Pergola! :)

Sankari · 16 Jan 2013 at 07:43

Finally got around to building a pergola over our veggie patch, with the help of my stepfather (who is far more practical than I am). Nothing special: just bog standard pine from the local hardware store, a bit of paint, and some wire.

Got the structure up in 2 days. Third day was just tweaking stuffs and tidying up. Painting in 34°C heat wasn't much fun! :eek:

Pup was keen to have a go, so I gave her a few minutes with a brush and got her back into the house asap:

Sankari · 16 Jan 2013 at 07:43

Sankari · 16 Jan 2013 at 07:44

I wanted to train some of our glory vine across the pergola so we could grow some more shade. I don't know how old it is (we bought this house in 2007) but I can tell you it took a lot of persuading to let go of the house! :eek:

Sankari · 16 Jan 2013 at 07:44

Looked quite respectable by the time it was up:

Sankari · 16 Jan 2013 at 07:45

Dumped leaf mulch on the veggie patch to smarten it up. Unfortunately it's not square, so it doesn't line up with the pergola. But we can always rearrange it some time.

Sankari · 16 Jan 2013 at 07:45

We made a hard cover for the spa as well:

It's strong enough to stand on. Too heavy for the pups to lift, but I'll be adding a hasp and a padlock just to be on the safe side.

:cool:

[FnG]magnolia · 16 Jan 2013 at 07:51

Great stuff, sir

e : that seems entirely too short a response after all the effort you put in. It looks great! Did you have to do complicated sums to work out angles and so forth?

Sankari · 16 Jan 2013 at 08:00

[FnG]magnolia;23567371 said:
Great stuff, sir

e : that seems entirely too short a response after all the effort you put in. It looks great!

Thank you!

Did you have to do complicated sums to work out angles and so forth?

My stepfather took care of the maths, but it wasn't very complicated. Just careful use of plumb lines and spirit levels. Once the middle post was up we had a reference point for the others.

Schizo · 16 Jan 2013 at 08:04

Worst "it's to hot here" thread when we are freezing our bits of here in blighty

[FnG]magnolia · 16 Jan 2013 at 08:05

My favourite shot. How long did it take to plan versus taking to actually do?

(why is sporkboy making my spider sense tingle?)

Sankari · 16 Jan 2013 at 08:09

schizo said:
Worst "it's to hot here" thread when we are freezing our bits of here in blighty

Believe me, you don't want the heat we've had here. It was 44°C a couple of weeks ago. :eek:

[FnG]magnolia;23567410 said:
How long did it take to plan versus taking to actually do?

It wasn't really 'planned' as such, we did it all on the fly and made corrections as we went along. Took two days to put it up, with both of us working on it.

(why is sporkboy making my spider sense tingle?)

I have no insight into your personal fetishes...

Cosimo · 16 Jan 2013 at 08:37

Good work.

You need to ditch the veg patch and turn it into a seating area.

dfarrall · 16 Jan 2013 at 09:01

I read all the thread and still have no idea what a pergola is.

Maccy · 16 Jan 2013 at 09:04

Looks great, we had one built a few years ago (much smaller!) with the hope that vines would grow up it and look something like yours - it's failed badly

Sankari · 16 Jan 2013 at 09:11

simulatorman said:
Good work.

You need to ditch the veg patch and turn it into a seating area.

I was just thinking that the other day. Replace the concrete blocks with railway sleepers, fix them in place, whack down some brick pavers and we'd have a nice little entertaining area.

dfarrall said:
I read all the thread and still have no idea what a pergola is.

Maccy said:
Looks great, we had one built a few years ago (much smaller!) with the hope that vines would grow up it and look something like yours - it's failed badly

We had the advantage of a well established vine already.