Adventures with my Sundog

Some of you may remember my thread from a month or two ago asking for advice on which greenhouse to buy. Long story short, I ended up getting the 5'x9' Sundog greenhouse and in this thread I'm going to chronicle my adventures in assembling it by myself. I've got it started now so I'll post the first few pictures of the process, and I'll continue to add pics over the next weeks? months? years? as I try to get it finished.

Here's what the finished thing should look like:
http://www.advancegreenhouses.com/Sundog%20012.jpg

For starters, the greenhouse showed up in 3 big boxes, one was the base, one was the panels, and one was the metal pieces to hold the panels together. So I unpacked and read the instructions. Or actually reading might not be an accurate description, the instructions are entirely in pictures. I like pictures, but I also like some words to go along with them so I can feel more comfortable I'm doing the right thing! As I sorted pieces (everything comes with letters/numbers so you know what everything is), I noticed that there are several pieces labelled Y7 (one of the side panels), but one of them is a different size than the others. We'll see later if this causes a problem! I'm hoping the one odd sized one is too big, not that the others are too small because that's a problem I think I could fix myself and I don't have time to get replacement parts before the weather gets too cold (it's already cold enough some nights that I'm dragging my plumies and a few other extra sensitive things into the house most nights)

Step 1: The base. I assembled and pounded it into the ground in the spot I wanted it. My ground is not level, so I made the frame level by pounding it all the way down on the one side, and propping up the end with several pieces of 2x4 at the other end so that the frame overall sits level. Managed to dent the corners of the frame with the mallet I was using to pound it in...guess the couple rainy days we've had hadn't softened the ground up enough! Hopefully this won't be a problem down the road!

Step 2: Doors. So far so easy! I had a bit of a hard time telling from the pictures which side of a couple of the pieces was supposed to face the outside of the greenhouse, but by sitting and looking at things closely for a while I think I got it figured out.

Step 3: Vent lids. Again, pretty simple (although I'm not quite as sure that I got the pieces oriented in the right direction). Also, one of the pieces of metal framing was supposed to slide right over another piece of metal framing...on one of the vent lids this worked just fine, but the other one the opening wasn't narrow enough, so I had to fight with it with the pliers for a while trying to pry it open a bit, then pound it on with the hammer.

Step 4: Rear frame. This was the first big piece, so I knew it would probably be more challenging. To make things even more of a challenge, for some reason the instruction manual stopped putting a list of how many of each piece and screw/bolt you needed for this step. This info was very helpful on the door and vent lid pieces since I was able to pull out the pieces I needed ahead of time from the stack. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted! I started assembling the green metal parts of the frame inside (up until now I'd been doing all the assembly in my office, which has sliders out to the deck which is right next to where the greenhouse will go). After I had most of the metal parts together, I realized that it was too tall to fit out the door. So I took it apart, took all the pieces outside and assembled it again. Then I realized that the gable part of the greenhouse was oriented differently than I had thought initially, and between the height of the base and the height at the top of the gable, the greenhouse was going to collide with the big beam supporting my upstairs deck. So.....

Step 1b: Dig base out of ground and relocate so greenhouse won't bang into upstairs deck. Not too big a problem, but I had to knock out a few more fence boards so that I would have room to work on both sides of the greenhouse (fence was coming down eventually anyway, but I hadn't really wanted to do it this weekend!). Dug up base, replaced, pounded into the ground again (doing some further denting to the metal). Since the bottom end is farther down the hill now, I also need 5 pieces of 2x4 at the one end to keep it level, vs the 4 pieces I needed before.

Back to step 4 (rear frame). The metal framing pieces went together fine, but then came the challenge of trying to slide in 3 different plastic sections into this 9' long frame. This is where having a helper would have come in handy! Nothing was heavy, but it's just awkward and while I was working on fitting section 3 into place, section 1 would pop out. Got quite frustrating after a while! Then I got the idea to tape the plastic to the frame once I got one piece slid into place. Worked much better after that! Here's the final rear piece:

Step 5: Front frame. Much like the rear frame, except a few more metal pieces and a few less plastic ones because of the opening for the door. The biggest problem I ran into here (besides the same awkwardness of trying to manage a 9' section of greenhouse that has a mind of its own) was that there are all these little slots which you have to slide bolts into, then at some point that bolt will be used to attach another metal piece. Problem is, earlier pages in the directions instructed you how many bolts to slide into each slot ahead of time, but now they make you guess. So I had pieces attached to both ends of the crossbar, but then in the next picture realized that I should have slid a bolt into the slot first. So had to disassemble a little bit, slide in the bolt, then proceed. But it was finally done too (seen here leaning up in front of the rear piece, it's a little hard to see it because of that):

