my new rack

Just as we got everything unpacked and put away from our trip, the mailman showed up with veggie seeds. My plan was to set up flats on a table in the basement and hang a few shop lights overhead. I had read where some folks have successfully used water bed heaters to keep their soil warm while the seeds germinate and thought this sounded like a cheap free good plan. After all, everyone has an old water bed heater lying around, right?

After consulting a couple of friends who have experience with water beds and/or indoor growing, it was decided that a device used to heat a huge volume of water may not be the greatest thing to keep seedlings warm and moist (not to mention I couldn't find one anywhere). Buying heat mats actually made for plants would not only be expensive, but also take time to be ordered and arrive. Plus, buying fancy equipment totally goes against my DIY nature. So I figured the plants could just live upstairs with the rest of us.

Of course, the only logical place to put them is the dining room since that is where all the other projects live (and where we eat and work, and blog, and play tag). Makes sense, yes?

The fact that there was not one inch of uncovered horizontal space left in the dining room only made me more impatient and more determined. I was so excited to get those tiny tomato and pepper seeds and they had to be planted. Now! I did a quick Google search, printed a list and headed to the hardware store.





Several hours, another trip to the hardware store, a few emails to a new blogger friend (thanks Kelli), and lots of cursing later....


The plans for this were pretty straightforward, (although I did change the shelf dimensions to make more efficient use of the lumber) its easy to build, inexpensive, can be broken down flat to store, and once stained will be a handsome addition to any decor.

I'm particularly happy with the way the feet turned out because I had to make a template and cut them out of pieces of 2 x 4 with the world's dullest jigsaw blade. Of course I found a whole peanut butter jar full of brand new blades two days later. They were right where they should be...behind my mixer :)