Need ideas for DIY benches

Hi - I am in the process of building an 8x10 Buildeazy greenhouse (http://www.buildeazy.com/greenhouse.html) and am looking for ideas on various DIY benches. Any ideas and/or links to bench designs would be greatly appreciated!!

p.s. Construction is going good so far. A slight delay due to poor weather conditions...:>(

Pete
SC

That's a nice looking GH.

I got my bench tops at the Mega Greenhouse Store. I see they have gone up in price at little. Each one 2' x 4' and interlock with each other. We just used the old standard, cement blocks for legs, but there's no reason why you couldn't build a wood frame and pipe/PVC legs instead. The cement blocks are a pain, but that's what we had laying around.

I ran out of room this year, so in a pinch, my DH took apart some plastic, stackable shelving that you get at Menards or Lowe's. As you can see in the attached picture, when using one layer of stackable shelving the bench is lower than my regular shelving, but I think more permanent, longer legs could be made. The beauty of the shelving is the shelf itself. It has large openings, just like the professional bench tops, and is made from durable plastic so it won't rot. I don't see why you couldn't use pipe or PVC for legs instead.

The important thing is using a top that has openings for airflow, drainage and easy cleaning. I've seen bench tops made with heavy duty metal fencing. I think it's call hog fencing, not sure.

My GH has rigid polycarbonate glass. If you are going to use poly film, I would get the best you can afford. Get something that has UV protection and is made for GH's and doesn't sweat. Poly can tear, and suffer wind damage (usually on the nastiest day of the year). It also has to be replaced after a few years.

Keep us posted and send pictures of your progress.

Here's a link to the bench tops I bought:
http://www.greenhousemegastore.com/Dura-Bench-Plastic-Benchtop/productinfo/BN-DB/

Mine are made of concrete blocks and 16" wire shelving that is 8 feet long. My GH is 8x8, and I have it on 3 sides. It is nice that I can break it down and change configurations depending on what I have in there. Right now I have it on just 2 sides so that tall plants can sit on one wall with hanging plants over them. On my 4th wall, the door wall, I have a 3 shelf wire rack that rolls out for hardening off plants in the spring.

I've been thinking of going to my local fridge repair guy and getting a bunch of shelves out of the dead fridges, building a pipe frame to hold them...

Mine are cinder blocks supporting a frame of 2x4s with galvanized wire fencing 'stapled' (not with a gun, hammered in) to it. I do wish that I had gotten fencing with slightly smaller holes, but it works fine.

Someone, somewhere on Dave's has the PVC pipe homemade ones and they look great. I have cheap shelves in the GH that I bought for $12 each and they will rust over time.
Wish I had thought about the rust before I went hog wild.

Lavina

This message was edited Nov 27, 2009 11:32 AM