Step 6: Part of roof. (I should note at this point that I left the front and back sections leaning up against my Italian Cypress trees just as they're shown in the last picture because the area wasn't wide enough to lay them down flat on the ground which I would have preferred...this will become important in a minute!) Back to the roof...this was another fairly easy one which I assembled back in the office (I prefer the indoor assembly to outdoor...it's a lot easier to find a dropped screw or nut on a tile floor than in the weeds!). Only issue on this one was the lack of directions as far as how many bolts to insert into the slots, but at least this time I knew they were going to make me guess so I carefully looked at all the pictures for this step before I fastened anything together!

So far so good...until we got our first windy rainstorm of the year last night. I awoke around midnight to the sound of greenhouse panels crashing into the deck/hot tub as the wind blew them over. I don't think any permanent damage was done, but some of the plastic panels that I spent hours over the weekend snapping into place have now snapped themselves out of place! I left the panels flopped over against the hot tub for the rest of the night, but this morning found a way to stand them up between the deck/hot tub and the pole supporting the upstairs deck...I don't think they can blow over again from there, hopefully I'll have the rest of it put together before we have another windy storm to test it though!

That's it for now...stay tuned after the weekend for further updates!

lol OMG ecrane! this is one adventure that you are going to always remember!!

I remember when one of my greenhouses was being built. It was a 100' long grhouse, and the guy building it decided to put the plastic on the frame before attaching the frame to the ground. He also did not put the end pieces of plastic on the gables, so it was basically a long, wide tunnel for the night. We got a freak wind/rain storm at 5 in the morning-I knew it was coming our way from the west because it was on the news-the wind gusts were so strong that cars were being flipped over the town before me( and he called me to tell me to get out there and start attaching the grhouse to the ground). So I get out there with my drill to attach the wood to the black pipe that was already sunk in the ground-but its pouring rain-so hard that the weight of the water is starting to drag my pj pants down ( no joke!! lol) and the grhouse is moving in the wind up and down and sideways and I am supposed to get two screws into the holes of the metal that attaches the wood to the black pipe??? All 30 of them -just one side?? It didn't happen. To make things worse-right then, the delivery guy pulls up with all the wood for the benches inside....ahhhh, the memories!!!

I hope it goes easier for you this weekend. You will get it done, and you will feel so proud of yourself when its over and your plants are doing so great in their new home!! Its a big job that you have taken on!

Sounds like your adventure was bigger than mine! I did go out in the rain to check on the panels, but didn't have to stay out there because there was no way to do anything with them but leave them there (can't anchor them down until I have the other two sides done!). Hopefully this weekend will go well...the part I'm not looking forward to is the roof, the greenhouse is 8-9' high so I can just see myself perched on the ladder trying to hold up one end of the roof in one hand while I try to put the bolts in the other end...we'll see how it goes!

ecrane3, I'm not laughing at your greenhouse assembly battles, but your storytelling skills did make me laugh! (You too tigerlily123, that was quite a visual picture!) I also posted on your earlier thread about which GH to buy. I ended up buying the Harbor Freight GH but it's still in the box, and will be so for some time. We're currently replacing most of the windows in our house so the GH has to wait for now.

Thank you for posting all these pictures, I'm bracing myself for my own adventures. If I lived next door, I'd be over there helping you wrestle those pieces in place. Best of luck to you!
Sheri

ecrane3, This thread is better than a soap! What are you mostly planning on using it for? I hope you send your script to the company with your suggestions for future buyers. Good luck this weekend. Patti

This is very interesting, ecrane3. Thanks a bunch for posting pics and narrative stories on how you are assembling this.
I am looking for a greenhouse too so this helps me a lot too. I will probably assemble it myself too unless my son decides to help.
Have a few questions tho if you don't mind.
Where did you buy this greenhouse? Is it actually a 5' x 9' size? I need to not be over 5' at all but length can be any. Also, how much did you pay for it if you don't mind sharing that?

