A friend of mine had new windows installed in her old house. I offered to take the old windows off her hands, with the idea that I could build some kind of cold frame or green house with them. Now it's two years later and I'm ready to start, but I don't really know what to do about weatherproofing them. I want to build a shed off the house sort of shape, but it will have rain and blistering sun beating down on it all year. I don't want to spend piles of money on greenhouse catalog pruducts. Does anyone out there have any ideas on how to get started.

Well for what you want to do i don't thing it can be done cheeply. If i were you i would build a simple stand with for legs. Something almost like a bird cage. I would simply put the windows in 3 of the sides and a small wooden door. The only downfall to that is that it wouldnt be attached to you house. I just thought i would throw out an idea.
Good Luck !

~ Cory ~

what i would do is get scrap lumber (2x4's are best) and build a frame for each window, then hinge them together.

you could put as many as you what in a circle (square, triangle, whatever), and if you use door hinges you could pull the pins and adjust the size of the frames.

get some 20-30 mil plastic for a roof and you are good to go. or hinge some of them for the roof too!

Cedar,
Would this be an idea for those windows???
Sun shed

*we have 4 ready to be used too, and hoping
that next year will be the magical year that
project gets done..

Let me know, I have one or two more, in similar
fashion to those for idea's if you're still looking.

Weezie

Instead of a greenhouse you could build a hotbox.

I have a storm door off an old house I am tearing down and plan to take some of the concrete blocks from under the house and set these up on the ground.

This house has some good treated 2X8's, from them I am going to build a frame the same size as the storm door, and set this on top.

I am going to line the bottom with sand and I have an old waterbed heater to use as a heat source.

About the thing I will have invested is my time.

Just a thought.

I was given a greenhouse frame and floor last year. We used house windows given to us by a friend and also sliding glass doors from a hotel that was being remodled down the street. The sliding door glass was used for the roof and one wall. 2 complete doors were used at each end of the greenhouse. We got plywood from local house construction sites and that completed it. 2x4's were used to frame out the windows. Wasn't really that difficult at all and I now spend WAY too much time in there!
Barb

i agree with jiffy about the hinges. great idea. all of you have great ideas.. hugs to you from cindy lou

All those ideas are really great. Does any one know what to use to keep the window frames from rotting with mousture?

If you keep them clean and painted that should lengthen their life span. Barring that I suppose you could coat them with a water barrier caulk/sealer.