Greenhouse
When I moved to Washington, it never occurred to me that I wouldn't be able to eat summer tomatoes until September. After two season of duds, my situation became dire. I needed juicy, sweet, delicious tomatoes. Not to mention okra, and peppers. I looked on Pinterest and decided, I MUST build a greenhouse. That is where our story begins.
Pinterest is a dangerous place full of bright corners with amazingly overzealous ideas. I love these ideas, and I assume if other people did it, so can I. There were several gorgeous pictures of greenhouses with old windows. I read a few blogs, that all said, "I spent two years collecting old windows to use in my greenhouse project." I decided I'd better get started looking for windows if I wanted to eat a tomato in July- in this decade.
I began hunting on Craigslist for windows- there were some, nothing that was cool or old. Then one day, there was a post for " FREE old wood windows" with no picture. I contacted them and they were 20 minutes from my house out in the country. There were no pictures- but I assumed they would be awesome- he must have just been old or lazy?! He also mentioned via text that if I did want them, I'd need to bring a trailer. (TRAILER?? Did I just hit the jackpot!??!) I brought my Mom along, incase they were any axe murderers, and off we went. We showed up to a beautiful manicured property, and they owners very sweetly brought us to the back of the property to an enormous barn. I mean enormous- like 50 yards long, and 2 stories high. We climbed the old staircase and walked the length of the barn. On the far side was a GIGANTIC pile old windows! I was inside shrieking to myself!! "Yes! yes! we will take them!" Mom and I tried to lift the smallest one, and we could barely pick it up off the ground- let alone carry it across a barn, down stairs, and into a trailer (that we didn't have).
After gathering ourselves, we told the owners that we'd love the windows- but that we didn't have any way to transport them. Remember- they were FREE. There were 8 gigantic windows- the largest being 108" x 63"!!!!! It wasn't going to take me two years to collect, I was done! The owners said they had a trailer, and for $50 they would load them all up and bring them to my house?! Who was this person? Free Giant windows- $50 to deliver!? We high fived- and ran back home to clear a space for our new haul. About 45 minutes later the men showed up with a giant trailer, and all 8 window, screens, and decorative muttons, were well secured and delivered. They were giant. We piled them up on the gravel driveway. They sat there for about 7 months.
I had originally envisioned a 6'x8' tomato house, where I could walk in, tend to my babies, and maybe bring a chair in to enjoy a warm afternoon. Once the windows came into the picture- that dream was gone. Now that I had procured these amazing, solid wood beauties, clearly I needed to incorporate ALL of them into my design. Had I designed a building before? No. Did I know what went into building a structure? No. Did I take into account any of the topographical aspects of the yard? No. So naturally- I got to drawing my dream concept of the greenhouse with our new windows- and it just so happened that the dream clocked in at 10' wide and 20' long!
