The Beginning of the Inspiration; Damn you, Pinterest!

As little as two years ago, I had no idea I wanted to have a greenhouse or chicken coop. In fact, most would state I didn’t really have a passion for gardening at all let alone an urban garden to build and maintain. I had a few ideas I wanted to incorporate into our backyard. However, the scale was minimal along with the vision of what could be. Then I found Pinterest, and everything changed.

Pinterest Greenhouse

In trying to refine my initial wants and needs for my backyard, I kept seeing little pictures of cute greenhouses made from old windows. Each one of these Pinterest pins planted seeds that this is something I might do someday. Each greenhouse had unique features, but all had old, or historic, glazed windows for roofing and siding. Additionally, most had comments like, “Absolutely love. Wish my husband would build one for me.” Or, “If I had the time or money, I’d have one.” Finally, “Someday, I will have one of my own.”

Over time, these seeds began to propagate by me asking questions of construction friends about the process, reality, and potential costs of building a greenhouse of this nature. Because I had little construction background, I would ask about the process of building a greenhouse from windows that are 50-100 years-old. I was encouraged by the responses, and started to want to build one of my own.

Pinterest Chicken Coop

As time went by and I became a little more serious about the possibilities of actually building a greenhouse, other Pinterest branches formed to complete the greenhouse (backyard) plan. Some of these branches included potting bench, chicken coops, compost bins, and interior greenhouse ideas. My wife started watering (pinning) ideas to make the greenhouse project idea grow faster. We would share our pins, discuss what we liked and disliked, and fine-tuned the idea of someday building one.

Backyard Map Winter 2013

The someday became a real possibility about 18 months ago. I started mapping out our backyard to where everything would fit in. I made a crude hand drawing on graph paper to scale that included the chicken coop, raised garden beds, compost bins, and greenhouse. Little did I know how much work it would take to make this vision come to fruition, and to believe 90% of the inspiration came from little cute Pinterest pins. Once the decision was made to make our vision become a reality, where to start became the next question.