from construction of our green garage that you can see in the background of some of my photos.)  Each window opening will get decorative molding, inside and outside.  The last thing will be paint ... I wonder what color?

The inside of the greenhouse is still a mess, but the roses are all tucked inside to safely spend the winter.

It's been a struggle to stay on track to get the greenhouse to this point.  Many times, other projects have tempted me ... but I did the best I could to stay focused and see this one through.  Though it's not truly, completely FINISHED, it's finished to the best of my ability for now ... and it feels really, really good to check this one off of my list.

If any of you who are reading this would like some advice or encouragement for your own project, I will be happy to see what I can do to help.  Building this greenhouse was an exercise in using what I had on hand, devising construction methods to make best use of salvaged materials, and I love the results.

If you would like to see more of the process that went into the construction of the greenhouse, click on the 'Greenhouse Windows' tag below to see all the 2011 blog entries that I posted as construction was happening.

 

Finishing What I Start

If you visit with me here regularly, you have probably noticed that I tend to be all over the place with projects and commitments.  It's my nature to have a lot of things going on at once.  When I was younger, I had the energy and the motivation to juggle all the commitments pretty successfully.  Now, the same habits are a recipe for chaos ... and my goal for 2012 is to reduce the chaos, finish what I start, and make time to find more enjoyment in what I do. 

The focus of this goal right now is my greenhouse ... are you all SURE you're not tired of hearing about this yet?  My old self would have long ago packed this up and moved onto something else, convinced that it was finished enough for now, though there are lots of little bits left to do.  As difficult as it is for me, I am forcing myself to stick with it so I can close the door on a finished project before moving onto something else.

In order to do this without being too hard on myself, I am breaking down the remaining unfinished bits into small jobs that can be finished and checked off the list.  Yesterday's project ... the ceiling fan.  With the new propane tank installed and the heater running at night, the ceiling fan is absolutely essential to get the expensive hot air off the ceiling and circulating among the plants where it belongs. 

I avoid ladders and electricity when I can, so The Husband (who doesn't mind ladders and actually understands and enjoys electrical challenges) worked on this with me.   

(Look at this piece of literature from inside the fan box.  The fan was made in China, but don't they have spell check there?)

Fan installed, awaiting its blades ... and stapling that pesky wire into place.

Action shot.  The blades are on, the fan works perfectly ... still need to staple that wire.

As we were finishing, my dad surprised us by coming by to wish us a Happy New Year, and to bring us two bottles of German wine he found at Aldi.  Thank you, Daddy!

With the fan in place and operational, The Husband left me to put away the tools and continue with my To Do list.  Next item on the list ... weather stripping and caulk.  With 40+ windows in this greenhouse, each one of them has the potential to leak air if they are not sealed around the edges.  I spent the last hour of daylight caulking small openings and stuffing varying sizes of foam backer rod into the larger ones.  In that time, I finished one wall ... and I was pleased with the day's accomplishments.

The 'old' Me wants the excitement of starting something new ... learning a new skill, or having a new 'whatever' to work on.  The 'new' Me knows that this habit has gotten me into the state I'm in now, and my goal is to put an end to it.  When I start something (which won't be for a very long time), I will finish it 100% before moving on to the next thing.  This doesn't mean that I won't have multiple balls in the air at once ... I couldn't possibly change THAT drastically ... but I will be more conscious of what I have going on, more thrifty with my time, and I will work toward a life with less chaos.

... and I dream that one day I will be able to find whatever it is I'm looking for without having to call out a search party ... this may have to be a goal for another year.

Happy New Year, Everyone!



Greenhouse: Are You Tired of This Yet?

Remember the movie "Groundhog Day"?  That's what it's feeling like here lately.  I get up each day and do the same thing as the day before ... work on the greenhouse. 

