Planning a greenhouse

March 20, 2025

At Gardener’s World Live last year one of the things I was keen to look at, apart from all the show gardens and beautiful borders, was greenhouses. We don’t have one here yet, and I’m missing it - pottering about at the greenhouse staging in the garage is ok, but the garage isn’t ideal for germinating seeds, and I really could do with a light, sheltered space for some of our plants to over winter to give them the best chance.

Not too big, not too small

I don’t want a huge greenhouse, though I’ve already doubled the size I first thought of! And I do want to integrate it into our overall garden design.

In our previous house I had the standard 6x8 aluminium Rhino greenhouse, and it was great - but as I’ve said my plans for this garden are a bit smaller. Originally I was looking at a 2x4 patio greenhouse, but given that it needs to be two foot from any boundary for maintenance, that seemed a lot of space for not very much greenhouse at all.

And so I upscaled my tentative plans to a 6x4 - but also preferring the black frame, rather than aluminium. Of course, all of this is just plans at the moment - though I did come dangerously close to buying one of the show greenhouses in one of the sales, but in the end I resisted as I wanted our plans to be a bit more developed first.

Testing it out for size

So would a 6x4 greenhouse work in our space? Well as there’s nothing else really in our garden, apart from the trellis around the heat pump and the small crab apple tree, the answer is clearly a yes, But would it work how I wanted it too, where I envisaged it - or would it dominate the garden?

I decided to try it out using bamboo canes and string. So this visualisation spent a fortnight or so in place in our garden last summer, and no doubt any neighbours that spotted it clearly must have thought we’d lost the plot.

Mocking up a greenhouse with string and bamboo canes

But it worked, well visually of course, not as an actual greenhouse!

It was easy (and easier than it looks in the photo) to see its footprint, how high it would come up the wall, how far it would come into the garden - and most importantly, how dominant it would be from the house. Putting it directly opposite our lounge windows might not seem the most obvious positioning, but I’m hoping it will also help keep it tidy and on the prettier side. I fully intend to retain the greenhouse staging in the garage for the real functional work, and use the greenhouse for what it does best - providing a sheltered growing space.

Of course I spent the time that it was up, looking out of every window to check what it looked like from that vantage point - and I was happy, until of course my temporary structure collapsed a little. But by then it had done its job and confirmed this is the size and location for me.

Now only if the rest of planning the garden was that easy - but more on that another day!

Pegboards for tools in the garage

March 10, 2025

Around the same time that I bought some pegboards for my craft room, MOH ordered some for the garage aiming to make good use of the space above his workbench. He’d spotted some reasonably priced metal pegboards, with accompanying accessories on VonHaus and was set to put his order in.

However when we measured the space we realised it could fit two sets in, as each set comprised of three individual sections. And while it wasn’t totally clear from the site, we reckoned that you didn’t have to hang all three side by side - and thankfully, that small gamble paid off.

But first, look at the accessories that came with them - this is for both of them - there’s quite the choice there.

So we set to work - the Royal ‘we’ mostly! - in the opposite corner of the garage from where we added the hooks for our garden tools shortly after we moved after getting fed up of constantly stepping over and moving them. Side note: it’s worked out really well, I highly recommend!

With the workbench in position, which was my FIL’s and which we’d been storing dismantled in our shed for a fair time before our move in the hope that we’d have the space for MOH to make good use of at some point, we set about positioning the pegboards.

One set/three sections did go up as shown on the website directly above the workbench, but leaving enough space for tools to hang down, and also to allow a shelf to be put up above for additional storage.

We (the Royal sort again) hung the second set/three sections in an inverted L shape and higher than the others, aiming to make it easy to access as many tools as possible easily.

This is very much not my space, so after initially helping to get some kind of working plan for the best place for tools, I’ve retreated and left it very much to MOH. As I know from my using my craft room it’s once you start using a space that you really work out what works. And I think he’s done that, as from this little space have come the shelves for the bathroom cupboard, and the herb and spice shelves in the pantry, and as you’d expect I’ve some other jobs lined up for him too.

Thankfully though, he’s not surprised at all!

Four fabulous bedside tables

February 10, 2025

One of the ongoing projects we’ve had on our list to complete is to sort out the bedrooms in our new build, and it’s something that’s getting closer to being ticked off the list. And there’s been a whole lot of change since we moved in - including the ‘great bed swap around’ - which came about when we bought ourselves a new bed, but I’ll leave that post for another day.

However the new bed arriving meant that we had surplus beds, one had to go - and of course it wasn’t that simple. We had our old bed, a metal framed bed, which we wanted to keep, a divan bed which gives great storage, and a futon which we bought just before we got married in 2007.

The futon was a heavy one, and while we’d had it a while, it hadn’t had a huge amount of use. But it was this one that was on the hit list, and so I tried to give it away in a local Facebook group with no joy. After a pause over summer, and while the spare bedroom was temporarily repurposed as a huge clothes store while we had inners fitted to our built in wardrobes (there’s another post to come), I was back on the case.

This time though I had some unexpected Facebook success. In another local Facebook group thoughts were clearly turning to Christmas and sleeping arrangements for those hosting, and someone asked if anyone was selling a sofa bed or futon.

Well, hello.

Our futon is now in its new home just up the road, and what’s better I sold it rather than gave it away - its new owner is happy with their bargain for the snug and their kids were glad not to sleep on an air mattress. Everyone’s happy!

But of course that left me with no excuses for getting our spare bedrooms straight - so the final parts of the ‘great bed swap around’ were implemented. Our old bed, which had been stored dismantled in the third bedroom, is now in our guest room, and the divan is now in the spare bedroom.

Yes it would have been easier to assemble our old bed in the spare room, but the room shape is narrower/longer than the guest room and I thought that the bed with both a head and foot board would make the room look smaller. The guest bedroom is squarer and there is more space to navigate around the bed, so it really was a no brainer.

Searching for new bedside tables

For years we’d had some old Ikea units alongside the divan as bedside tables, but these really didn’t work with the metal framed bed, and were much larger than we needed. So the hunt for new bedside tables began in earnest.

I wanted something that would have room for a lamp, and a glass of water or cup of tea that wasn’t too large, or too small. I didn’t need a drawer, but I was keen on having a shelf of some description. And with these criteria I wasn’t that hopeful if I’m honest, but I struck gold at M&S, and two arrived and were assembled by MOH at the start of December.

Step forward the Salcombe side table

They are M&S’ Salcombe Side tables - the top is 35cm x 35cm which is plenty big enough for a lamp, a drink and a book and even a pair of glasses or a make-up bag. There’s no drawer - so none of our junk can creep into there, and hopefully that means no forgotten items either. And there is a shelf - so everything on my list. What’s better is that they were only £49 each.

They may not be billed as bedside tables on their website - my search reached the creative thinking stage before I was successful. You can imagine I was keen to try them out in both bedrooms - and if they worked order some more quickly before they sold out! I’m so glad I didn’t wait, as I’ve just checked while writing this post and this colour is no longer on their site, the lighter grey is still available.

They worked, I ordered some more which arrived the following week, and were just as quickly assembled by MOH.