Build A Greenhouse For Less Than $200?
by Rebecca Rhinehart
Despite living in a warmer Zone 8 in South Carolina, we wanted a little head start on the growing season. A greenhouse will be extremely helpful, but lumber prices are a little high right now. Our attention quickly turned to a falling pole barn full of wood and metal roofing. From there we pulled as much salvageable wood from the building and started planning our greenhouse.
This is part I of a two part series digging deeper into the construction of our basic greenhouse. The next portion will cover making the more complicated cuts for roofline supports, door framing and finishing the entire project. In total we spent just under $200 on this project including the box of plastic $100, screws, door zippers and vent zippers.
The Plan
All we knew going in was that we needed a frame of 8x12 feet. Justin has a background in construction so creating a plan on the fly with no drawing was easy (for him at least). After getting the 8x12 frame for the bottom, we sunk 6 foot posts into the ground at each corner. This left 4 feet above ground to serve as our next step.
The goal is to get a SIMPLE yet sturdy structure. Our corner poles were from trees in our yard, and all wood was salvaged. Is everything square and level about this? Absolutely not but we tried to keep it as close as possible when working with this type of material.
- 8' boards for the width. x2
- 12' boards for the length. x2
- 8' boards for midway supports x2
- Four 6' posts, sunk into the ground 2'. x4
- Peak of roof, 10' board.
- 12' long roofline x1
- 6' door frame.
Since every piece of wood and metal was salvaged from the property each step was catered to the wood available. By the end of this two day project we had a solid structure that needed covered. The back side was enclosed with metal roofing, while the rest of the structure was draped and stapled with plastic.
Stay tuned for the finishing portion of the greenhouse! This will cover roofing supports, doorframe how we finished the exterior and the intro to outfitting the inside.