But looking good. Hope the winds settle down for you tho. Here in the NW, it has been bad tho.
Will be watching/reading your progress!
Carol

Glad you guys are enjoying the story! Hopefully it'll have a happy ending this weekend and I'll get it finished (at least we just had the one night of wind--hopefully if I can get it done and attached to the base this weekend then I'll be in good shape!) I'm planning to use it primarily for overwintering tropicals (yes, even though some of you are probably jealous that I live in nice warm zone 9, that's still not good enough for me!) I have a couple plumerias, Delonix regia, several Bauhinia's, Chorisia, Medinilla, and many others along those lines, some are borderline and might make it through winter outside if we have a mild winter, but they're all sensitive to frost so I don't want to take any chances.

daisy--here's the website I bought mine from http://www.4seasongreenhouse.com/sundog-large-barn-style-c-28_82_85.html (mine is the first one, the 5x9 model) I was also constrained a bit on the width, 6' wide would have really been a squeeze and that's the main reason I chose this one over Rion, Harbor Freight, etc. They had it on sale for $800 when I got it, plus it was an extra $100 or so for the base (free shipping...most places have this so if you find a site that wants to charge you for shipping I would look elsewhere). If you google "Sundog Greenhouse" you'll turn up a couple other places that sell them too and some of them still have it on sale for $800. You might also look at the traditional style and the small barn style, not sure if the 5' dimension still exists on them but for the same square footage of greenhouse the other two models are actually cheaper (I wanted the extra height since I grow a lot tropical trees in pots) It really is just 5' wide (actually 4'11"), but depending on how your space is set up you may or may not have room for it...the doors are on the 9' side, so you would need to have slightly more than 5' width so that you can walk around to the side and get into the greenhouse (the doors are on sliders so as long as you can fit along the side you're fine) I should warn you that the picture on the website and every other website I saw where these were sold is a little deceptive (this picture actually led to my initial mistake with the placement of my base!). The picture shows the doors on the shorter side of the greenhouse but they are actually on the longer 9' side on my model as I mentioned above. I think they are showing the 9x12 model as the picture for all the sizes which explains why it looks the way it does, but it makes things rather confusing!

ecrane,

Your ability to make light humor for us, makes watching you put this together much more interesting. lol

I also have been looking for a small gh, so I have been reading everything posted here at DG regarding all types and what people are saying about theirs. I found the gh you have on another site and it is still on sale. This site does show yours with the door on the 9' side. http://www.4seasongreenhouse.com/sundog-traditional-greenhouse-p-482.html I wouldn't mind having this also.

Since I have been searching for weeks, this is one that I just love and it's so cute too. It is way to much money for what I can afford though. http://www.greenhousekit.com/sunshine6'wide.htm

I look forward to hearing all about your final outcome and hope this gh works great for your needs.

Donna

The link you have to 4 seasons isn't the same greenhouse I got...mine was the barn style with the more angled roof and the one in the link is the traditional style which is cheaper but not as tall (4 seasons is the same place I bought mine from). If you look at the barn style one, those aren't on sale anymore and in the pictures, they're always showing the picture of the 9x12 model even for the smaller ones, which makes it look like the door would have been on the 5' side of mine. The traditional model one that you linked to does look like the dimensions are correct, if I'd bought that one I probably wouldn't have been confused! I would have gone for the traditional one if it weren't for my trees, I liked the idea of having a little more height to accomodate them as they get bigger.

As far as small GH's to buy, if you're willing to spend in the range of $1000, I think most people on the thread where I asked for advice were leaning toward the Rion, but if you want to stay cheaper but still get twin-wall construction, Harbor Freight is the best deal. I also saw the cute ones in your second link, but they were out of my budget as well!

Oh, now I see the difference. Thanks for clarifying my error. At least the picture shows how your door is on the long side though.

The Rion is above my budget at this time also. We have a Harbor Freight store in town and I was told by a friend that they had GH's in the store to look at. I went over there last week and they had a very small mock up of the real GH's but you could see how they were made and the construction of it. BOOHOO, the smallest they carry are 8x6 ft., and I need 4ft. I asked them if they carried anything that small and they said no. :-(

I will continue to look for the perfect one for my needs. I might have to lower my standards a bit though.

Donna

Yeah, HF only comes in 6x8 and a larger size. I haven't seen too many "real" greenhouses that have anything smaller than 6' on the smallest side, Sundog was the only one that even came in 5' width (I was limiting my search to ones with twinwall construction, so maybe there are some single wall ones out there that are smaller?). If not, then for smaller sizes you may be stuck with one of the portable Flowerhouse types of greenhouses that have flexible plastic sides instead of rigid.

