Broken Greenhouse Gets A New Life

Our property had two greenhouses when we got here.  This one is the smaller and fancier of the two.  It is closest to the house, but honestly, I was a little intimidated…

When we first moved in, we weren’t ready for greenhouse stuff… we were just learning and figuring out what we wanted to do with all this land.  We let it sit, and then it got filled with weeds – and I was sure there were rodents and bugs, and it hadn’t made it to the top of our priority list.  (And likely wouldn’t for a bit!)

When I was out planting on Monday, I got a message from Facebook from a woman who is restoring an old house and property just down the road from us.  We’d met last year at a mom’s homeschool coffee group, and then I found her accidentally on Instagram and realized it’s the same woman.  She asked if we were using the greenhouse with the broken roof… I said that I hoped so sometime, but not this year.  She said they’re looking for one and were interested in buying it.

We have a bigger greenhouse that we’re using and I can’t imagine that we’ll ever need more space… and it would be amazing if someone could fix and use this one.  They came over about 15 minutes later and looked at it, and thought they could definitely move and fix it.  The next day, they came and cleaned things out and tried to figure out how to make the move.

And the next day was the move day!  David brought his excavator.  We asked him to take out a couple of our trees while he was here… that job was done in less than five minutes and it was like picking up toothpicks… crazy cool to watch.

Carson and David worked together to get the greenhouse up on boards so that it could be lifted and then hooked up the excavator to the greenhouse (or the other way around, perhaps.

And UP she went!

Up, up and away!

Flying through the air on a wing and a prayer!

And onto the truck!

And now we have this empty space…

Maybe a picnic table/resting area for the Makers and Growers Market?  There’s a little brick pathway and some pea gravel there now…   Stay tuned… we’ll probably attack this job this weekend, at least make a decision and a plan!

I ran into my friend – and the woman who sold us the property – at the grocery store this afternoon and I told her about the greenhouse.  She said that this greenhouse was on the property when they moved here 21 years ago and it was broken then, too.  I felt so much better about then! They had to drive to Snohomish, Washington to get replacement parts for it, and got it all fixed up – probably just in time for it to break on our watch!  I love that it has a history and now it has a future – a bright one – with a family who will love and use it!