The Husband didn't have time to help me yesterday, so I was by myself.  I started the work day by finishing the plywood sheathing at the bottom of the building.  It's that piece to the right of the door ... which is actually four small pieces, since I'm trying to make use of my scraps to keep from having to cut a new piece of plywood.

Next step, cornerboards.  This is the final piece of major construction, and it will seal up the last of the large holes in the greenhouse.  By the end of the day, three of the four corners were finished.  I would have done the fourth corner, but I ran out of screws.

Today will be like every other day this week.  You can find me working on the greenhouse as soon as the sun comes around and temperatures rise enough for me to work outside comfortably.  First, though, I'll make a quick trip to the store to get more screws, a 1x6, and some caulk.  There are 49 windows in this building, and I have to caulk inside and outside of each one of them ... to seal any small gaps to keep the warm air inside and the cold air outside.

Are you as ready as I am to move onto other things? 

With one more full day of work, I honestly still think that I can be finished with the construction part of this project ... at least till spring, when I can do the fun, decorative part with trim and paint.  I will need to work for a day or two to get the inside prepped for plants, but it's warm and sunny inside and working there is a delight.  

Wish me luck.

Greenhouse ...The Final Push Toward Winter

We have been really fortunate here in Virginia during November, enjoying above average temperatures for most of the month.  This has helped a bit to ease my stress over the delays I have faced in getting the windows in my greenhouse installed, so I can have the building reasonably sealed against the cold (and the plants tucked safely inside) before winter REALLY arrives. 

It's been almost two weeks since I have had a chance to work on this.  Our Greyhounds Rock canine cancer benefit was two weeks ago, and I was in Key West on vacation last week.  Yesterday was a beautiful day ... perfect for trying to get the east wall of the greenhouse finished. 

I left this wall for last because it's the one that requires the most ingenuity, head scratching, and time.  The large spaces in the framing on this wall are sized to use windows that I already have, but it leaves a narrow, odd-sized space at each corner to fill.  I don't have windows for these spaces yet, but I will ... I know I will find something.  In the meantime, the openings have to be sealed and for now I'm using pieces of greenhouse plastic.  I will also put plastic in the space over the door.

These screw holes will all be filled and sanded before the greenhouse is painted next spring.

With the plastic stapled in place, and the trim boards installed, I made fairly quick work of installing the first two pairs of windows on this wall.  

.... and then the third pair.  Windows, finished!

With the windows in place, I set to work installing some 2x4 framing below them to hold the plywood sheathing that gets installed on the bottom of the wall.  By the time the sun was setting, I had finished the sheathing on wall to the left of the door ... removing the ventilation shutters in that space and reinstalling them over the plywood.  I also stapled the plastic into the space above the door, and installed a piece of trim to form the door header.  (No photos of these steps, because it was too dark by the time I finished for the day ... damn these short winter days!)

If the rain that the weatherman has predicted for today holds off till this afternoon, I hope to get the sheathing installed on the wall to the right side of the door, and then I'll see if The Husband can give me a hand reinstalling the door itself.  (It's really heavy.)  If the rain comes too soon, there is plenty to do inside the greenhouse ... I can start to clean up my mess, organize my tools, and maybe get some of my shelves reinstalled on the walls.

I have to get all of this cleared out and cleaned up. 

(I found that a trash can makes a pretty good stand for my miter saw.)

I think I have two more days of work before I can finally close the door on a greenhouse that is ready to keep out the winter cold.  Even then, there will be a LOT of work left to do in springtime, with trim and caulk and paint, to make this the showpiece that I see in my imagination.

If you are visiting from one of the link parties and haven't seen what it took to get the greenhouse to this point, click the 'Greenhouse Windows' label below to get all the posts in this series.

Edited at 8:06am to add:  The rain is here, and the map on weather.com makes it look as if it will continue for most of the day, so I will be working on the inside.  I'm almost glad that the weather has forced me to take time to make order out of the mess.  It doesn't hurt that a nice, dry greenhouse is a great place to spend a rainy day.

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