So, after many months trying to find one second hand I gave up and bought one at B&Q the other week. An 8'x6' one, that's all that would fit in the space we had (well could have had 10x6, but they didn't have one), and that only just managed.
So my Dad and I started out early Saturday morning. Deciding to start by levelling off the soil and lowering it to it would line up next to the summerhouse. All was fine and then we hit a distraction. Potatoes, and dozens of them. Many of them where starting to grow again, many fell to the slice of the azada or the shovel, but there were still a fair haul left. Then we continued, levelling, trenching, laying slabs for the base of the greenhouse. Finally we had all the slabs in place, and put the base of the greenhouse down, which was a 5" half box section piece of aluminium. It didn't look like it would take the weight of a greenhouse...
So we started assembling the pieces of the greenhouse, first wrong (argh), then a different wrong (ARGH). After a little while longer we got a side bit right and finished. Sadly rain and poor light conditions stopped play at the point.
Next morning we were at it again early, assembling the other side, the ends (wrong, wrong, right, I blame the instructions, none too clear) and the roof. I have to mention at this point it was raining, windy and bloody cold, my fingers had the feeling of sausages unless I stopped to warn them every 20 minutes. Then we carried the whole lot over and put in on the base (after a short fight with the neighbours bush), finding out only that we hadn't got one end right, and had to do a quick turnaround of the baseplate. That done, I tied the base to the upper part, then we made the door and the frame for the window in the roof.
Then we started putting the glass in. You know that part where they tell you to wear gloves when handling glass, well its best to listen to advice like that. I got a fair few shallow cuts, mostly from the evil clips, then managed to take a nice slice out the end of my right little finger. If only my hands we're carrying insurances as big as most houses' contents insurance plans are, I would be rich by now. So bandaged up with some shiny children's plasters, we carried on until we had the roof glazed, all except the last bit of glass. Wouldn't you know it, it didn't fit !! I'll be having words with B&Q tomorrow, every piece of glass 610mm wide, except this one! So close of play again, having worked through the rain, coming down at 45%, and the cold, we were defeated by the loss of light to work by again, and shoddy materials.
Leave a comment