Coroplast greenhouse! :)

[Xist]

I figured out how to use a Powerpoint presentation as a Zoom background somewhat recently and I love it. Unfortunately it only works with Powerpoint, not WPS Office.

Unfortunately, I made a 54-page PDF of flashcards.

Powerpoint is far easier to use with Zoom even when I am not using it as a background.

Also, all of the images were designed for 8.5x11, not 16x9, so when I inserted a gallery it centered all of the images. in the middle, but when I use a Powerpoint background it puts my face in the corner, so I prefer to put materials on the other half of the screen.

I couldn't figure out how to easily move everything over, but I needed to revise the images before actually making a Powerpoint, so I added whitespace so they are 16x9.

I may have spent 5 hours making and then revising materials, plus I saw a client.

Hopefully I get the materials right for next week!

I really didn't want to call it a day with the project, but it was difficult enough pre-drilling holes and screwing 2x4s to the corner studs.

I thought about putting 4x4s in the corners. Had I found my post level that would have made things easier, but 4x4s seem overkill for supporting thin plastic sheets, regardless of the specific material and configuration.

I think the 4x4s are at the bottom of a pile anyway.

The whole time I worked out there I complained about the guy who built the garden box. What an amateur!

It isn't level! The corners aren't properly secured! The bottoms of the corners are barely secured at all and the dirt pushed the boards outwards!

I was able to set up 2 corners, each with 2 boards holding them plumb.

Two corners.

I am going to rent a truck when I pick up the plastic sheeting that I will use until I get the coroplast and get some real 10- and 12-foot boards.

I don't have the time to waste joining boards and I don't have a history of joining things straight.

Two corners!

Won't Mom be surprised when she goes to water her garden and finds 6 random boards screwed to her garden box!

[Piotrsko]

Coroplast bends like cardboard, along the corregations , and collapse creases the inside layer across the corregations which makes it useless for support structure.

The big thing is through light transmission all spectrum not just UV. Figure the structure will cast a shadow that inhibits plant growth somewhat. The plants will grow slower, but the season is longer and it kind of equals out.

My 6 mil has an UV inhibiter coating on the plastic so it doesn't do the "last only a season and die" process that home despot 6 mil does BTDTMO

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Polycarbonate is stiff, can you bend it in a curve?

It's not the easiest task. Some cheaper acrylics are much easier to bend, no wonder they're often used as a makeshift windscreen for some older cars when a regular windscreen becomes unobtainium.

[Xist]

I made some progress, but not enough. This is where I left off on Monday:

Almost there!

This is where I left off on Wednesday:


I forget that most of the boards in the piles were 2x6es. There are a surprising number of 4x4s, too.

I am going to put 2 2x6es on each side because I don't have 3 2x4s.

By the way, it isn't 8x12. I think it is 6x10. I designed it to use exactly 10 sheets. I am not going to bother calculating how much I will have left over.

I couldn't find Dad's old measuring tape, so I didn't try measuring it with the little one that I could find.

I have the boards in the front measured and cut, 2 crossmembers, the rafters, and 3 whole boards in the back!

In the interest of getting as far as I could with what I had I screwed 2 2x4s together to make crossmembers.

I took down the 2 supports I had in the front because I was running out of boards and now it wobbles a little. I think that I will install cables across the roof to compensate.

I found 5 boards in the garage that were long enough for the back, so I am missing one.

Wait, I am still using 6 supports, and the full-sized boards on the corner are only there to position the actual corners. I need 3 boards for each side, plus 1 more for the back.

Sorted!

I designed this to use exactly 10 sheets of coroplast, but if I didn't have leftover shorter boards I would make the back wall about 47.5" instead of 56".

About the coroplast...

When I went to order it HomeDepot.com said "You're shopping Tempe!"

Tempe is 173 miles away.

I told it Show Low and added the sheets to my cart.

It showed Tempe, so I changed it to Show Low again and ordered. However, when I received my receipt it said that it is sending it to Tempe. I called and the lady said that all we can do is order again and actually send it to Show Low this time. We just wait for my sheets to arrive in Tempe, wait for them to give up on me, and wait for Home Depot to refund my money.

