Still more pictures

The back inside wall, clad in old barn boards. See the hinges ? A light will hang from them and a work table will be below.

We had a frost, so the first tenents have moved in already !

We still have to finish the electric and run the water. But, for a bit, I am just going to enjoy it.

Thanks for lookin' !!

More pictures of finished structure

Seriously, we never thought it would take this long. Record heat and drought, combined with DH having a major job change -- well, it just took a long time to finish. But, finished it is ! We used so much recycled material, I am so pleased. We had a door with windows in the top, which we cut in half and used in the eves. We used a set of french doors as wall panels. Both access doors are hung from rollers salvaged from an old barn, and the entire back inside wall is clad in old barn wood, old barn doors and part of an old corn crib. The front wall is glass above (recycled windows) and wood below, and the wood is more of the corn crib.

Just for fun we added a cat door to one side. One of our outside cats used to hand out in the well house that we demolised to make this greenhouse. We felt like she should be allowed in and we made her a fancy door.

The corner bead on the sideways picture (seriously, why won't that stay rotated ?) used to be ridge cap on a barn. I think it looks great !

We did buy one sheet of polyvinyl to use in the eves about the front. It is a difficult space because of the roof slope and the windows I'd save for that space would work after all. So, tired and ready to get it enclosed, we bought one sheet of poly. It was an excellent solution as it is easy to cut and install. I hope it holds up to hail !

We're done !!!

Baby, it's HOT outside !!

As I may have mentioned, we're setting heat records right and left here in north central Texas...ugh !
As I type at 3:49 pm it's 107. That's not the heat index, that's the actual temprature. So, progress has slowed but we're still crawling forward on the contruction.  It's just too hot to do too much at once; frequent breaks and lots of water and Gator aid and still, you can't go on for long.

BUT ! We've finished the big sliding barn door and got it hung, finished the dividing wall between the garage and the green house and that's two walls out of four complete !

First, let's talk again about recycled and re-recycled materials.  A cloth company gets huge sheets of fiberglass impregnated plastic, which they use as cutting mats. Once the mats are too scarred to use, because the fabric snags on the scars, it gives them to my husbands' company to use between layers of bottles when they are stacked on pallets. But, the sheets are a bit too big, so they cut off one end to make them fit.  Dh brought the cut off ends home (well some of them) and we decided to see where they could be used. How about at the bottom of the wall, where it will touch the ground, so it won't rot or rust out ? Perfect. So, we did. We're also thinking of cutting some fish tail shingles out of them for one gable end of the roof line.....later.

We had some old doors, one out of this house and one out of a previous house, that were in the barn. Cobbled together, they made an awesome barn-style sliding door, using the track from a barn we tore down a long time ago. The old well house had some improbably painted pink and blue shelves in it, cut into strips they made the stabilizing cross members on the doors. An old handle from the torn down barn is perfect to slide it back and forth.

Here, let me show you what I mean:

The first shot is the stack of cut off ends, the second is a close up of the material. Notice the zig zag patterns over and over where stacks of cloth were machine cut ? The last picture is where we've used it at the bottom of the wall, buried in the gravel.

These are shots of the wall, before the door is hung. The top picture is from the greenhouse side, the bottom one from the garage side.

Here is my big door, made from two old doors.

Here is the complete wall, with the sliders up and the door hung. Notice the windows ? The two directly beside the sliding door are plexiglass. They are actually the bottom part of two old storm doors, these are the panels that slide up and down to cover or reveal the screen door portion,. We used mirror clips to mount them.  The two windows at the end are from an old trailer house, and they were in the barn when we bought this place. They are quite dirty now, but I'll get around to cleaning them one of these days LOL !

 Here is the back door of the mouse hole. The fron is painted in my kitchen base board, and this one is painted in my home office base boards. 

 Here is a good shot of the door, and the sliding mechanism.

 Old pink and blue shelves, cut up, are used to connect and strengthen the door.

 This is Crumbly, he is painted on the baseboard in my kitchen.  Do you think I have a sense of whimsey ? This is how I want the greenhouse to turn out as well, fun and funky and whimsical.

Here is the complete wall from the garage side.

Next we tackle the front of the building. Big windows, a fixed door and a functional door, as well as an old screen door salvaged from an old store !! Stay tuned !

