I barely mentioned the process of redoing one of my birdcages in my last post,  but both of them ended up requiring quite a bit of work. The first one was more straightforward. As I discussed last time, I sanded it down and repaint it. The second one did not require any painting, but I wanted to cut a hole in the bottom so that my lemon tree could grow up into the birdcage. This required help from a friend with power tools.

I repainted my first birdcage while still deep in the throes of a DIY blog addiction. This was my first DIY project, and I became immediately acquainted with the very unglamorous side DIY. I wanted what all the bloggers had, a light airy workspace and impressive array of power tools. But they had the benefit of being firmly established bloggers with sponsorships and, often, a second household income.

I laid out my dirty camping tarp in my dingy parking spot and got to work. At this point, I did not have any power tools. There’s no outlet near my parking spot. I took off the door of the base is by hand, which was not hard, and sanded the entire thing down by hand, which was. I primed the whole thing one night after work, trying my best not to get any dirt or cobwebs mixed in with the paint. The next night, I painted the whole thing green. A second coat went on in the morning, the fixtures were installed later in the left the afternoon. After three days of parking on the street, I was able to move the stand up to my apartment, move my car back into the parking space, and move my plants into their new home.

Eventually, my plant collection began to outgrow the first birdcage. I bought another one, this time with a plastic bottom instead of metal so that I could cut a hole in it and place the lemon tree’s pot below the cage, allowing the tree to grow up into the birdcage. I thought it would be relatively easy. My plan was to heat up a kitchen knife and stab it through the plastic to melt it (I know, a terrible idea). Once I had perforated a full circle, I would just punch out the hole in the bottom of the cage. But the plastic turned out to be much thicker than I expected. I turned to a friend who does have power tools and she brought this Dremel over to try to help me. Even with power tools the process proved to be more difficult than expected. We broke a number of product before we finally succeeded. The result is a bit sloppy but highly functional. No although that original lemon tree house died (RAD) plant collection, like a gas, has expanded to fill the space provided.

My next adventure with these cages was grow lights. The space available for the cages and the layout of my apartment meant that both cages required grow lights. I started with a pair of LED lights that simply did not provide enough light for all the plants in the cages. They were also not particularly attractive, so I looked for an option that was both functional and aesthetically appealing. With very little research, I ordered a string of cafe lights for each cage and several grow light bulbs. I thought this would be a cheaper and less-cluttered look than the number of clamp-on grow lights that I would need for all my plants.

 I was excited to see that the grow light bulbs fit in the string of cafe lights and lit up, but they immediately grew very hot. A few quick texts later to a friend who knows much more about electricity than I do and it was clear I had created a fire hazard.

Thanks to my hubris, only one string of lights was returnable. The other found a home with my sister. She uses them with the intended lightbulbs.

I returned the unopened lights and purchased a set of industrial clamp lights and put the grow lights in those. The end result is that one of my birdcages is at least somewhat like I had originally planned, although with far more wires. But my plants are happy and my cats can’t eat them. That’s all I can really ask.

-Erica

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