She asked if I wanted to order the coroplast again and I said "Not from your store."

I cannot find it for a reasonable price anywhere else! Bob bought some from Lowe's, but they don't have it in-stock.

For any lunatics out there, when I put

clear coroplast greenhouse 96"

into DuckDuckGo it shows 36 results. All of them are related to greenhouses, but otherwise they are useless. It doesn't show Home Depot or the $81 sheets that Lowe's has. It shows 2 24"x24" sheets and 2 eBay listings that are similar to what I ordered from Home Depot, but for over $1,000!

That is officially the highest price that I have seen!

Of course, I found about 20 sites that say "Request a quote!"

I think that I need to go in and request they order it sent to their store. Hopefully I could get my Veteran's discount. The best that I could do ordering from home was sign up for ID.me, which is supposed to give me 4% cash back, which I can redeem once a quarter through PayPal.

Guess who else I don't like?

PayPal!

Unfortunately, the sheets wouldn't arrive at the store until a couple of weeks from then, and I still need to figure out how to get them home.

The battery wore out in my cordless screwdriver, so when I installed the boards in the back I:

1. Clamped my level to the board.
2. Clamped the board to another board.
3. Pre-drilled a hole in the top.
4. Changed to the Phillips bit and put a screw in the top.
5. Change back to the drill bit and drill a hole in the bottom.
6. Change back to Phillips and put in a screw.
7. Grab my level and mark where to cut.
8. Remove the screws and cut the board.
9. Install the board for real this time.

I also wish that I knew where my Triple Tap 3 Outlet Extension Cord from Harbor Freight is. It would be nice to not need to unplug my drill to use my saw and visa-versa.

Should I run 2 extension cords?

I need to cut and install 4 more boards across the back, 3 boards on each side, and install the rafters.

That doesn't sound too bad!

Another week?

[Xist]

This may be an option in Canada: https://plasticsplusltd.com/products...-sheet-natural

Currently $27 a sheet, but I put in an address in Edmonton and it said it would e-mail me the shipping estimate.

[Xist]

I kept asking Mom about her tree:

It took months to get her to call her arborist and weeks to hear back. He suggested cutting the dead branches and see if it is doing better in the spring. He said they would stop by in the afternoon, but it has been days, so this morning I rented a truck, saw, and chipper. The saw worked great, but I couldn't get the chipper to reach full speed. When I finally got it running I tossed in a few small branches and it died. When I tried to restart it it needed to chew the branches and it never stayed running, so I grabbed Mom's old recliner couches, threw them in the back, strapped the branches on top, and took the branches and the recliner couches to the dump.

I sure wish I could have gotten my brother to help me!

I didn't have time to work on the greenhouse before my client, who didn't connect. I wasted too much time afterwards and didn't go outside until six.

It was already dark! I grabbed my headlamp and did the last four boards in the back. I figured that I needed three on each side, so I measured the gap.
68"
I divided that by three and, instead of marking where to put the edge of each board like before, I marked where to put the outside of the boards on each side, figuring that it would be easy to split the difference. I cut and installed them and realized that you divide by four for three boards.
The boards in the front and back are 20" apart, on-center.
The ones on the side are 22.67" apart, on center.
An extra 13.33% shouldn't make a big difference, but it won't help.
By the way, they should have been 17" apart, on-center, 17.6% stronger than 20" on-center.
I need to cut and install the two boards on the other side tomorrow. Then I will screw in the rafters and see if the rest of the plastic sheet is any good.

[Xist]

I worked on it before my clients at noon. I worked on it before my client at 3:30. I worked on it after that client. I worked on it after the sun went down and as I started attaching the rafters in the front my second drill bit broke. I didn't think that I had any more the right size, so I cut off the rest of the plastic that once protected the drywall.

It barely covered the roof!

I ran to Home Depot, bought 2 more drop cloths, 2 replacement drill bits for $2.50, 3 sets of C9 incandescent Christmas lights, and a starfish-shaped power strip.

Behold! :P


Mom had mentioned putting sheets on her tomato plants on the patio, but said she didn't know where her extra sheets were. I had one and a new set from Walmart. Mom complained about me using a new set, but I wasn't using it, and they were from Walmart.