SoCal checkout charleygreenhouse.com They have a range of stuff on their page. Maybe something you can use.

MollyD

Hi Molly,

I have been through that site also, plus many more. I'm just having a hard time finding the 4x6 size I need with a reasonable price tag. :-)

I did find this one this morning http://www2.yardiac.com/long.asp?tgs=24689916:1128968&cart_id=3557372:116513502597&item_id=27895
It says this size gh doesn't come with a roof window and it doesn't specify if there is anyother type of vent. The size is perfect and the price is reasonable too. I guess I would need to call and ask some questions.

Donna

Donna, I am still betting you could design and build something yourself for a lot less than the kits cost. Then it would be custom fit to your space. ;)

Chele,

Oh don't worry about that....I've been searching for some easy designs and looking for lots of info too. Everyday has been a different experience. lol

I can't really do much until January. I am busy with my dads 87th Birthday tomorrow and I have the whole family hear for Thanskgiving next week. Then I'm having my Garden club Christmas pot luck on Dec. 2nd, here at my home.....and don't forget Christmas is only 3 weeks after that. lol

If you find any easy to build plans for a gh, just send me the info, ok?

Donna

Some more adventures this weekend! I think I would have finished it, except I had to go back and take apart a couple sections so that slowed me down and I only got halfway done with the roof.

So, when I left off last weekend, I had the back and front big pieces, the doors, the roof vent lids, and the roof itself all assembled as individual pieces. This weekend's plan was to attach the sides, attach the roof and doors, and clip it all onto the base.

First step: attaching the side rails and panels to the back piece. Fairly straightforward, I had it 3/4 of the way done when I decided to figure out how I was going to attach this thing to the base when I got done (don't ask me why I thought of this right at this moment!) Good thing I thought to look, because it turns out when I had guess which direction to orient the bottom rails (because the picture in the directions wasn't clear), I had guessed wrong and if I left them as is I wouldn't have been able to attach the greenhouse to the base.

So, I took off the side rails, then tried to figure out how I was going to get the bottom rail off of the front and back pieces without the whole thing falling apart on me! I managed to get the front part flipped over flat on top of the hot tub, so I fixed that, but couldn't find a place to lay the back panel out flat, so it was time for Plan B.

I took apart the whole entire back panel (yes, the one that I spent hours putting together last weekend!) and put it back together again. But this time I had a bright idea--even though the directions tell you to attach the greenhouse onto the base after you have the whole thing done, I thought why couldn't I start attaching it to the base now as I went along, that way I wouldn't have as much trouble managing the big awkward pieces by myself because they'd be attached to the base. So as I put the back panel together, I attached it to the base first and that actually worked rather well!

Then, I attached the side rails to the back panel and also attached them to the base. Then came time to slide in the polycarbonate panels. You may remember in one of my earlier posts, I mentioned that there were 4 panels that all had the same letter code on them, but 3 of them were shorter than the 4th and I had hoped that the 4th tall one was the one that was the wrong size. Unfortunately, it turns out the 3 shorter ones were the ones that were wrong...so now 3 out of my 4 side panels are about a foot and a half too short!

I do plan to call the company I bought the thing from and have them send me the correct size panels (figuring that someday the greenhouse will fall apart due to my poor construction skills and I'll have to put it back together and can put in the correct panels then!) But, things like that take time and we sometimes get frost in December (and I'm tired of dragging my plumerias and a few other more sensitive things into the house every night), so I figured I needed a quick fix. So off to Home Depot to look for pieces of plastic that I could cut to the right size. No luck on that, the only plastic they had was really thick and would be impossible for me to cut (and the guy who was helping me said they couldn't cut it for me...not sure if that's true or if he was just feeling lazy!) I know there are other places I could go, but I hate running all over town looking for stuff when I'm in the middle of a project that I want to finish, plus since it's only a small part of 3 panels, it doesn't really matter whether it's see-through or not, so I got a few pieces of some stuff called Hardie Board? instead. Here's a look at one of the side panels with my quick fix:

So, back and sides are done and attached to the base...time for the front. I never had to disassemble this one, so it's all one big piece still. I managed to prop one end of it up using a wire shelving unit while I attached the other end to the side panel and the base (I tried to get my dog to help me out by holding up the other end, but he was having none of it!)

So end of the day Saturday...all 4 walls are up!

Sunday...roof day! The day I had hoped to finish the stupid thing! Well, you all know what happens to the best laid plans!

