Home Improvement Articles & Gardening Tips

Building A Greenhouse

If you're thinking of building a greenhouse, it may be worth hiring an outside contractor ...

Building a greenhouse is one of the most frustrating projects that I have ever undertaken. I have been involved in doing home repair kinds of things for years, so I am no stranger to the difficulty of making everything put together, but I swear, I will never build a greenhouse again. I had honestly thought that building a greenhouse would be just like building a shed. Just assemble the frame and install the walls and, bang – all done. Boy was I mistaken. I had no problem when I made the shed, but the greenhouse was a real nightmare.

I should have listened to my friends who said that I should hire an outside contractor instead of building a greenhouse myself, but I was sure that I was up to it. Let me tell you, nightmare after nightmare. Think that installing windows is a pain in the neck? Try building a greenhouse, where every wall is made of absolutely nothing at all but windows and window frames! But that is not even where it starts. Oh no, not by a long shot.

If you are building a garage or a shed, you have some leniency in terms of how things fit together. Sure, you assemble the basic frame as accurately and precisely as you can, but a millimeter here, a half an inch there, and you are still good. But such is not the case if you are building a greenhouse. Such is not the case at all. Can you imagine assembling your whole frame and finding that your window frames don't fit? Can you imagine trying to recut them, having that be an expensive waste of time and money that does nothing at all to fix the problem, and then having to dig out your foundations and start again? Can you imagine contemplating burning it down to collect insurance and calling it a day? Such is the nightmare that I faced building a greenhouse. Never again, my friends. Never again.

I had always thought that building a greenhouse was the ultimate project for a plant lover. It is sort of like decorating the nursery for your child. It is the process of making a safe place for something that you love and treasure to glow and blossom. Now I realize the horrible truth. Building a greenhouse did just the opposite for me. It was six months before I could look at a plant again!

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