BUILDING A PERGOLA - Part I

To kick off our landscaping projects for the summer, Jeff & I decided to start with the installation of a triangular pergola in our back yard.  For several years the back corner of our yard has been occupied by a Colorado blue spruce.  It has never been the healthiest of trees in our yard and one visit by an arborist confirmed that the tree was not worth transplanting.  Therefore, we had Morgan’s Tree Service come out and remove the tree and stump from our yard.  We chose the back corner to install the pergola b/c it appeared to be the best entertaining area in the yard.  Our deck provides a perfect view of the corner and ties the two areas together. 

   

First, Jeff and I had to design the look of our triangular pergola to occupy the now-empty corner.  I pulled images off of Google and together we decided on the look/feel of the structure.  Jeff then got to work designing and engineering how we were going to build it. 
We spent the 2^nd weekend in June purchasing materials, digging the post holes, cementing in the posts and installing the triangular beams for the top of the structure.  Nothing is ever as easy as it seems, and we encountered challenges like creating an angled-amphitheater look to the front, installing double beams that criss-cross in the back, and re-designing the beams from being 2x6’s to 2x8’s.  At the end of the weekend, it was only 9 pieces of wood installed, but quite a bit of craftsmanship invested into the structure.