Ta da!

Here's the finished product. I found some chains with s-hooks meant for hanging plants or something, but they worked beautifully for hanging my lights. They are totally adjustable and everything! So adding those chains on to the cost, the project cost about $35 total. I'm happy! We'll see how it works with growing the seeds.

Speaking of growing seeds, whenever someone finds out what I'm doing I tend to get similar reactions.

Walmart Checker, being overly nosy in my opinion: "So what are you doing with all this stuff?"
Me: "Growing seeds indoors."
Walmart Checker: "Oh yeah? What kind of seeds?"
Me: "Garden seeds..."
Guy behind me in line: "Yeah GARDEN seeds. More like pot!"
Walmart Checker: "Haha! Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking!"
Me: "Haha....yeah, I've never heard THAT before."

It does get a little old.

Light Stand for Seed Starting

Thanks to this site, I found a cheap and easy way to build a light stand for my seed starts. It took less than ten minutes to finish (except for the fact that one of the elbows I grabbed was the wrong angle and I had to exchange it at Lowe's...d'oh!) and costs about $7 (assuming you have access to a PVC pipe cutter or a saw already).

I began by gathering the materials:

• 10 feet (1” internal diameter, ID) PVC pipe (I only needed to use 8 feet of the pipe)
• 2 L-shaped PVC connectors (1” ID)
• 2 T-shaped PVC connectors (1” ID)
• 4 PVC endcaps (1” ID)

• hacksaw (or pvc pipe cutter)
• tape measure
• marker

I used 2 5' pipes for this job (so they would fit in my car), and ended the project with an extra 2' of pipe (since I chose to make the 24" version instead of the 48" one). I was able to borrow a pvc pipe cutter from a relative, so that reduced the cost and made the project go faster.

I went ahead and marked the pipe into sections that I would be cutting, like so...

...and used the pvc pipe cutter to cut the sections out into separate pieces.

Now, the fun part: connect all the parts! And just like that, in a matter of minutes and with a little pocket change, I had a truly lovely little light stand for my soon-to-be seed starts!

A stand similar to this with a light fixture tends to cost $50 or more (usually not including a bulb for the light fixture). I plan to use one or two clamp lights (~$14 for both) with fluorescent bulbs ($7 for 2), bringing my project cost close to $30. Not bad! Now I just need to figure out a creative way to raise and lower the clamp lights on the frame. Shouldn't be too difficult to make it work.