DIY Greenhouse | Don't Buy a Kit Until You See This

this week I am building a greenhouse this is a greenhouse for me but you can take the same steps and turn it into anything that you need a tool shed a she shed a key shed it's just a little movable building actually it's not movable I just happen to move mine let's go ahead and get into the steps on building one I'm going to start off by building the floor and you can see it's just simple construction I am using pressure treated wood since it's going to be close to the ground and outside what you want to do with your floor joists is Crown them so that you want to look down the board and find the curve and then you want to place this where the hump is up and then this way over time it'll settle into it now I have a battery operated nailer so I'm going to be using that but if you don't have one then you could always use screws instead so a general rule of thumb whenever you're trying to figure out how much Hardware to put into material as you're nailing or screwing it you want to take whatever the material is and divide it by two this is a two by six I'm going to be using three per joint it was a two by eight four two by twelve a six the next step is going to be to put on the decking but before I do that I'm going to square up the frame very simple way of doing that is to pull two diagonals from corner to corner once the number matches the square is framed the frame is square we got it 10 feet three quarter so let's see this is the long side that means I need to go 10 feet that should be it nine feet and seven eighths I'm calling that square in order to hold square I've placed this diagonal like at least two different points to hold it and but then I left myself a place to start applying the decking now normally I would not use high-end synthetic material for something like a greenhouse but I've actually had these boards left over for about three years however they are pretty disgusting from being outside for so long so I'm going to very quickly power wash these I typically wouldn't pull out a power washer for such a simple job however steel has made it incredibly easy to pull this as a go-to tool as you can see it's on Wheels so it very easily moves around but what I really love is that everything is stored on board and the cord reel typically you have to deal with this kind of tedious hose that you're always wrapping around something but steel has made this on a reel to where you can very easily wind and unwind it I'll tell you this it is very easy to get distracted with the pressure washer once it's in your hands but let's stay focused for screws I'm using stainless steel this way they'll hold up or ever in the outside elements and of course this thing is going to be getting wet another thing I like about these back screws is the reverse threads up at the head which is going to pull down the material as I secure it to the framing this is going to make sense whenever you see the bigger picture but next is going to be start of building out the trusses and what I'm going to be doing is doing the stud walls with the truss in one go and I'm actually going to be using my floor here as a jig setup what I'm going to do is take two blossoms here it to the bottom side of this corner in that corner and then take one block and secure it to I don't know about three quarters of the way up on this side okay so now I can take this slip it there this way we're utilizing the platform as a jig now I'm going to be taking these two shapes and securing the top of the truss to the bottom of the truss using the elongated ones and then the peak one to go of course up at the very top now since I have a CNC I did cut these out on the CNC but I do have a free template with the plans for both of these shapes so you could just bandsaw these what you want to do is secure both the left and right so that before securing the top you can actually pull a tape measure this is exactly six feet across find Center which in this case it's easy it's three feet and then I'm just going to eyeball it and my center line here where these two join is right at three feet but if it wasn't then you would want to skew it in order to make sure that it's lining up with your Center mark okay and then there we have one truss now we need to flip it over and I'm going to play gussets to the back side as well however I don't need the jig for that now the Gable ends which are going to be the two outside most trusses are built identical except the gussets only go on the inside face and then they also have a collared tie so I'm going to be placing one collar tie inside of the truss itself and the bottom point is lined up to the top of the gusset then I'm going to be placing a top collar tie which is going to be on top of it now of course the greenhouse needs ventilation so on the second Gable in only one is gonna have this vent framing so in order to make that I'm going to take one cross member and put it there attach it now I'm going to take some simple cutoffs I'm going to go ahead and call these Jack studs lay this Center one in horizontally and then once it's all secure I'm going to be able to go to the bottom side and put in these two vents in these little cubby holes that I've just created let me go ahead and give you a tip that I love for a toe nailing you see a lot of people trying to toenail where they go like this and then try to go out however a tip that I learned that I absolutely love is to actually start in the exit and that way you can guarantee that it's coming out center of the 2x4 so I'm just going to take this and I get my drill bit started straight and then I'm going to angle it and break my drill bit that is not a good tip fire me people okay so what I'm gonna do is start start off with my drill bit going straight and then as it's going angle it up and then go out and then this way you can always just dictate that it's coming out where you want it [Music] so I just need to held up long enough in order to put on a diagonal I already have like some screws started here what I'm going to do is I'm going to go from this