Dan has spent his whole life building. He trained as an architect - six years of it - and runs his own crew in Rhode Island. At the far end of his garden is a two-storey studio he built himself, for around $75,000.
The glass building he eats dinner in every night, he bought.
From Greenhouse Showroom. Real customer. Real success.
How He Checked Us Out Before Buying
He'd been looking at greenhouses for years and finding nothing worth looking at twice. Then the Nordwood turned up online one day, and he sent it straight to his wife, who is from Madeira, and to his parents. His father's reaction is the one we hear most often.
"My dad's like, is it real? I'm like, I don't know. We're gonna buy it right now. I'll find out."
He didn't, not that day. A sale brought him back for a second look and the second look decided it, but before he spent anything he went hunting for reasons not to - which is what most people do at that price, and what we'd do too. If you're at that stage yourself, 5 things to know before buying your first greenhouse is a good place to start.
He read the reviews without putting much weight on them, on the grounds that people have strange experiences and strange experiences don't always mean much. What settled it was cruder than that. He rang the number on the page.
"Bruno actually picked up the phone. Somebody answered the phone. It wasn't just an AI based generated thing."
That was the moment it stopped being a website. He still paid with an insured method in case nothing ever arrived, which is a sensible thing to do and something we'd rather people did than didn't.
Are Wooden Greenhouses Any Good?
Metal and polycarbonate were never in the running. Dan describes himself as a wood guy - a lifetime in construction will do that - and for him a greenhouse that wasn't timber was simply a different kind of object, whatever else it had going for it.
What he noticed once it arrived is something almost no customer mentions. American pressure-treated lumber is pine: dense, and heavy to handle. The Nordwood frame is pressure-treated Nordic spruce and it's visibly lighter, because spruce carries load without the mass. That's why it's a structural timber in Scandinavia rather than a decorative one, and why it's fine-grained and naturally resistant to rot - the property that matters most in a building that's wet by design.
He also read the frame correctly on sight, calling it closer to balloon framing than to conventional wall construction, since there's no sill on a top plate. That absence is exactly what produces the uninterrupted glass.
What Went Wrong, and What Changed
It took longer to arrive than he was told, and when it did arrive it was damaged - banged up, in his words. He and Bruno went back and forth a few times to sort out what he needed before he could start, and then he built it. That's the short version, and it's a fair one, but it undersells how much of our conversation was spent on it.
He had a second criticism, and this one carries more weight because he's a professional with a crew:
"If an average person goes to build it, they are going to struggle with it, because it is a lot to build. This beam probably weighs 350 pounds and you got to put it up in one shot."
That one has already changed. The beam now ships in two sections joined by a steel bracket, which halves the pallet - and that change came from owners telling us an eighteen-foot pallet was unmanageable in a real driveway, not from anyone at a desk. It's the same route the Nordwood Arrow with Shed took: someone said what was missing, and we built it.
Dan's first reaction to the new bracket was to ask whether it's strong enough. That's the next useful question, and we'd rather have it now than find the answer out later. Problems we're told about are cheaper than problems we discover.
What Goes Under a Wooden Greenhouse
Dan poured his own foundation, and it's the part of the build he was most particular about: a six-inch reinforced concrete pad with rebar, on a gravel base, finished with a polyurea coating his crew sprayed on before anything went up. Around $7,500 all in, the coating being a choice rather than a requirement - he wanted a floor, not bare concrete.
Then he anchored it, and this is the part worth copying. A wider two-by-four bolted down into the pad, and the greenhouse's own base fixed into that with sill locks.
"So this building will never move. It won't come off the ground."
Cheaper to Buy Than to Build
Two of his neighbours had priced the same idea and been quoted close to six figures, which is what set him comparing in the first place. His conclusion, from someone who prices builds for a living:
"It was actually cheaper to buy it than to build it. I couldn't build it for that number."
The reason is the factory. The joinery is CNC-cut mortise and tenon, and his assessment of doing that by hand was short:
"If I built this with the CNC work that you guys did, the mortise and tenon work, I couldn't do it on site. It would take me forever."
Then, unprompted, and not a sentence we asked for:
"My mind says that the number you guys are charging for it, it could be higher. Substantially higher. And I'm not telling you to raise the prices."
Greenhouse or Garden Room?
He built it in May, for a party in June. Since then:
"We sit in it every night. We're in it every night. Honestly, every night."
There are fig trees inside - brown Turkish figs, picked the morning we visited - and a lemon and a lime. Through winter it becomes a working greenhouse - there's a short list of jobs that makes that possible - and they'll sit in it for dinner anyway. Two parties this summer, and he says everyone reacted the same way.
"It's absolutely beautiful when you're sitting in here at night with the lights on. This room feels just serene. It doesn't feel like it's real."
What's easy to miss standing there is that none of the garden around it existed first. The rock walls, the excavation, the 550 cobblestones, the plan for a pool where we were standing - all of it came after the building, and because of it.
"As an American that grew up here, I never spent time in this backyard. If you ask my wife, four years ago my backyard ended at the back of this building. There was nothing, it was complete trees. We did all of this because we wanted more yard."
The Neighbour Who Almost Didn't Buy
Nursery owners a few miles away came to see it, then went home and found the same negative reviews Dan had found before he called Bruno. It stopped them, the way it stops plenty of people. What he told them is the reason this piece exists:
"I said, Jackie, if you want it, get it and I'll help you put it together. I'll build it for you if you want. And if anything goes wrong, I have the CEO's phone number. Don't stress about it."
They're likely to buy. And Dan is becoming our partner for the county - taking delivery locally, handling assembly and landscaping for customers nearby. Which is the arrangement that makes sense: the man who has already built one, and who'll tell you honestly what went wrong with his.
Take a look at the full Nordwood Collection
Thanks to Dan for sharing his story. If you want to know more watch the full story on Youtube.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it cheaper to buy a greenhouse or build one?
For anything of this size and finish, buying is almost always cheaper. The CNC-cut mortise and tenon joinery can't be replicated on site at any sensible cost in time or money. Dan is an architect-trained builder with his own crew, and his conclusion was that building it himself made no financial sense.
Can you assemble a Nordwood greenhouse yourself?
Most owners do. Parts arrive pre-cut and labelled with a manual, and only basic tools are needed. Plan on two people and a few days, since the glass is a two-person job. The ridge beam is the demanding part, and it now ships in two sections rather than one.
Is a Nordwood a greenhouse or a garden room?
Both, usually on the same day. Dan grows figs and citrus in his and eats dinner in it most evenings. At 206 sq ft with full standing height there's room for beds along the sides and a table in the middle.
