Summer house to planters

 summer house

On a recent visit to my sister in law, I noticed the walls and window frames of the summer house in the garden were looking a bit tired. Paint was peeling and quite a few boards particularly lower on the walls were badly warped.

It was agreed that on the next visit I would pull the building apart and see if it was worth repairing or it needed replacing.

The first stage was to remove the ply lining, once this was done it would be possible to see if the structure was still sound.

As suspected, both rear corners of the framing were beyond repair, as were the window frames. So the decision was made to remove the structure and order a new one.

The next question was what to do with the old summer house? Chris asked if the timber could be used to make some raised planters for strawberries. Rough sketches were made and a vague plan formulated. 

 

  

 

 

 Planters

Chris and Pete had lost much of this years strawberry crop to slugs and snails, so the idea of raised planters was the result. They have raised beds for vegetable growing which are about 6 foot across, so Chris asked if I could make two planters each about 6 foot long, but sufficiently far off the ground to allow for a crop of marrow or similar to be planted underneath. A trip to the local merchants resulted in many lengths of 50x75mm treated carcassing for the legs and a roll of 450mm dpc plastic to line the boxes.

I made 3 'A' frames for each box from the carcassing  and salvaged four 6 foot lengths of the upper walls of the summerhouse to form the sides of the planters. The base and the ends being made from shorter lengths of boards saved from other parts of the building.

The components were jointed and screwed together, the troughs lined with the dpc, a strip of framing was run along the top edges to stiffen the structure in the hope the sides would not sag when filled with soil and plants, then the whole structure painted. 

I still had some material left over so I made a couple of small bird boxes rather than waste the wood. A tidy job from very little and certainly better than burning or taking it all to the tip.

Heres to next years strawberry crop!!