Spring is here...maybe (part 2 of 2)

My indoor projects, which (in contrast to my gardening) are coming to fruition, are all relatively small and easy to do. I haven't fully determined how I'm going to build my indoor grow shelving, but I have purchased my lighting and timers to get it started. I hope to get everything in the dirt by the end of March so that it has all of April to grow and, weather permitting, I can begin transferring my starts into the garden by the second week of May.

Aside from the grow shelves and lighting system, I'm also working on finishing my pantry this weekend. It has been a long time in both planning and execution, but I should be able to make some real progress on it soon. After I'm done with the pantry, I plan on putting another built-in cupboard and shelf unit in my nook for all of my tea and kombucha storage as well as for displaying dishes.

Now, here is the part where I get to teach. I hope to use this blog as a teaching tool from now on, posting small, easy projects step by step that others can copy. My wife found this one online somewhere and pinned it in her Pinterest account.

From Stuff I Made

She wanted me to make one for her craft room, but the one I made had to be painted. So I got the pipe clamps from Home Depot. the mason jars I had were about 4" in diameter, but I wanted to make sure that the clamps would fit so I bought the 3"-5" clamps. I had plenty of room, but I am glad I played it safe.

From Stuff I Made

I used a piece of 1x6 from the planter boxes from last year. I cut it 18" long and got everything ready to assemble. The only major prep work I did was to drill one hole about 11/32" in each pipe clamp to get a screw through and into the board.

I painted the board and got my jars set into place. I then drilled pilot holes for the screws that hold the clamps to the board. I attached the clamps nice and tight and then slipped the jars through each and tightened them down. This is the final product:

From Stuff I Made

The color matches some Ikea shelves that hang in the craft room. When completely done, and hung, these will have a thin layer of gravel in the bottom, followed by a layer of peat or crumbled leaves for moisture retention. The top 2/3 of the jar will have potting soil added and we bought some short stemmed flower seeds (about 3"-4") to grow in these jars. 

And there you have it! The longest part of this project was waiting for the paint to dry. I used two coats to get it nice and covered, but one coat would have worked. In total, this project took me about 3 hours. Very simple and pretty cool looking. This is also a very inexpensive way to keep plants in the house all year long.