We put the posts in that long ago because we were doing our flagstone patio at the time, and we didn't want to have to go back in and dig it back up to put them in later.
The next spring, we finished up the patio, but the posts sat like monuments to failure for more than a year, looking like this:
It took so long that I've lost the timeline of when we did the rest of the work, but sometime in early summer or maybe even late spring, we put the header piece on the wall. Then we waited another two months until July 30th before preparing to put the header pieces on the posts. We weren't sure what the best way to go about it would be, but eventually we decided to put some boards up on the posts that the header pieces could rest on. The pergola looked like this for about a month:
Oh yeah. I also totally pounded my middle finger on my left had while trying to attach those pieces. It hurt so bad. I think my wife probably thought was was going to break something, or at least let out some choice swear words that would make the kids ears curl, but I was careful not to. I did however look for an open spot, and hurled the hammer as hard as I could across the backyard. It landed harmlessly on the lawn, but it made things feel a little better inside. The thumb throbbed, but my anger was a little assuaged.
Anyway, we were starting to pick up steam now. It only took about a month to get around to adding the header pieces, and removing the cross look.
This was September 10th, and we got the whole front on that day.
That was looking good, but we didn't stop there.
We worked until late into the evening, and managed to get the crossbeam supports installed as well.
My wife immediately wanted to put on the lights that she'd bought at the end of last summer for the pergola, so she could see how it would look, so we spent a bunch more time installing those. It was way more difficult than expected, but once we finished, we were pretty happy with the effect.
We sat around on our lawn chairs in the backyard for a while that night, just enjoying the way it looked. I got this picture the next morning to demonstrate where we were at:
I told you we were picking up steam, at this point, there was no more waiting allowed. The very next weekend we were back at it. We had the whole frame up, now it was time to put the slats on and make it look like a real pergola. I went to Home Depot, and spent a long time standing in front of a wall of metal fasteners, trying to figure out which one I actually needed. I texted my wife a couple of pictures, and we finally settled on this one:
Which I realized was the right one. I came home and we started putting the slats in place. While I was out getting fasteners, however, my wife had taken each slat, and cut the fancy design into the end of the boards, and then started staining the wood the color we had picked. With the stain, it was really starting to look cool. It was like going from seeing a prototype to seeing the real final product.
My wife and I climbed up on ladders, and screwed each and every slat into place. It went up surprisingly quick. Once again, we finished pretty late into the evening. The next morning, I took pictures of the final completed project.
Well, except it wasn't quite complete. There were a few spots that hadn't been stained quite yet. Later in the week, my wife went in and stained those places. Then, at last, we reattached the lights. This is the actual finished product:
I think it turned out pretty darn good. And now our house looks a lot more interesting. The back of our house up until now had been one giant flat box. Super boring, nothing to it. Now, it looks really good.
My wife even went up to the other end of the yard and stained the hammock stand that she made me for my birthday a year ago. Our backyard is looking really good now. Not all that much left to be done on it, although I'm sure we'll think of something. I suppose a fence is the next order of business.
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