1996: The Greenhouse

If the shed was the most enjoyable project ever, the greenhouse was the worst. It started out okay. We knew it would be eight by ten feet in size, and we worked out the location, cattycornered near the souhwest corner.

Base of greenhouse Craig built forms and poured a concrete curb with a walk down the center. We filled the floor on the sides with pea gravel. So we had a great base and a floor with good drainage.

For the greenhouse itself, we bought a kit. It was English-made, a combination of glass, plexiglass, and extruded aluminum. We would assemble it.

It was August. We started early in the morning, when it was as cool as possible, but still quite hot, and very, very humid. Prickly hot, in fact. We were both instantly drenched as we laid out the struts and sorted through bolts and braces and panes of glass.

We studied the instructions minutely as always, and argued as we repeatedly cobbled together a hulking metal frame that wobbled and came to a deadend, impossible to complete. Three times we started, and three times we took it back apart.

By now, we were insanely hot and sticky, angry and frustrated. By late morning, Craig called the Greenhouse Mall, who had sold us the kit, with a question about the instructions where they didn't make sense and we'd been arguing about what they meant. We'd tried every interpretation, without success.

Incredibly, the man who answered the phone said, "Oh, those instructions don't work. I don't know why they say those things. You have to do it completely backwards from what they say."

That certainly had occurred to us already. So we grabbled up the instructions with many an oath, and laid out the pieces again. This time we studied and argued and debated about the now familiar possible sequences for fitting together these flexible aluminum struts that grabbed each other and stuck tight in the most impossible positions.

It was late afternoon before when finally stood a loosely assembled frame in place. We had figured a way to make it work, and left it loose enough, we hoped, to receive the panels of glass and plexiglass the next day.

Greenhouse With dread, we tackled it the next morning,in equally miserable heat. By day's end, we were cursing the glass -- we had wanted all glass but couldn't get it -- and had come to appreciate the virtues of the somewhat less attractive plexiglass. But we got it all together and tightened it up. What a hateful job that had been! And here it was a kit! A "kit."

Now, admittedly it was attractive when we finished it. Craig piped in water and we had it wired with electricity. We equipped it, and that first winter and spring, I grew a wonderful crop of tomatoes for the garden, lettuce, and spinach and various other things as well.

I wish I could say it lived happily ever after and was well worth the trouble. But no, the greenhouse has been troubled. For a time, I grew orchids in it. But it's very hot in summer and difficult to keep warm enough in winter. All in all, it is perplexing how to use it well.

Still, I like it. I have been sidetracked by all the major projects that came on its heels, like the pool, the shed, and the remodeling we did iin 2000. Someday I will revisit it and figure it out. So far, count this one a mixed result.