Finishing the Pergola and Hanging the Drying Rack

Mum and Dad came up today and helped me finish up two of my ongoing projects... mounting the stringers on my pergola was the first part of our work.  I previously wrote about reclaiming the 2" x 6" beams from the ceiling renovation and subsequently staining an mounting them as posts (along with two ten foot cedar beams) and building the pergola frame. A few weeks ago I took the best of the left-over lengths of fir down to my Dad and he planed them, ripped them and then rounded the edges and angled the ends off to make me a whole bunch of stringers.

10 of the stringers

Last weekend we celebrated Dad's birthday and Dad brought me the finished stringers... This past week I picked out the nine best ones and stained them. Then, with the help of some calculations made by my Dad, I used one of my handy-dandy Lee Valley purchases (a marking tool) I marked off the ends to show where the overhangs would be.

Stained and ready for marking

All marked up and someplace to go!

When my parents got here this morning we had coffee and then got right to it!  We mounted the centre stringer and then using a couple of 12" pieces as spacers, we quickly laid out, drilled and screwed in the stringers - the finished product looks absolutely amazing, and with the left-over stringers I'm thinking I may mount some to the sides of the pergola to add additional privacy and support for the grapes.

How glorious is this??!!

Next project to be completed was hanging an overhead drying rack in my bathroom... My grandparents had one of these in their house and I thought it was just about the best thing ever - you could let it down in order to hang stuff over it and then haul it up out of the way while things dried... best way to dry dedicates in the winter, in my humble opinion.

Needless to say, I have wanted one for a very long time - I'd looked at various plans online, and while they have loads of prefabricated kinds that could be wall mounted, they just weren't what I really wanted.  My Dad came through and built one for me!

This project was a little while in the completion... once Dad finished building it, he and my brother consulted on the pulley system.  Dad went so far as to actually hook it all up in his workshop in order to ensure it worked, and then, pulleys, ropes and all, he transported it up here.

A couple of months ago I picked up some 1" x 4" oak planks.  Since our spring was so wet, I ended up setting up the saw horses in the house and staining them inside.

Getting ready...

Wow.  That brown is REALLY brown!

I have to admit, I was actually really nervous about staining the oak - it is such gorgeous wood and I didn't want to wreck it...

Thankfully it turned out gorgeously!

Not bad,..

Not bad at all!

Stain cured a little darker and
it is actually perfect for
the bathroom!

Once fully cured, I cut it into the lengths I needed and then I climbed up in my bathroom with my stud-finder and located the studs in the ceiling where the boards would be mounted.

I also bought double sided tape to hold the boards in place, but the tape was just not strong enough to do that job had I been trying to compete this on my own I would have run into some serious issues!

How glorious is this???

I am LOVING this drying rack!!

I'm now at the end of two major projects and once I finish my Financial Planning 2 exam, I'll start the next project... I'm just not certain exactly which one... the Murphy Door into the pantry, or the Murphy Bed/Desk...

With love across the waters...

A Pergola...

Is a fancy word for a grape arbour... and something I have wanted to build for a while - I just wasn't certain where, how, with what, and how big.

I have a whole mess of grapes growing on my back shed - the stump (which has been pruned back hard at least three times that I can tell) is roughly 7 inches across... and they are definitely well established.  When I bought my house I cut them back hard - as a matter of fact, I actually thought I had killed them. Nope.  The plant grew the first year... produced last year and is going to produce even more for me this year.  But it has taken over that area and I am going to have to replace the shed at some point (sooner rather than later) and it would have to come out.

A falling-down shed with a falling-down gutter
COVERED in grapes!

Up close and personal with the grape

Initially I thought I could sink a post, build an arbour for it in the back yard and still have it attached to the shed.  Since the shed has to be replaced, I decided that I can try to move it after harvest this year.

On to the plans for a pergola.  Last May Mum & Dad came up for a day and helped me build my wonderful deck.  It is completely free-standing so no permits were needed, and I was able to use some of the 2" x 6" lumber that was reclaimed from the house when the living room underwent its transformation (reduce, reuse, recycle, right?) as joists and frame material.  The decking is cedar.

A glorious deck!

I decided that a great use for the last eight of those 2" x 6" s would be to use them to make posts for a pergola.  this would require first cutting them to 8-foor lengthe and staining them.  So off I went...

Four of eight cut to eight foot lengths

The other four - first side stain coat

I wish I had taken pictures of the next stage!  Once I had them all stained and the stain had cured for a couple of days, i laminated them together.  This involved heavy duty adhesive and clamps.  They didn't have long to dry and cure in the glue stage because today my Mum & Dad came back up to help me and Dad and we mounted the posts into saddles, sank the saddle posts into holes that Dad drilled into the concrete pads (which we then also added more adhesive to) and then we cut and mounted the cedar cross pieces.

Saddle post & lag bolts - this puppy's not
going ANYWHERE

Clamped for good measure while the glue dries

Lag screws holding the cedar cross-pieces in place

I

Look!  A Pergola Frame!

Side view of the Pergola Frame

The view from the fence in my back yard

It is officially too hot now to do anything further outside for today, but tomorrow I will go and buy caps for the post-tops to ensure that rain doesn't get into the post-tops... Once I have those installed, I will also need to stain the cedar.  The next stage will involve cutting the rest of the fir (there are 12 pieces left that measure anywhere between 5' 8" and 5'1" and I will cut them all to 5' exactly. 

The cross-pieces waiting for their turn

Once cut, they will all be stained and I will mount them on the top of the pergola using joist saddles.  They may not look terribly gorgeous with post saddles, but they will be secure and to be honest, once the grapes have grown up and around, the joist saddles will be hardly noticable!

So that was this weekend's major efforts.  I am now showered up, wearing the new maxi-dress my Mum made me and about to sit in my arm chair, put my feet up, have a cider and watch some Battlestar Galactica.

With love across the waters...