Thursday, March 20, 2014

Pergola Progress

We started off the day scrambling to get the boards for the pergola stained. The weather was clear and we got quite a lot of them done. It did seem a tragedy to stain those beautiful clear cedar boards with opaque white stain, but ultimately I decided the stain would look better in a few years than the natural cedar. I didn't believe grayed-cedar would look good with the rest of the house color palette. And, besides, we had the white stain leftover from our fence project shortly after we moved in.
And, as usual for Oregon, our clear weather forecast delivered some sprinkles so we had quite the scramble to get the boards under cover.

The guys continued to assemble the pergola throughout the day.
We didn't get the big posts stained because of yesterday's rain so we'll have to get them finished on the next warm day. The pergola still needs the wood braces and the top layer of 2x2s. We're actually trying to find someone to make the braces for us as we don't have the proper tools to make them ourselves.

We also plan to paint a second coat of stain on the entire structure once it's finished. It got a fair amount of smudges and scratches in the assembly today. Plus, the coverage with the first coat of stain was not totally consistent throughout.
I'm lovin' the end detail. Thanks Jeff!!

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Pergola Started!

At long last, we have finally started the pergola for real. We had hoped to start sooner, but our weather lately has NOT cooperated. Yesterday was the first sunny day in a while.

The guys got the posts set in cement yesterday and installed the edge board on the garage (for stability).
We had planned to stain everything today, but the weather was again not agreeable; I didn't want to risk the wood getting rained on. So, instead Jeff worked on adding the end detail to the boards. The original design was for the notch to be on a straight end, but Jeff thought it would look better with a slight angle because the rafters on the house, where we're copying the design from, are installed at an angle.

We're hoping for better weather tomorrow so we can work on the staining.

As a reminder, this is the goal. Though, our plan calls to eventually finish the "floor" of the pergola with salvaged concrete and bricks.