End of Day Three: Glam Shots

I started my day with a Curtis walk around the property, as we always do, rain or shine. The blackberries are just--chef's kiss, so fabulous. All I want to do is paint little birds in blackberry foliage in October. But I don't, because there's this thing going on at my house right now. I cannot tell you how all-consuming it is to have this going on around me. It keeps me here and dealing with all the change.

I have considerable fear of missing out on the fall foliage display here in my favorite places in Ohio--I yearn to drive through Amish country right now! But my bonsais do their best to placate me. This one is on fire in three colors. Wow, what a beauty!

By the end of the third day, the doors went on. Oh are they wonderful. They're full-size professional looking doors, self-closing with hydraulics. You could get a garden cart through them. I'm already wishing they had a screen option on the top half. I'm worried that if I leave them propped open to ventilate in spring and summer, the squirrels and rabbits will just walk in and destroy my plants, as they did in the Groanhouse. What a shock to walk into your greenhouse and find your geraniums and hibiscus in rubble on the floor. I'm going to have to figure out something for that--maybe a sturdy screened insert for one. No idea how to pull it off, but I'll be thinking about what I can do.

Yes, I intend to grow in here year round, if I can, and if it doesn't get too hot. 

To that end, there are three panes at the apex of the ceiling that are connected to an electric motor.

That motor will hook up to a thermostat, and it will automatically raise the three louvers about 6" when the heat builds to a certain temperature. I'm sure that, coupled with the fan in the rafters, that will cool it down quickly. 

I've found an electrician who will come and wire this in for me, and put another outlet or two in for the inevitable twinkle lights, laptops, sound system...whatever. I'm in total womancave space here. He just left after assessing the project and it sounds like he can suspend the light cords from magnetic anchors (because there is absolutely nothing that can be attached to on this frame). Then he can wire my little lights so I can flip a switch and turn them on! 

Below is the suspended fan, and a nice interior shot. There are crank out windows on either side, but they only open about 6". Wish they cranked all the way out! Maybe I won't have to worry too much about it getting too hot in here. The solarium is on the west side of the house, and it is shielded from direct sun by the tower above until pretty late in the afternoon (say 2:00 on). There are also birch clumps to shade it. I knew if I put a greenhouse on the east or south side, it would cook everything, louvers or no, because that's unobstructed full blasting sun from dawn until 1 or 2 pm. So the west side was the obvious choice. The things I grow don't need that much sun!

I got to see what Curtis was up to on lunch break...begging shamelessly, and scoring, too. That dog. 

 

The McCollisters discovered that two of the louver panes were the wrong size, so they were becalmed until two that were the right size could be airlifted from Florian Glass in South Carolina. They got a chance to clean up the yard and haul all the trash into the garage (burnables) or out to the road for pickup. 

While they did that, I cooked a meal of gratitude: homemade chicken pot pie and a custard pie with graham cracker crust, topped with persimmons I'd foraged on Tuesday from my favorite trees in Marietta. I picked up 10 lb. which worked out to 5 1/2 lb of pulp.  If I say so myself, it was delicious. Even if persimmons were a hard sell for this particular crowd. From the moment I met this crew, I knew I wanted to make them a nice meal. So that kept me busy all afternoon, and out of their hair. 

Then it was time for some victory laps!

and a glamour shot! So good of that Japanese maple to be deep maroon right now! Isn't she a beauty?

Now all I had to do was find an electrician for the louver motor, and a gas technician to hook up a space heater. Chip Ditchendorf rescued me on the electrician, but it took seven calls to find someone to help with the gas hookup. Lord have mercy. Gotta say I'm weary of fighting my way upstream here, but these are the times. Anyone who does house repair/installation/renovation work is booked up to their eyeballs. 

I finally called my friend Walter Dean, who also helps me mow and burn, and he came through, bigtime!

However the gas hookup was not to be a smooth ride, as you will see in subsequent posts.

Mr. Murphy and his Law are my constant companions. 

So it was out to the meadow we went, to gaze at the colors and breathe and try to calm down and know that all would happen in its time.

And the house was lit afire by the setting sun, in a field of burning sumac. 

 

The Glass Goes In! Day Three

We're on Day Three, Thursday, October 26. The frame was up and ready for glass by nightfall of the second day. On Day Three, almost all of the glass would go in. 

 They had a regular workshop set up, with sawhorses where they'd prepare each pane for insertion, and ladders to reach the ceiling of the emerging greenhouse. It was fun to watch them flow through the work.

             

    

Everything gets pinned on Brian, the eldest. Here, he's applying a suction cup, while Bob hammers in the spacers (?) to hold each pane in place. I couldn't help but think how much better this will be than holding the panes in place with Gorilla Tape, my best friend in the plastic deli-box Groanhouse decade.

           

The afternoon of the 26th, the glass started going in. 

The low panes are easier. Putting them in over one's head is a whole 'nother thing. 

The way to pick up, carry and especially insert a 30 pound pane of glass is to use a suction cup, since you can't very well hold a 30-pound pane by the edges and set it into place in the frame without smashing your fingers.

      

Doing all this over one's head while balancing on a ladder? Nooo thank you. I'll watch instead. 

