Finished
Well, its not exactly aesthetic or at all sturdy (and it is certainly against many many OSHA regulations), but the thing is functional and it holds the weight of the girlfriend, the hydroponics system, and myself.
Unfortunately I didn’t take many pictures of the process, but basically I made a frame from 2×4’s and put a sheet of plywood on top. We cut and drilled some holes through the top for power cords, hydroponic tubing, and for air flow (we covered the space heater that serves our room - which could be bad). We covered the whole thing with carpet which we are currently letting drape over the front to the floor to serve as a curtain.
Now that we’re done I’d like to remove the crummy venetian blinds by the window and put in a curtain that will separate our room from the loft. That will allow us to have a sunny little nook to hang out in, and we also won’t have to worry about opening the blinds every day for the plants.
Update: I never put up a picture of the system. This picture was taken later, but they show what I did. You can kind of see how I just made a rectangle out of PVC and filled it with pea gravel. The grey thing that the system is sitting on is the loft that we built. You can’t see the tube near the back corner where water is pumped up through. There is also a drain on the far side that allows the system to slowly leak water back into the tank. The loft itself hides the five gallon buckets and acts as a neat way to add a lot of storage to our apartment and a comfy place to sit in the sun.