I knew the roof would be challenging because it's sort of a big awkward piece (about 5'x5'), and it wasn't super heavy, but I was going to have to climb up on the ladder with it in order to get it perched on top of the greenhouse. Needless to say, this didn't work out too well! So, even though the directions had clearly shown a picture of putting the roof together BEFORE putting it on the greenhouse, I decided to go my own way! I removed the roof panels so it was just the metal frame, then set that on top of the greenhouse. Worked pretty well, now the only trouble was trying to slide the panels in over my head without falling off the ladder. I got the panels in on one side, then decided rather than trying to do the other side next, I'd finish off this side with the vent lid and the couple other panels. Did that...had to use some brute force to get the last panel in, but it's done! Only problem is that some of the parts didn't fit together at quite the right angle, so I've got some odd gaps. I tried loosening all the screws and jiggling stuff to try and get everything square, but it wants to be un-square! I'm going to leave it for now and see if this resolves itself when I finish up the other half of the roof next weekend. Also, the directions failed to point out another one of those places where I was supposed to slide a screw into a slot ahead of time...unfortunately it would have meant taking out a really tricky piece that had taken me at least an hour to get jammed into place, so I decided to use tape instead to hold the next part in place. And I also had to tape the vent lid into place--there's a nice little groove that you're supposed to slide it in, but unfortunately that end of the greenhouse is right smack up against the pole supporting my balcony, so I couldn't get it into the groove. So now I only will have one working vent lid, but I figure I can always open the door a crack to get some cross-breeze going (or just rely on some of the gaps that were left from sticking the roof on!) Some of these decisions are probably not the best for the long term, but at this point I don't really care!

Here it is now (it almost looks done from this angle, but the roof on the other half is still missing)

So tune in again later this week or next weekend for what will hopefully be the final installment of my adventure! Although I had hoped to spend next weekend getting 300 or so plants in the ground when my landscaping crew gets the backyard done by Thanksgiving (as they promised me they would...we'll see!) So if they actually finish, then the 300 containers that need to be planted may take priority over the greenhouse...hopefully I'll have time to do both though since it's a long weekend!

Edited to add...don't worry, I am taking time out on Thursday to have Thanksgiving with one of my friends and his family! Then the rest of the 4 day weekend belongs to the garden...

This message was edited Nov 19, 2006 6:10 PM

I thought about you ecrane, this weekend, trying to get that roof up by yourself...glad you figured out a way...sort of...lol Good luck finishing it, and planting all those plants. What are you planting? Anything interesting? My addiction to plants is showing!

I'm planting too much to even think of listing here! I have collections of CA natives, Australian/S. African natives, Salvia's, Buddleias, Iochroma's, Cestrum's, a lot of stuff in the pea families, then a number of other random things (if you go to my "New Garden" journal, just look in each category for the things with a status of "waiting to be planted"). I really don't have enough room in my garden for all of this once it's full grown, so I'm going to plant stuff closer together than it should be so that the garden looks fuller for now, and then figure the gophers will get a few, frost/winter will get a few, some won't bloom nicely and I'll decide to pull them out, etc so by the time all of them get big there should be room for them!

Wed we got off work early, so instead of doing something fun, I decided to try and finish the greenhouse (which stopped being fun after about the 2nd day of working on it). All I had to do was get the 2nd half of the roof finished and put the doors on, so I figured I had a decent chance. Unfortunately it didn't quite work out that way...I continued to have problems getting the pieces to fit together properly, and ended up with one corner where panels were popping out enough to affect the structural stability of the greenhouse, so I figured I needed to try a little harder to get it right. So I got out my trusty level, and figured out that the greenhouse had shifted to being an inch or two off of level while I was in the process of putting it together. I stuck another piece of 2x4 under the low end and that really helped, although it's still not perfect...I have two corners of the greenhouse now where everything's fit together perfectly, and two corners where there are still some gaps, but everything's fit tight enough that I don't think it'll fall apart on me! So the big lesson from this is make sure that everything is 100% level!

