I've been reno'ing my house for about a year and a half now, the bonsai shelf was peiced together with a few treated pine sticks, and fence pailings. Bonsai became a hobby before my wife and I bought our house, but i never really had alot of time to devote to it while knocking walls down and trying to live without a kitchen. So the bonsai's got a bit neglected but kept alive, basically waiting for the winter so i can repot a few, and heading into the spring give alot of them the hair cuts they deserve. We live on a half block, and i have no where near the size garden i would like, nor bonsai space. So this is also for people with smaller areas.
Wonky shelf before: So after we finally got to the end (or the "not tools inside" stage as we say, since your never ever really finished) it was time to give my bonsais a better home. I had alot of left over decking, not enough to do the whole thing, but it gave me some to start with that offset the cost alittle.
Im going to preface this by saying this is not a hard job, there was another post on here posted by Steven, viewtopic.php?f=29&t=1830&start=0&hilit=build+shelf which was originally written by Jerry Norbury, which is really good and very descriptive about piecing everything together for some that arnt as familiar with construction. This shelf follows the same principals, all box style shelving/cupboards/benches etc do. The main difference between that post from Steven, and mine is that im starting by mounting mine to an existing fence. Rather than free standing.
Step 1.
Bolt a couple of uprights to the fence, since the fence is already stable, this servers no purpose other than to give a clean post to work to. If you try this on a normal back yard pail fence, and are on the side with the rails and posts, you could just work straight to that. Step 2.
The main shelf, simply two long bits of timber with some cross beams holding them apart, effectively a ladder. The length of the main beams and width of the cross beams can be what ever you want your shelf to be, i made mine 460mm deep, because i was working to a space on the house to butt up to a window. All timber for the frame is just 70x45mm treated pine. This is screwed directly to the posts already mounted on the fence, and a few more sticks are put in for legs at the front to keep the lot level, again height is up to you. Step 3.
I continued the same concept around the 45 degree bend. Basically building the same thing again and putting the two end to end, and sticks for legs. It was at this point my wife reminded me that when we fixed up the deck during the reno's, that the part underneath my Bonsais (and exposed to a bit of rain, so not entire my fault I might add!) However that area had dampwood termites. Due to the whole deck constantly being wet from being watered every day in summer. So we came up with the idea to use some left over roof barrier foil, and simply sling it between the rungs. This is the blue stuff in the picture below. It forms a trough that catches all the water, and runs down to two buckets, then the buckets are just emptied when they get full, and also contain very high nutrient liquid, being that it gets all of the overflow of seasol and fertilizers from the bonsais. Now with my design, this only works because i put doors in my shelf for storage (again, half a block so maximizing storage for all the tools, wires, potting mixes is a must!). If you dont have access, putting the buckets in wont really help, however you could do something similar and just drain it off with a bit of PVC pipe and run it out into the drive, or to the garden. Or if you are doing this somewhere where rott wont matter, then just ignore this all together
I put a couple of bonsai on some pailings and gave it a test. Worked well!
Step 4Although you cant see it here, the top of the shelf is lined with Fence pails. These are fantastic for shelves, they are cheap, treated pine, and strong (relative to their size), they are about 1$ each for 1.8m 100mm wide at the green shed. After the shelf is done, it was just a matter of making it look pretty. This is where the cost comes in depending on what you want it to look like. The decking i used was left over from a screen we had made, its $27 for 5.7m at .. well you know. My entire shelf is 1.4m high, and covers about 5m around the bend. So you can quickly add up how many peices you need to cover that. And for those wondering, i made my shelf this height because i have a white german shepherd that i wouldnt trust as far as i could throw her! She's already sunk her teeth into a few maples. Anyway, as i said the design is completely up to you, You can use anything to cover it, what ever suits your fancy. For this i also used a fixing gun, Fixing guns you can hire also from that place for about 50$ for a day (if you do this, make sure you hire a FIXING gun, not a FRAMING gun, fixing guns have the small nails designed not to be seen - Also consult someone with experience if you've never used one before), although im lucky that my brother has one. Screws are just as good for this, just take longer. The picture below you can see the piece almost in the middle of the photo that doesnt sit correctly, this is because its one of my doors. If you wernt making doors, it would be a matter of just tacking on all the decking pieces.This also required me to put a backing bit of timber along the ground to have something to fix the bottom of the pieces to. Step 5
A couple of hinges on for the doors if you have them, and thats it, your done! Im going to make up some boxes for this also about half the width of the shelf, so i can have a teired section for the smaller pots so they dont look as crowded. But thats a job for another weekend!
Hopefully this helps anyone thinking of what they can do to maximize their storage and get a display at the same time. If you have any questions feel free to ask!Cheers All
