Aquarius

About fifteen years ago, Dawn's parents decided to build a greenhouse. Well, somehow this got translated into a two-story home with a kitchenette, one and a half baths, and sleeping for four! They called it "Aquarius." I was eternally grateful because it was the only place on the farm that didn't have animals, and I'm allergic to anything that moves, so that was where we always stayed when we visited.

Since it was a greenhouse, it was mostly windows; even the roof was corrugated plastic. During the day, the temperature soared to 120 degrees; at night it dropped to 40. For short visits, that was tolerable, but you wouldn't want to live there.

Well, Dawn is now living there. We'd hoped she could stay in the Summer Kitchen, but the contractor wanted to gut the walls right away, so that wasn't going to work. We knew Dawn couldn't stay with her mother; that was just tempting fate. And so the only other option (besides pitching a tent) was the greenhouse.

So today Dawn got a heating/cooling engineer out there to see what could be done to make it livable, and he basically just laughed at her. He said it would cost more to cool the 900-square foot greenhouse than it would the 5,000-square-foot mansion! He said we needed to replace the roof, remove the windows, insulate the walls, and generally rebuild the entire house. So Dawn thanked him for his time, then told me I was a dead man. I told her to look on the bright side: She'll get a great tan this winter!

She's going to find someone who makes drapes to hang on the ceiling; maybe that will keep out some of the sunlight...?

Aquarius, built 1991