Several months ago, while reading about Eileen's thoughts (at her Gatsby's Gardens blog) concerning purchasing a light unit for starting plants, I became inspired to try and create a unit as a place for growing orchids in our home. The first challenge was to decide on what kind of lighting I would use. While expensive, I ended up ordering three Hydrofarm T5 Designer Fixtures. These are the best quality fluorescent fixtures I've ever seen... they are four foot fixtures, each having four of the amazingly powerful and yet petite T5 bulbs. I ordered the fixtures from Arcadia Glass House LLC in Painsville, Ohio and was also very pleased with their service and their price was the best I found on the internet. In fact I spoke with the owner of the business on at least two occasions and she was extremely nice and very helpful. T5's are twice as bright as standard fluorescents, each bulb emitting 5000 lumens, so each fixture offers 20,000 lumens and I made each shelf 12.5 square feet. The T5 fixtures are also very energy efficient in that they are only 54 watts per bulb and they have a 30,000 hour lifespan. They are very low heat, have chrome plated reflective hoods, and best of all in my opinion, are low profile at
2 3/8" of height so they work well in my particular application.
The next step was collecting a number of orchids. So far I just have phalaenopsis plants, but want to add cattleyas and paphiopedilums as the fixtures emit plenty of light for these to bloom as well. Humidity is always a concern for orchids and rather than purchase expensive humidity trays, I picked up a number of heavy weight black plastic plug flats (about an inch tall) in which I add water for evaporation around the plants. I set the orchids in a variety of low plastic containers, (freezer containers work well) to protect the roots from the moisture that surrounds them.
The next step was a trip to the lumber company... shelves and interior sides would be plywood painted with several coats of white semi-gloss paint that will hold up to misting and humidity. The complete unit would be wrapped in white oak (also water resistant) with raised panels to give the look of furniture.
Good enough... all measurements complete, I was ready to get working with wood. As is so often the case, my plans change through the development of a project... just me... Here is one big word of caution...
When you change the design... remeasure all the openings through which the piece of furniture must pass!!
I somehow assumed that the fixture would leave the workshop and enter the house through a number of doors... despite the fact that I built the fixture to its new specs.
Following is a photo of the case laying on one end in the woodshop and strapped to a couple of freezer dollies. It is very heavy (I would guess at least 250 pounds) as white oak is a very dense wood.
It was about this time that my wife said... "have you double checked the five doors that this unit needs to pass through"... I responded "not recently"... well, you can pretty much guess where this led! Sometimes it's easier to laugh than cry... sometimes getting upset is useless since there appears to be no solution... laughing at oneself is sometimes good for the soul!
I literally spent the majority of one whole day trying to develop a way of solving this dilemma. Persistence does seem to have its benefits... after thinking through every bit of joinery that I had used in the construction, I realized that some joints were held together by pocket joinery without glue... at the time I had wrestled with whether the glue was necessary as I didn't want to deal with the mess it sometimes creates. In the end I realized that (as luck would have it) I could remove the shelves and divide the piece into two sections.... one end remaining attached to the top, and the other end remaining attached to the bottom. This process would only require destroying one piece of wood that was glued into position in the bottom, but hidden from view. Sometimes I wonder if the best know carpenter of all time was watching over this fiasco... (and I don't mean Norm Abrams)...
After accomplishing the division, I invited my 26 year old son over for pizza and mutual aide, removed a couple of doors, and he and my wife and myself somehow managed to get the parts up a narrow stairway from the workshop and reassembled in the house. I am amazed that we pulled this off and my back and shoulder are still sore as is my wife's back... but we did it, and that's what counts!
That said... I introduce you to my new orchid case... Now... to get this magnolia lamp finished... Larry
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