Well the painting of the bedroom thing I mentioned earlier this week? Yeah, that hasn't happened yet. I so know better than to actually say it out loud. ;) Monday the weather was just beautiful after rain that morning and yesterday my son and I took off for the day and had a blast. Today I think it really is supposed to rain so I may get started. We'll see about that.
Monday I got an outside project done on the now complete pergola. I should clarify "complete" -- it's built. :) But my list of to do's is very long. The hard part is done though and we are thrilled with it. I wanted to share it with you today because I know many of you were interested in seeing it completed:
Yes, it is a beast!!
As with the rooms inside our house…now that one thing has been added I've created a whole new list of things I'd like to update as well. Ha! It never ends (but I like it that way).
First, I have to show off some of the details. They did such a fantastic job on this -- it is way nicer than we even imagined. It ended up taking much longer than estimated, which was fine because they were taking their time and adding lots of pretty details.
We had to work with the odd shape of our deck -- each lowered section has quite a few angles. This wasn't a simple four post pergola -- there are nine in total. They ran the curved boards across the top and then also added that same look on the sides and corners as well:
They routered the edges on each one of those boards! So much work! It really is beautifully done.
You can see them on the sides better here -- the beams run one way but they added shorter ones on the sides to finish it off:
It's a detail we weren't expecting but love! You can see the flower baskets I hung on Monday -- I didn't want to spend a ton of money since I knew I wanted four. I got cheap baskets of $7 petunias and some $4 metal hanging baskets that were green. I sprayed them black -- much cheaper than buying nicer hanging baskets!
I got everything at Meijer, including the large hooks:
I absolutely LOVE how they look! The hanging baskets are one of those little things I've always wanted to have out here and I think they look lovely.
For a little extra shade they added the smaller wood pieces across the top of the beams:
These are 2x4's ripped in half.
In the morning we have a ton of shade in here -- in the later part of the day there's none but that's fine with us. If I add drapes out here that will help. The beams offer some shade at the hottest part of the day for sure.
The wood on the railing had to be removed to put the posts up and since it was warped anyway, we had them replace it. They made them SO much nicer than they were before! They also added them to the tops of the stair rails, which didn't have anything before:
So, now that it's done I have all kinds of things I'd like to do! The whole deck needs to be restrained badly -- but we'll wait on that and do it with the pergola. Since we can't stain it or the handrails for a few months (the treated wood needs to "cure" -- we are planning September), I'm focusing on the smaller projects.
Now that the plants are done, my next step are the lights. I'm most excited about these! I ordered some with excellent reviews off of Amazon and within literally two minutes of taking them out of the package one bulb broke, then another broke and blew the entire strand. It's going great so far, she says sarcastically. I picked up some cheaper, plastic bulbs yesterday -- but they just don't have the same look. (They are basically Christmas tree lights with a plastic globe over the top.)
Soooo…that is proving more difficult to figure out than I thought. Anyone have globe lights outside that they love? I listed the other projects for the pergola here -- and yes, I'll do most of these before we stain and yes we'll have to take it down when we do that. We want to enjoy it all summer so it's worth it. :)
We LOVE it and think it's just beautiful! It makes this outside space feel like a room for sure. I won't have a totally final reveal for you till fall, but I'll be sure and update you on anything I do until then!