as high as I can get it Corner down to the face of the framing and then secure it once that truss is in Plum [Music] did she do it she did that is how you can install these if you're working by yourself but if you have a friend to give you a hand then it makes this Step Go much quicker after setting the bottom of each one in with a few toenails the important thing is to plummet and then connect with a screw to the diagonal I went ahead and added in this member here because this diagonal is way too low on this truss in order to do any sort of Plumbing so since these are Plum by doing a horizontal brace here it's capturing this and it will ensure that this one's Plum and also this very end one that is going to go in next okay next I'm going to be adding in the studs the framing for the back and the front walls so on the back here this is just going to give me some framing members in order to put on the siding which is going to be the next step these are going to be in touch the same way so where I'm just going to toenail in at the bottom and then also along the top then on the front this is going to be creating my doorway now I'm going to go for a 30 inch door but of course you can go very wide or even more narrow if you wanted to so for siding I'm going with an exterior grade plywood I painted it black because my next thing is going to be to put Cedar over it and so this is going to make this kind of Disappear by it being black okay I'm going to nail the bottom first and this is just to tack it in place and then afterwards I'll come back with screws now the reason I nailed the bottom first is because this is a 90 degree cut and you can see here that this Gable end has some play in it so by nailing the bottom which is stationary now I can just plumb the top and then tack it in place so something else I did is before putting this board I marked the top two foot center so that now that I'm here I can very easily move my stud into place and quickly nail it and we can rinse and repeat and then I come back afterwards and use screws the sheathing is now holding all of this framing Plum so now I can take off this diagonal and then cheath this side but I waited until last to make sure that I don't mess up all of these trusses in Plum all right next up I'm going to be adding in a sill now this is mostly decorative but it's also functional because on the profile here I actually sloped it away and I'll show you how I made this veto in just a second now as you can see it already popped most of it around and me personally I never like to do miters outside because they will always open up so instead I'm going to be doing a butt joint however you can see that since I've added in the slope detail it's not going to line up perfectly I'm going to screw it in place and then come back with the belt sander and hand shape this now a trick that you can do whenever you're applying your still that a lot of people don't do is you can cut in a curve right here along the bottom Edge just a little bit in this is going to create a break to where when the water hits it from the top it's going to drip off at this Edge rather than hitting your siding for the panels I'm going with tuftex multi-wall polycarbonate panels they have so many advantages over glass and other clear polymer panels such as they are much more affordable lightweight and you can get them at your local home center it's interesting the way they're constructed it's two layers of polycarbonate with the ribs and air spaces in between and this means that they provide much better insulation than solid materials plus they're super strong they're actually 20 times stronger than fiberglass and they're almost Unbreakable now I'm going to pre-drill but I'm only going to punch through the polycarbonate now I just repeat that sitting process on all four sides now these two panels are going to have the vent in it so in order to create this perfect pop out I'm going to use a drill bit to punch a hole large enough for a flush trim bit to come back in a palm router and then cut it perfectly flush [Music] I actually started off installing these panels horizontal but they actually need to be installed vertical thankfully I only had this panel on the other panel on so I just very quickly flipped them around all the same installation instructions apply and you're going to be cutting this stuff like I said before there's no special tools required you can rip it over at the table saw you can cut it at the miter saw and if you don't have either one of those of course a circular saw will work as well now whenever you want to join panel they do make something called an H Channel which usually takes two pieces and combines them together foreign next up is going to be trim now I'm going to go in with Western Red Cedar for my entire trim and then also all of my bottom wainscoting it's my go-to material for anything outside because of its naturally rot resistant qualities not only to Insects but also termites in order to fungus now what I like to do is start with the corners here and you can see it's a very simple L bracket I'm using daps new exterior wood glue on the joint and then check out these new clamps from Rockler they have an inline clamping mechanism for a really Slim profile but my favorite feature is the quick clamp where you can increase or decrease the tension with a knob on the side when you have it set you just have to squeeze the handle to apply the pressure releasing it is just as quick simple pull on the small lever releases attention now before putting on the corners I do not want water coming in on here and then entering into my trim and then coming down here and rotting out my seal so what I'm going to do is apply a bead of caulking along the two outside most edges before it in place and that way it creates a nice moisture barrier when choosing a sealant my go-to top quality one is this dynaflex Ultra made by dap it is an exterior ceiling but you can also use it in interior it's one of those sealants that if you never want it to fail reach for this one when sticking it to the building I'm still