I LOVE projects, especially garden projects!! My husband and I are a great team and we've found we can build just about anything we set our minds to. I thought I'd share with you the three pergolas we've made (all by ourselves) for our gardens. This small pergola was our first. We built it in 2005 (our first year here) and it faces our pasture and woods. There is a yellow climbing rose that covers the sides and top and a Japanese Privet in the back. The Privet blooms in the Spring and the flowers are incredibly fragrant.
This was our second pergola built in 2007. It is surrounded by a very large flower bed. There are Clematis on two sides that grow up the lattice. There is a small shade garden just to the left of this pergola. In Spring I will bring out the table that matches these chairs (we put away most of the garden furniture and decorations in Winter). This is a lovely spot to relax with a glass of tea and watch the wildlife that surrounds us!
We built this pergola in April 2011. As you can see it's built on our concrete patio. It was quite a job for my husband to drill into the concrete to place the anchors/brackets for the 4x4s. He also made all of the corbel cuts on the 2x6s using his jig saw.
Here's a side view of the finished project...(that's me with two of our "helpers"!) We wanted it to be like an outdoor room, so we added an outdoor rug and hung a window on the back of it. To shade us from the morning and evening sun, we hung blinds on the East and West ends. We also installed a misting system to cool us off on those hot Summer days! Notice the small pieces of wood under the shelf? Those are the pieces that were left over from the corbel cuts. They added a little "pizazz" to the shelf!
Here's my hubby with three more of our "helpers". You can see how he finished the bottoms of the 4x4s by boxing them in to cover the brackets. This project took us about three days to complete. We have spent many hours relaxing in our outdoor room.
What are some of your favorite projects?
Words and Photos Property of Christy's Cottage Wildlife Garden.
