Ya’ll, I’m getting “Green House” ready! Are you? What’s Green House Ready? It’s being dag’gum determined to NOT let your summer plants choke! You’re NOT going to water and feed and prune all summer long just to let them poop out come October!
So….let’s start thinking “green house.” This post is just to help us start seeing possibilities…what inspiration is out there. And if there is a way to put a small teeny tiny green house in our back yard where we can keep our plants and tend them them during the harsh winter? You know, a sweet little place to keep them warm and snuggly.
We have this red shed in our yard and in a few weeks, it will be transformed into quite the green house…but not without our son, Tucker, coming to help us put in windows, change out the roof and get it set up.
because … well, the more Rip and I have talked about all that it ‘could be’ we just keep going back to a greenhouse because I love to plant, pot, take something that looks like it’s on its last breath, and help it bloom and blossom again. There’s just something so encouraging about watching your garden grow, but there’s something even more exciting (to me at least) to see a plant barely alive and help it come back to full life again!
Now, if you want to know where our own inspiration came from you, just CLICK HERE and you will meet an adorable young couple who (she) woke up one morning and thought of this and (he) built this….
and it all started here …
…and he got busy making his wife’s dream come true!
but here’s a small portion of their story:
Negative pregnancy test.
I decided I wanted plants. Lots of plants. All under my control, all things I could keep alive. My mother-in-law and I researched house plants and how to care for each of them. Then we went shopping. I loved them all so much. They made me so, so happy. I got all the pots, the right dirt, set timers on my phone for when to water them and when to fertilize them. It eventually got to the point where I didn’t need the phone reminder anymore.
More negative tests.
I wanted… no, needed… more plants. More things to care for that I had complete control over. I never seemed to have enough. Each month we had a negative test, that day I’d go to a nursery or Home Depot or Lowe’s and get more plants. I’d take my time walking through the plant isles. I’d run my fingers across their leaves, waiting for one to call out to me. Sometimes I’d go with Max and let him pick one. Sometimes I just wanted to go alone. This was an outing where I couldn’t be rushed. I needed to take my time and let the minutes, sometimes hours, in the company of plants work their magic.
More negative tests.
Go buy more plants. But they made me feel so much better. My coping mechanism. Then I started going to buy more multiple times a week. Ordering more online. It got to a point where Mitch had to have a serious conversation with me. And if I’m being honest with myself, I needed that conversation to happen. I decided I had enough to care for (over 100 now) and I should tone the plant buying down.
Our house has slowly evolved into a plant friendly home, and the home of someone who clearly has a plant obsession. Max helps me water them and I love seeing them every day. If I get in a bummy mood, I’ll play with their leaves and study the patterns on each. I really can’t explain it but they just make me feel better and comforted.
I’m sure there’s some deep psychological reason why I went from having a black thumb to a green hand after a miscarriage. The love of plants has turned into something a little more. Buying clothes with plant prints, home decor, painting walls in our house and even into my branding.
I needed more room. A bigger space. A sanctuary for healing.
I woke up one morning at the beginning of June 2017 with this thought in my head. Greenhouse. I want to build a greenhouse. I pitched the idea to Mitch (my husband) and after a little convincing, he was on board. What was it’s purpose? Why are we building this? We brainstormed, planned and saved for months. How big? What materials?
The Greenhouse was built by us, for us. It’s for our family, earthside and in Heaven. To be honest, if we hadn’t had a miscarriage and in the grieving process, developed a love for plants and all that it entails (blogs on both of those subjects coming soon), I don’t think this thought ever would have popped into my head. I like to believe the baby sent me this idea, so in some way, it serves as a memorial. I believe with all my heart that we were supposed to build it.
After our loss, we tried for an entire year to get pregnant again. Why wasn’t this happening? Seven months of that year was spent building the greenhouse.
CLICK HERE to see the building progression of their green house that got Rip and I thinking!
But here are more photos that have got us thinking in just how we want to make our green house work for us….
We know we’re going to need plenty of work space and places for storage and this really got us thinking! I won’t need a drain on the floor because I will have a front door and back door entrances so I can hose out either way.
Look familiar? This is Magnolia Market green house – plenty of wood beams and studs along the walls for hanging pots or mounting more baskets. And this flooring would hold up and age so well.
Can you guess, just take a guess, at what Rip said he definitely wanted on our green house?? Yep, a weather pane! Something just like this cute little chicken that will show us the way the wind is blowing!! haha! That is so important to him, y’all!! (Oh, I just can’t get enough of my Rip!!)
Love the front of this one! Little window boxes/baskets on both sides of the door…not wild about the visqueen, that’s why we are putting in real operative windows all around the greenhouse. I’d rather have that option to open them and let a nice breeze blow through.
Ok, I know this got you thinking…it sure did me! And I can’t WAIT to move all these plants into a green house this fall, and take the winter and spring time to “froo-froo” it up to function and be that special place we would love for it to be.
Have fun!
Lisa