going to be going with a 15 BH nailer popping on both of the corners first and then working my way on the inside and you can see how quickly this goes and starts really giving it some defining shape I repeat the same method on all four sides thank you moving down to the bottom I'm doing the wainscoting and really you can do any style you prefer here I'm personally going horizontal but you could go vertical it's as simple as measuring the distance cutting your board to length and then I'm using again the 15 gauge nailer to tack it in place another personal preference was the spacing that I picked out I just cut some boards at to act as spacers to make this Step Go quickly but you could make these either smaller or larger gaps but you can see how the back painted board comes into play now because it just kind of camouflages it now I'm going to show you my favorite method for making a quick but stable door and that is to do a half lap but with two layers of material as you can see I already have the uh space layer of the door and if you can imagine this going up this is going to be the show face and so I put that down I have saved all of my Oklahoma ugliest words for the back side of the door and what I'm going to do is I'm going to create the second layer right on top of this and it's going to alter the the base layer so as you can see this member here goes on the inside of this board the top layer the back layer is going to span the entire way same thing here this one's on the inside so this one's going to span all the way to the outside and after I get everything set into place I'm actually going to glue and then Brad nail these but I just wanted to show you quickly how it's going to go together move here same with this horizontal one this one's on the inside this spans all the way to the outside and this is going to create a really strong so if you have a gate any sort of door then this is a method that you can do now this lip is where the tuptex is going to come in this is the small panel just to show you it's going to rest on this lip and then I'm going to cut a scrap and do it here in order to capture it so what I would recommend is that you cut all your boards just like I have done lay them all out make sure they're they're cut perfectly and then you can come back in glue and brand new one let's talk about hinges so typically you have to mortise into the wood for the hinge and that's a pain so at the store know that they make no mortise hinges which have an incredibly low profile so that you don't have to mess with the mortise at all and then they're really cheap so for these events I'm personally new to greenhousing it's my first one but I'm going to start off with two Vents and who knows maybe you need to add more in the front maybe we need to add more it down low I'm not really sure one thing to note is that the screen this is what the inside screen looks like goes on the inside and then you want the louvers facing down so that when water hits it of course the water runs off instead of going inside foreign so then on the inside little opening flap that way if I need it warmer in here less ventilation [Music] I think that is way too cool so you might be wondering why did you build a greenhouse in your shop well it is extremely hot here in Texas so I had this crazy idea to build it in my AC shop and then somehow move it outside afterwards the door is 119 inches so I built this greenhouse at 118. moving it was actually a really fun adventure that I'll go ahead and spoil the ending for you went successfully it involved me being a Workhorse [Laughter] crashing it slightly and utilizing my buggy after it was on location I brought out my portical unit to blow directly on me while battling this 110 degree heat because then my task was to jack up each side to level it once it was on site and level I brought on my steel battery operated blower I find these essential in job sites for blasting white dust during and after the job these days I don't even own gas operated yard tools as I'm finding the steel equipment has all the power and the duration I need if you're interested in seeing the entire fund adventure of the move then check out that video I tell you what what an adventure you know building this thing was relatively simple it took me three days which I think is is a decent time if you need something like this size but everything was so simple and you can even make it bigger or smaller depending on what it is that you're using it for or how much space that you have now don't forget that I do have a set of plans if you want to build this one even if you don't want a greenhouse you could very easily use them in order to turn it into a tool shed or any sort of a little building that you might need but if you are looking for a greenhouse this tough text material was so simple to work with and reading about all of the qualities on the insulation the strength it's intended for Greenhouse usage so definitely look at this if you have a greenhouse and then I love how the Western red cedar pops you can absolutely come back and put a coat of stain on it but this is one thing I love about using Western red cedar is that it will hold up naturally as is for a very long time and then if you like that gray patina if you don't put coat of stain on it then it will get that naturally weathered look I really hope that you have enjoyed this video I have really enjoyed bringing you guys along for it who knows what I'm building next but I'll see you on my next project

Channel: April Wilkerson

Views: 567,570

Keywords: aprilwilkerson, wilkerdos, diy, diyproject, diyprojects, build, plans, howto, greenhouse ideas, back yard greenhouse, small greenhouse, greenhouse kit, plastic panels, polycarbonate, pvc, prefabricated, cheap, budget, cost, hothouse, moveable, popup, storage shed, yard shed, tuftex, multiwall, onduline, western red cedar, suncast, cortina, lifetime, framing, ventilation, how to build a a door, 6x8 greenhouse, footing, foundation

Id: nJHk0MFaPw0

Length: 19min 4sec (1144 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 13 2023