So Thurs morning I went back out to finish...it was cold and had rained overnight so everything was cold and wet and slippery. But I was under pressure--temps were going to get down to the low to mid 30's last night (coldest night so far this year for us) so I knew I had to get it done and get my babies in there so they didn't freeze to death! I struggled a little bit snapping the last few panels into place, but I had done the hardest part the day before so overall not a bad day! Attaching the door was also pretty easy, although I ended up attaching the track 3 different times...first time I put it on, but then couldn't get the door to slide in nicely, so I took it off, flipped it upside down, and tried again. That didn't work either, so I went back to the first way and this time it worked! So now it's all together, I need to get some duct tape and patch up the big gaps, and I need to get bubble wrap to cover up between the base and the ground (one end is a foot off the ground, so cold air can get in pretty easy! and then I want to caulk around the panels to help keep them in place. So I moved as many plants in as I could in the short time I had, and got the heater plugged in to protect everything for the night. I'm sure there are a few plants I missed (I have 300 or so containers and the tropicals are all mixed in with the plants that are waiting to go in my garden, so I'm sure I missed a couple!)

Here's the finished greenhouse:

Alright!!! Whew!! Good Job!

CONGRADULATIONS (all caps in order for this job). But duct tape? The finished GH looks very nice and your plants will surely love it, but why does a brand new GH need DT ? I understand the one end not being level. The caulking seems like a wise idea. My son years ago made his first wallet out of DT which he used for years. We always give him a big roll for Xmas and he some how always needs it. Now you can get DT in colors, green to match you GH, though it may not be as heavy as the original product. Anyway thanks for the colorful blow by blow. Patti

Forgot to mention in my last post...I did also have a problem with the vent lid, there's this thing that looks like a track that it looks like it should be able to slide into, but even after trying for a really long time I could not get it to fit in right, so now my second vent lid is not usable either. Guess I'll just have to leave the doors open on warm days for ventilation! And as I got the end of the assembly, I realized that they sent me two extra of one of the roof panels...if I would have realized this a few steps ago I could have cut the extra panels to the right size to fill the gaps where I ended up using the Hardie board. Oh well, no way I'm going back and taking it apart again to do that!
Oh, and the door doesn't fit super well--it has little wheels on a track along the top side, but on the bottom it isn't attached to the frame in any way so it tends to flop around in the breeze unless you put something in front of it.

So to sum up my experiences for anyone else who may be contemplating buying this greenhouse....
1) Do not, I repeat do not, try to assemble this by yourself. Unless you enjoy hours of frustration and love inventing new swear words. I'm not saying it's not a DIY project, just make sure you have a helper who can hold things!
2) Small fingers are a big bonus--there are a couple places where you have to attach a nut to a bolt in very tight quarters. I have pretty small hands but there were a couple places I had trouble
3) Double check all your parts, looking both at how many you're supposed to have, as well as figuring out if they're the right size before you start. Also, don't trust the instruction book totally on how many of each part you should have. My instruction book was mixed up, in some places it listed the number of a particular panel that you would need if you were building one of the larger size greenhouses, but then in some places it listed the number that were needed for my size. A little confusing, but if you look at things carefully you can usually figure out what's what.
4) Assembling it on top of the base (rather than attaching it to the base after it's done which is what the instructions suggest) worked much better for me. Although if you have a helper and a large enough area to assemble the greenhouse and then move it over (which I had neither) then assembling it first and attaching later could work perfectly well too.
5) Make sure to look 10 steps ahead in the instructions and watch what gets attached later to the piece you're putting on now...there are many places where you need to slide a bolt or two or three into the sliding track on a piece for use a few steps down the road, but after about page 2 the instruction book stops telling you how many to put in. And in most cases if you don't put the right number in from the start, you'll have to backtrack several agonizing steps to put it in.

We'll see how it holds up through this winter and next summer (because believe me, I am not taking it down for the summer! The plants will come out so they don't fry, but I'm planning on popping some shade cloth on top and leaving it right where it is year-round) Once I see how it does, I'll make my final call on whether I would recommend this to someone else. If I had help and an truly appropriate space to build it in, I'm sure the assembly process would have been much more pleasant. I was trying to build a 5' wide greenhouse in a space that was 6' wide, one side is blocked by huge Italian cypress trees, and the other side had the posts supporting my upstairs deck and also my hot tub and downstairs deck. And of course doing it by myself created numerous headaches. But all my babies (at least the ones that I noticed in my rush yesterday and put in the greenhouse overnight) survived the cold night which also came with a touch of frost, so so far so good!

The duct tape is for the spots where there are gaps...because of not being completely level I have a couple spots where the metal frame is not completely attached to the panels like it ought to be, and it's way too big of a gap to fill with caulk so I'm going to use duct tape or something along those lines to seal the gap so too much cold air doesn't get in.