Shoring up a major corner.....or OH, Crap that looks rotted ??!?!?!

The front corner where we had to take down the block wall (bad morter, no rebar, crumbling) had roof framing above it. Since the rain and damp was sufficient to destroy morter, it stands to reason the wood would not fare well either. And, it didn't.  So once we got all the debris out of the way (not hard, the wood crumbled at a touch) we had to take a bit of time to figure out how to reengineer that corner.  Luckily when we bought the lot of wood from the auction (see earlier posts) we got a 24 foot glue laminated header board. You talk about heavy -- holy cow !  We were able to use it and an add'l 4x4 and shore up the roof and corner of the building. It was a time suck but it was very necessary.  Here are the not glamorous pictures of the solution:

Not elegant but very sturdy !

Then, once this corner was stable we were able to add a header to what will be the front wall.....

And we're on our way now !  But, it is a holiday weekend and you can't be all work and no play....so here is some other stuff we did this weekend.....

Truck and Tractor Pulls at Whitewright Texas

Sweetie loaded up the smoker with turkey, brisket and ribs !

And, as Alex calls it, we "popped fire"

Congratulations Madam, it's a wall !!

 It's only 101 -- in the shade !

 Finished wall ! Windows will go in after all the walls and framing are up...we've already broken one and we've learned our lesson !

Redneck Air Conditioning !!


So, we got the back wall up and that was a great feeling. It's so hot right now we have to be careful about not getting over heated or dehydrated.  Lots of water and Gatoraide and iced tea, and even then it's work some and then sit and cool off. What can I say ? It's July in Texas.

The importance of good drainage

 Now that the rest of the dividing wall is down, you can see the whole space that will become the greenhouse. We will put a new wall up with a barn-style sliding door in it for ease of moving heavy loads and large plants.

 Can you say water damage ? The sill plate and studs were just shot.

See the wavy edge where the corrugated tin was embedded in the concrete ? That's about all that was holding the wall up !

On Saturday we finished taking down the dividing wall between the garage and the future greenhouse. The prior owners had built them in such a way that the run off from one roof went right down the side of the next section and did we ever find wood rot ! Apparantly the only thing that has been holding the tin wall up at all is the fact that it was buried 4" into the concrete at the bottom, because the sill plate and the bottoms of all the studs were complete mush.

And, here's why progress is going so slowly right now:

Dang ! It's HOT !!

We plan to get framing started and an add'l support beam installed over 4th of July weekend but we are also taking some time off for some fun !

Take a deep breath.....

Well, no pictures this time. We made some progress Saturday but remember at the beginning of this blog when I said we each had a vision but I wasn't sure it was the same one ? I guess it was bound to happen that our visions didn't mesh. The definition of communication is to express your thoughts and have them received as you intended them to be. A break down in communication occurred; we back off and cooled off and talked it out and we are ready to move forward. We are a good team and we complement one anothers' strengths and weakness but even good partners, heck, great partners disagree occassionally.

Oh, yeah. When you work with old, old windows one is bound to break. Now that we have that out of the way we can move ahead....what can I say ? Crap happens, glass can be replaced and hopefully the story will be funny someday.

More demolition and a few good finds

You can see where the roots of the tree lifted the blocks and started the morter to crumbling. Dear Husband removing the last block. Not to say the wall was falling down, but he and I took it down in about an hour. The other half of the wall is metal and studs, but the studs are water rotted so it comes down next.

 The is the big work table we got at the auction for $10 and the industrial fan we got for $40.  DH's boss says he has a motor that will work on it and we can have it for free -- my favorite price ! Speaking of free, the 5 red vent covers and the barrell mover under the table were freebies ! Someone at the auction bought a lot and didn't want this part of it, so they gave it to us !

 This is my big, giant wheel barrow I bought for the whimsey of it. That's a quarter in it for size comparison - I think it's cute !

Lastly my yard sale find. These are four sets of shelves, two larger and two narrower sets. The legs are in the box to the right. The yard sale was over and they hadn't sold these. I cruised by a couple of times and finally found someone out in the yard. We settled on $35. for four sets of shelves that are plastic, so they won't rot, won't rust and if I have a plant that is diseased I can bleach them.  I am pretty happy with all the purchases but am anxious to get building again. DH has a weekend off (finally !) and we're planning to get into forward motion again.