Feeding ourselves healthy and fresh food was one of the main reasons we decided to farm.  From late spring to late fall that’s an easy achievement as our gardens and (future) food forests are at their peak of production.  Deciding on what to eat for dinner by what looks the most appetizing in the garden is one of the premier perks of farming, particularly during this time of plenty.  But what about the rest of the year? We also wanted to start plants indoors so that when spring emerges and the ground is ready to plant, we have a leg up. The obvious solution was to either build or buy a greenhouse. But this can be pricey and we weren’t sure if we were ready to invest in something else so soon after becoming new homeowners, so we were content with putting it off for awhile.

When we purchased our house, we had no idea that there was a real structural and design issue with the way one of our many porches was built.  The slope and materials selected for our side porch created a situation where rains would puddle on the flat rubber surface under the (rotting) wood.  Heavy rains and poor drainage meant that we had water in our basement.  WATER=BAD!

So, we did a little brainstorming and decided to turn a problem into a solution.  The aforementioned porch is situated on the Southwest corner of our house.  Before the massive oak tree gets its leaves, the sun exposure from roughly 11am-dusk is pretty exceptional.  Since we needed to replace the porch anyway, we decided to turn this space into our greenhouse/sunroom.

Designing the greenhouse room was a bit of a challenge for us because we had never done something like this before.  We knew we needed as many windows as possible.  Ventilation was a major concern as the heat of the summer would make the room balmy.  The existing windows and sliding door into the main house would remain, allowing us to open up or cordon off the greenhouse as appropriate.  Additional sunlight through the roof area was a necessity as well and the material selection and design of the roof to incorporate that was a challenge.

We decided on a series of skylights for the roof.  6 Large ones fit the 8’x10′ floor plan, 4 of which have the ability to be opened to vent the space.  For the windows, our collection of salvaged materials came in handy.  People are constantly upgrading or replacing windows, and we always  are on the lookout for discarded treasures.  When it came time to build our greenhouse, 3 nice sized windows fit the exterior walls washing the interior with tons of natural sunlight.

The wood that we used for the walls and the rafters that support the skylights in the roof are what is known as “rough cut lumber”, and it was all acquired from a local sawmill.  Our house has tons of natural exposed wood and we wanted the greenhouse to match the interior of our home.

Before we fitted the greenhouse with tables and semi permanent beds to start and grow vegetables, we managed to enjoy our new sun soaked room.  Above is our neighbors’ mini-horse enjoying the greenhouse.  He periodically terrorizes the chickens and Cortney.

 

We managed to squeeze in a few yoga sessions before the floorspace was taken over.  And we also decided trying out a live christmas tree that we could plant outside after the holidays might be a good use of the space.  The added benefit of being able to control the temperature in the room meant we could keep it extremely cold in there so the tree would remain semi dormant.

Overall, we’re extremely happy with the way the greenhouse turned out.  I guess we should mention that we had a contractor come and build it for us.  Relationships matter, especially when you’re new to an area, and Cortney happened to meet a great contractor during one of her many jobs this past summer.  Ted was super easy to work with and had some excellent design ideas for us to consider.  We were flexible, Ted was a contractor, so it was perfect!