As I watched the McCollisters work, and looked at the absolute battery of special tools they used, it sank in on me that trying to hire someone who had never assembled a greenhouse or solarium, as I had, was total madness.  The extended ghosting I got from the local glass guy, ending in a big nothing, is why my greenhouse is being constructed at Halloween.

I was encouraged to find a local glass specialist. What did I know? So I tried. And tried. If I'd only engaged American Glass and Metalworks from the very start, I wouldn't still be waiting to use my greenhouse on October 28. So please, learn from my mistakes. When told you can find your own installer, say, "Who do you work with, and whom do you recommend?" Then engage the installer who works closely with the glass company/greenhouse supplier of your choice. It may seem expensive to bring a crew who live in the Carolinas and Georgia, but trust me on this: Unless you're experienced in it, you can't do it yourself, and engaging someone who comes in with a lower estimate but doesn't know what they're doing is false economy. These guys assembled the frame in two days and had all the glass in the third day.

 Helping anyone who wants to have their own greenhouse built is a big part of why I'm blogging this process--to save you some of the trouble I've run into. As Bob said, "This is not a kit. There are no instructions." And no tools included.

There's no substitute for the peace of mind of knowing your project is in the right hands.

      

Coming back from my evening walk I marveled at all they'd accomplished. 

I gazed out at the meadow for awhile, feeling exhausted, overstimulated, awestruck, and lucky.

 It's hard to put into words the mix of emotions I had on finally seeing my dream take shape. I'd been away for a full week in coastal North Carolina, doing field trips and giving a talk at the 25th Annual Wings Over Water Festival. I was so out of practice traveling, my suitcase weighed in at 49 pounds. Embarrassing!  I flew back Monday, getting home in the evening of the 24th.  Tuesday morning the 25th, bright and early, the crew arrived and sprang into action. There'd been no time to unpack or rest--I just had to fling myself at the job at hand. There's what you wish for (downtime to rest and recharge) and then there's what happens, and you've got to take everything just as it comes. 

That's been the big lesson in this whole endeavor. So much of what happened along the way was out of my hands. But now, with 20/20 hindsight, I could see the wrong turns I'd taken; the blind alleys I'd traveled. To have things suddenly go right was almost more than I could process. The right people had finally come to me--AJ Johns, Lane and Stone; Chip Ditchendorf; Jeff and Chris Cline, and the McCollisters. It just took awhile. Nine months, like making a great big stone, glass and aluminum baby where there had been nothing before.

                

In the rare moment of quiet, I waited for the great horned owls to start calling, as they have every evening this week. It seemed fitting that I had to listen for them over the snarl of a nearby chainsaw. Everything's going to be all right, their soft hoots reassured me. You may not have done everything right, but you've done everything you could. Soon. Soon.

Day Two: Building the Frame

The day started innocently enough, with the flashing cap on the wall tops, the facing on the building...

I went inside to leave them to their work.

The saw was set up under the studio window, where Brian and Bob conferred.

There was a LOT of banging and hammering from outside, and things were jumping off the shelves on that wall. I was rescuing figurines left and right. I kept at my blogging about the prior stages, though, never thinking to check on the progress...

and the next time I went out to look, there was a building frame in place!

I squawked so loudly the three men jumped and stared at me, thinking I was upset about something, when I was just hopping mad at myself for missing the construction. We had a laugh afterward.

Lots of ladders for three men. More ladders than men! 

I didn't expect it to look quite like this. I don't know what I expected. I keep walking around and staring at it, like a kid whose dad went away for a few months and grew a beard. It's just so different! I realized that I had this kind of wispy image of a lean-to greenhouse and this looked so solid and square and strong. So it took some getting used to.

I went out with Curtis to take some mail and stared at the clouds for awhile. Truly, it's all too much for me, the way it's happening all at once, and it's going up so fast.

When I won't be in the way, I sneak into the space and imagine it with glass and plants. That makes me very happy.

The glass awaits, leaning in boxes against the house. But for the swarming ladybugs, they've got perfect weather to work all week. For that I'm very, very thankful!

The overall scene.

 By sundown, they had the frame all built, and had put in quite a bit of the glass. The McCollister men do not fool around. They work sunup to dark, head to town, do a Door Dash, sleep, then get up and do it again. Next: Glass goes in! 

I promise I won't make you wait so long for the next installment. I can't apologize for not blogging daily. It's been so much work getting everything done that needs to be done before the cold clamps down. In one day, with a forecast for days of pouring rain followed by freezing temperatures, I turned the earth and finally replanted the flowers on Bill's grave, mucked out the fishpond and cleaned the filters, and dug a 9-foot L-shaped trench for the greenhouse gas line. Then I went to Lowe's to (fruitlessly) try to buy gasline fittings. I gave up after two hours of trying to figure out what to buy, because I know when I'm beat. I'm doing things like that, and trying to keep up with blogging in the cracks. My body is sore all over at nightfall, and then I, too, get up and do it again (albeit with a lot less sleep than I'd like, because it all worries me). But it's all for the good, and I can't wait to show you the end result! And there IS an end result!