BUILDING A PERGOLA - Part II

Week two of the pergola project has us designing and installing the rafters and lattice fence-work.  Jeff & I spent a lot of time researching end cap designs to the rafters until we found a pattern that fit our style best.  The style is perfect for us because it combines both smooth and squared surfaces that are not too fancy or too simple.  Once Jeff created a master pattern, he was off cutting the rafters to size and jig-sawing the pattern into the front of the board.  We also decided to round off the corners in the back of each board to match the rounded front beam.  

Even though the weekend was cloudy and rainy, we found patches of only misting weather and headed from the garage to the back-yard to install the rafters (well, all except the two end pieces).  They went up quick and totally transformed the look of the pergola instantaneously.  As night began to fall, we decided to start working on the lattice fencing for the two back walls of the structure.  The lattice is there to create a more intimate space and to allow us to grow vine plants up the structure.  The biggest challenge to creating the lattice pieces was notching the 2x4s to hold the lattice in place (without actually owning a dado-blade).  Each 2x4 required several trips up and down the table saw blade to create a thick-enough notch.  In the end though, we are extremely happy with the progress made on the pergola.  There is probably 1-2 more weekends’ worth of mainly aesthetic work (i.e. installing the 2x2 cross-beams, decorative arms & molding, and covering the 4x4 posts) before we call this project complete.