Sarah and I (and my friends Dan and Andrew) built a pergola last summer in hopes of providing some much-needed shade from the summer sun. The picnic table was my first “all-by-myself” woodworking project when we moved to Portland in 2001. I had to buy a circular saw to build it, starting the tool-buying downward spiral.
Two weekends ago, Sarah and I laid a brick patio underneath it using a mixture of new bricks and some legacy bricks that came with our house. Sarah bought some outdoor lights to hang up underneath it - looks pretty nice. You can see my hops growing on the back. They just reached the top of the pergola, and seem to be coming in a lot thicker this year.
Note the shiny new vinyl fence our new neighbor just put up. Yuck. I plan to cover it with wood lattice and plant some evergreen vines, perhaps this weekend.
Gabe Says:
May 16th, 2006 at 8:58 amVisit Gabe
I like the lighting. I bet it is going to look awesome when the hops cover that thing! Didn’t you also make some adirondack chairs? I was thinking about making some for the backyard. What did you use for a pattern?
Dave Says:
May 16th, 2006 at 9:29 amVisit Dave
I got a pattern out of Norm Abram’s book, Classics from the New Yankee Workshop. I made patterns from MDF so I can put them together pretty easily now. Takes about 8 hours to make 2 once you know what you’re doing.
I have a big stack of stuff to send you. Maybe I’ll send you the book.