The Cellar / DIY Shop

**Posted by BigV** 10/13/2020 5:32 pm

Or
How I spent my Corona vacation.

Here's the <strike>most</strike> least recent picture, I'll have the whole construction journal when I'm at my computer.

I am building a workshop.

The site of the (future) shop is on the place where the ruins of the greenhouse used to be. This is a picture from a few years ago looking to the north (beyond is my neighbor's back yard). You can see the yellow translucent corrugated fiberglass greenhouse structure. It was a standing ruin at this point. The slash pile just to the south of it is an ongoing hugelkultur dream.

Last edited by BigV (11/11/2020 6:57 pm)

**Posted by monster** 10/13/2020 10:00 pm

seems like they have to be stored online somewhere else,,,,

**Posted by griff** 10/19/2020 3:31 pm

BigV wrote:
Or
How I spent my Corona vacation.

Here's the most recent picture, I'll have the whole construction journal when I'm at my computer.

Eta: still looking for the way to add an image.

https://postimages.org/
This works well V.

**Posted by xoxoxoBruce** 10/20/2020 10:33 pm

When you get your shit together, although your live in a fairly mild climate you aren't going to be growing much outside.
The solution is a greenhouse but they tend to be spendy. Now a clever... or is it cleaver... anyway you can fashion a greenhouse from car windshields and back glass.

**Posted by glatt** 10/21/2020 7:16 am

I like it. They look uniform, like he bought them all new. Certainly easier to plan the build if they are all the same dimensions. It would be much cheaper to collect them in a junkyard, but then building the thing would take forever.

**Posted by xoxoxoBruce** 10/22/2020 11:25 pm

Agreed, you can't get used windshields without tiny pits and scratches, and it would take forever to get enough of a particular glass even from the most popular model as the glass is often the victim of any collision.
Using an assortment would be a nightmare, but buying in that quantity is actually pretty cheap, I'll bet cheaper than the frame.

**Posted by BigV** 11/11/2020 7:17 pm

Pic 2 of many

This picture is taken after I'd taken down the fiberglass structure, but the potting benches were still in place (I only have so much room in the truck to take this debris to the dump). You can see plenty of foliage encroaching on the building site.

Last edited by BigV (11/11/2020 9:27 pm)

**Posted by BigV** 11/11/2020 7:24 pm

Here I've trimmed back *some* of the greenery. I had no idea I'd just scratched the surface at this point.

Last edited by BigV (11/11/2020 9:29 pm)

**Posted by fargon** 11/11/2020 8:57 pm

No pix.
Pix work now.

Last edited by fargon (11/12/2020 7:44 am)

**Posted by BigV** 11/11/2020 9:23 pm

fargon wrote:
No pix.

maddening.

no pics? all posts of mine, zero pics?

**Posted by glatt** 11/11/2020 9:39 pm

#7 and #8 each have one picture

**Posted by Limey** 11/12/2020 3:09 am

Yes, yes they do!

**Posted by griff** 11/12/2020 7:12 am

I've got pics,

**Posted by xoxoxoBruce** 11/13/2020 1:29 am

griff wrote:
I've got pics,

Me too, posts 7 & 8 have pictures.

**Posted by BigV** 11/17/2020 7:51 pm

I have moved the wrecks of the benches and much of the cut brush away from the site. The yard waste is really more than I can grind/chip into mulch with this chipper. I'll wind up hauling it all away, but that means I have to pick it all up (again), wheel it to the truck, unload the wheelbarrow into the truck, drive the truck to the dropoff site, unload the truck, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat... this stuff grows faster than I can burn it down.

**Posted by BigV** 11/17/2020 7:53 pm

The most permanent fixture of the greenhouse was this iron gate and frame. I have to tell you, concrete was a lot cheaper back in the day and they spared no expense creating the foundation for this piece.

**Posted by BigV** 11/17/2020 7:56 pm

I dug and hammered and leaned and groaned and over the course of several days discovered that is was weighted and staked into the earth. This this was too heavy to lift straight up, and the T-post fence stakes were heroic in their resistance to me trying to tip it over and out.

**Posted by BigV** 11/17/2020 8:04 pm

I leaned on it, and beat on it with a sledgehammer and rock chisel. I finally got it loose enough by tipping one end up and kicking dirt into the space I'd made, then tipping it back the other way and repeating the process.

**Posted by BigV** 11/17/2020 8:07 pm

Eventually I "floated" the concrete anchors upward close enough to the surface that I could walk one half out of the hole.

**Posted by BigV** 11/17/2020 8:14 pm

Now I had room to really swing my bigger hammer and I made much shorter work of the remaining concrete. Soon it was gone and I could drag the iron frame to the hugelkultur mess. But at least I could now work on my jobsite.

**Posted by BigV** 11/17/2020 8:32 pm

It's getting clearer. You can see the four garden stakes I've been using as my survey markers for the corners of the building.

**Posted by BigV** 11/17/2020 8:36 pm

While I was surveying the land, I was being surveyed by these two little guys. They're so tiny! They couldn't get over the fence to follow mama so I left open the gate they came in through at the other end of the yard.

**Posted by BigV** 11/17/2020 8:42 pm

The greenhouse had a light mounted on a post just outside the door. I've removed the light and the post and this live direct bury electrical cable has been pulled up and out of the way. If I put a box on the end of the cable and an outlet, I'll have electricity to run a construction tool.

**Posted by BigV** 11/17/2020 8:45 pm

I bought a half a ton of gravel and almost a half a ton of solid concrete blocks. I only had to lift the gravel once, out of the truck, and push it in the wheelbarrow the long way around the house. The blocks I had to lift again and again but as you can see the materials made it to the jobsite. I don't miss working as a construction laborer as my main gig. This is much more rewarding.

**Posted by BigV** 11/17/2020 8:48 pm

The site is fairly level, which is good. And it's very fertile, which is bad, for digging holes anyhow. I pulled up so many roots. I took out a fig tree and a little cedar (the cedar has been transplanted, posted elsewhere). I severely trimmed a pretty red rhodedendron right back to the edge of the porch. And so many blackberry vines and roots, etc etc. It was pretty rainy during this time and the ground was always soft but messy.