I wanna make an awesome greenhouse. Our plan is for it to be next to our barn, with one side that opens up for possible seating for dinner parties. The string lights go without saying.
There are many greenhouse designs out there. A lot of them are either too flimsy-plastic or too industrial plastic, or industrial-expensive. I would like to find some happy medium where I can use glass, metal, and some fabrication skills that I’ve got. I like this curved single pane glass that I think will go far, last forever, and be amazing looking.
I took a few pictures from this book
Which was real helpful. Here are a few pictures out of there that better illustrate the ideas of the project
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My idea is to get bulk aluminum (? or steel?), a stick welder, and start fabricating my own pieces of this structure. Certainly I’ll need some excellent plans, and price sheets for the amount and quantity of glass I’ll need. It’s easier to get large flat sheets of glass. Sometimes it comes up on craigslist. I could scavenge some of it, and make custom brackets for those bits, or cut them to the size I need.
How about making the bent aluminum? I’ve put a 90 degree bend in some angle bracket before, and it worked fine. Of course it was only 1/8″ or so. Looks like even the smallest Miller welder needs 220V to go.
http://www.glassstructures.com/glass/
There’s certainly a balance between longevity/investment vs affordability/produce. The majority of greenhouses that are working greenhouses, are hoop houses with plastic. They seem to work really well.
I need to think about what’s important here. Is this going to be a room to hang out in? Maybe an expensive glass structure is the way to go there. Or is it going to be an affordable eyesore that cranks out fresh tomatoes eight months out of the year? How about a balance of those two? Maybe somewhere in between would be perfect.
Where am I going to put this thing? There are a few decent locations at Deer Park I can consider.