As many of you know, our house faces the west which means the back of the house gets the morning, mid-day and late afternoon sun. It gets rather hot out there, especially since there is no shade. We'd like to let Vi play out in the backyard, but without shade, its too hot for her to play out there. David and Joyce built a pergola about four years ago and Grace wanted one for our yard. Ideally, it would provide shade from the house to the end of the bricked patio. After looking online for plans, we found some that would allow us to cover lower cement and bricked patio 12'X12'.
It required me to dig 3+ feet to cement two 12' 6"X6"posts into the dirt and anchor two 8' posts into the concrete slab. Then run 16' 2X10s on both sides of posts (to make the headers) connected with carriage bolts.
- Friday, we decided to build it. Identified parts needed.
- Saturday, using George Warren's truck (Christina's dad) with Violet, I went and bought 2-12ft and 2 8 ft posts, 14 16 ft 2X10s, bolts, washers, nuts, 2 anchor plates and 8 bags of cement. It was a lot. David came over to help me unload the truck (Thankfully!) We unloaded and then rented a two-man post-hole digger. In short order, we dug both holes, returned the digger, and filled the two post holes with leveled (that's really tough) posts and fresh concrete.
- Sunday after Church, Chase helped me drill holes in our concrete slab and in the process killed my electric drill at the end of one of the holes. We had drilled for nearly an hour and the drill slowly seized. We sunk the anchors and tightened it down, it wobbled, but I (stupidly) put the post up. Here's Chase drilling:
- Monday, David came to help me out and upon his experienced look, we decided to take another look at the anchor and anchor plates. Basically, I didn't use big enough washers to hold the plates down, which allowed the posts to wobble. On one of the plates, we were able to replace the washer and tighten it down. The other one, we stripped the threads getting the nut off of the anchor. We'd have to do something else.
- Wednesday, David had a guy at work drill new holes to the left and right of the plate. I picked up the plates and a hammer-drill. I sunk both holes in about five minutes. If I ever misunderstood the need for the right tool for the right job, I am now a true believer. I sunk the anchors and tightened the plate down. We were able to put up the first pair of 2x10s on the left side.
- Friday, using Grace as my second set of hands, we were able to get inside board on the second side up between the two fore & aft posts. It was impossible to do single handed and I was supremely impressed that Grace was able to lift the posts as high as she did.
- Saturday, we got the second board up and tightened the bolts before trying to chill over the weekend.
The single most frustrating thing about building this is that I was sure I was going to mis-measure and permanently mess up the posts or the planks. I wanted to measure out a nice, level chalk line, but its next to impossible to do single handed. I was so afraid that the drill holes wouldn't match.
- Monday, rain--boooo
- Tuesday, no work, visiting with friends
- Wednesday, I was fortunate to have my friend Trevor come over to help. He brought the family, Vi and Taylor and Owen and Bo played while the Daddies worked outside. Amazingly enough, the boys wanted to watch the loud power tools--Nature, not Nurture.
Trevor's a craftsman, he's currently making an electric guitar. Anyways, he provided the ideas and man-power to prevent me from making irrevocable mistakes. We measured and cut the first two cross beams, but by the time we were done with that, dinner was ready, and once that was done, the kids were done for the night.
- Thursday, I was able to put the cross beams up. With the fore & aft beams up, I used them to support the weight of the plank and I was able to move them up and back. It took a few times to cut just a little more out of the notches. It was such a relief to get them up and get the planks bolted down. All that to say, the structural part of the work is done, now to figure out how to top it off. Not sure how I'm going to cut the ends of the planks or what sort of shape I want to use on the 2X4s going across the top (those will be the ones making all of the shade). Obviously, I'll have more once we are completely done, but I wanted to show what we've done so far.
All of this to say, I've been blessed with great friends and family who have helped me on home improvement projects in the past and I am so greatful to the help and advice they have given. And when I didn't have that extra hand to lift something heavy or another guy to tell me my idea was stupid, I knew what I was missing. So, a big thank you to Marcus (previous help), Trevor, Mark Z. (my boss who had good ideas and loaned me the drill bit necessary to drill the bolt holes) ,John (taught me almost everything I know about construction/carpentry), Chase and David for all your help and advice on this and older, historic projects. Thank you all.
