We’ve had a little (1ftx3ft) greenhouse in our garden for about five years now – it started off as an actual greenhouse for growing things in but quickly became the cats’ favourite hang-out and the winter home of the local stray cat, so we dropped the growing things pretence and it’s now kitted out with old sofa cushions for the ultimate cat luxury.

It’s a simple – cheap – thing: hollow metal tubes and two shelves, covered by a shaped plastic sheet, with a zipped door flap at the front. The main problem we’ve had is when one cat is in the greenhouse, it’s not uncommon for a second cat to sleep on the roof – and under the heat of the sun/weight of the cat, the roof sags and eventually rips. That’s happened twice now and we’ve repaired it for as long as possible, then ordered new covers off the internetz – still not ideal though.

I’ve looked into buying little glass/solid plastic paned ones but they’re pretty rare compared to large ones and seem really expensive for the size of them. We’ve not got room for a big greenhouse but it would be great to make one that could be used by both the cats and our growing needs.

I know some people make them with old windows and they’ll depend on exactly what type of windows are at hand but anyone got any suggestions/advice? What other types of materials could I use? Does it have to be clear-clear or is reasonably translucent enough? What shape would be best – square? sloped roof? round? polytunnel-ish? biodome?

We’ve had an email from Pam, asking:

How do I construct a garment rack from any materials, that will display my tie dyes openly so they can be seen? It can’t be too heavy to transport, and can’t end up top heavy.

Not picky about materials, just needs to look presentable and not require anything well, like soldering tools, etc. Looking at the ones for sale, it does not look like rocket science.

I saw a great idea for making a display stand out of an old suitcase recently – the creator is using it for showing off dangly earrings but I guess it could work for ties too.

Another idea might be to make a rack out of copper pipes – like the one I featured on Things To Do Today last week – you could maybe salvage and polish up some old ones, and as the how-to explains, it’s a no-solder job because you can buy/salvage the elbows and joints and it’s just a case of clicking it all together.

Any other ideas?