Sometime after it warms up today I am going to screw the rafters into the rest of the frame from the inside and I think I'll make a door!

For a 6'3" x 10' greenhouse I could have used 2 dropcloths. I wanted to remove the dirty fragment and use the third piece to cover the roof and front, but it just might have been big enough, and I had lots of overlap, so I had it cover the front and extend 2' around the corner.

I didn't trim the excess plastic from the piece that covered 3 sides and there was a great deal in the back. I pulled it tight and stapled the ends. I don't want six layers of plastic diffusing the sunlight that much more, but I was focused on finishing last night, getting inside, and going to bed.

My sister filled her backyard with a garden and I asked if it would be okay in the winter.

It still freezes in Phoenix.

She said she didn't know and I asked if she was interested in greenhouse panels. She said no and reminded me that she is taking Mom to Oregon soon. She asked if Mom could drive the panels back. I said it was a bad idea to ask a 74 year-old woman to strap a box with 10 4x8 panels to the roof of her car and drive it 3.5 hours through canyons, woods, and dead cell phone zones.

I just don't like Mom driving anyway. She always falls asleep when I drive her!

I told my sister that I could drive her down and then rent a pickup to pick up her and the panels. Costco can get me a rental for $110 with unlimited miles. I would vastly prefer that Home Depot just sent my stuff where I wanted it, but I prefer this to waiting for an eventual refund, and waiting for the store that messed up my order to send a second order to the correct location--hopefully.

[Xist]

Who is surprised that Mom is sabotaging me? This isn't the first time.


She refuses to water the plants in the greenhouse or cover the plants on the patio.

They may not survive.

I decided to make a hinged hoop house, but I don't know how to make one of those for three plants in large pots without half walls.

I don't see the point in building a garden box around pots and each of the tomato plants has branches hanging below the top of the pot, so I thought they should get some sunlight.

I thought this was a good idea:

[Xist]

There are tons of holes in each $30 sheet where staples used to be. I barely managed to pull it together against the wind and it blew apart before I could secure it. My brother was screaming at me, so I had him hold it while I grabbed the stapler.
He let go and it blew apart.
I grabbed the stir sticks that I used to secure the insulation in the shed.
For some reason the staples went right through the paper. If it held at first it soon ripped.
Well, one of the sticks that I stapled onto the greenhouse came off already. Hopefully there are enough sticks stapled on to last until morning.
Then I can screw 1x2s all around, since I don't have anything else to do.

My sister is flying Mom to California and Oregon [one last time]. Mom keeps saying that she is driving herself and I keep saying "You are not strapping a 4x8 box to the roof of your car."

I told her that we needed to leave at 08 so I could be back in-time for my appointments, so she made an appointment at 11.

I keep telling her to make a hotel reservation and we repeat that conversation.

Now of course a bad person would say "So what? Let her die," but this is a horrible time to hold a funeral for me! I just can't squeeze in weeks of crying myself to sleep, waking up, and then crying myself to sleep again!

Plus she always says that she wants my brother's provider to get her car.

How can the lady inherit a car if Mom drives it off a cliff?!

A final happy thought: I am not just trying to avoid Mom dying unnecessarily. I am trying to avoid Mom dying slowly, painfully, and alone unnecessarily.

[Xist]

I was trying to take care of stuff this morning, but I was ready to take Mom to her appointment anytime. I was about to start screwing 1x2s onto the greenhouse to keep the plastic in place when she was finally ready.

She was 15 minutes late and we didn't leave Show Low until 1300.

The coroplast arrived--damaged. I need to drive over and see if I still want it. They will give me some kind of discount.

I don't see any good options. I doubt that dropcloths will be any good when we get back, but there may not be enough coroplast left, and if there is, how do I get it home? I wouldn't be able to make it down here until Saturday.

There is just no way. There aren't any available vehicles. I don't see an option besides saying that I cannot use those panels, order them again, and this time send them to the right store, but what am I going to do? Buy another 2 drop cloths for $30 each and this time secure them with furring strips?

Mom actually likes the bench I built around her at-least-mostly-dead potted plants on the patio. We will see what she thinks when I build a hoop house.

This really isn't help me shake the feeling that everything is futile and will fail.