Arbor Day

We finally built the arbor over the driveway so we can begin using it as our "courtyard". It turns out Arbor Day was seriously last Friday, April 27. Who knew we would be so close?

The real driving force behind the arbor getting built was to shield ourselves from sun and neighbors.

This being a prominently Jewish neighborhood we were asked if we were building our Sukkot.

Historically, Sukkot commemorates the forty-year period during which the children of Israel were wandering in the desert, living in temporary shelters.

No, we weren't building it for that purpose.

It only took a month to get the arbor built. Each weekend something new was gathered towards the house.

First weekend: we stood in the driveway and talked and talked and talked about where it should go, how it should go, how tall how wide and then we needed to measure. Yeah, it took ALL WEEKEND.

Second weekend: Lyle ordered lumber from Lowes. It was delivered the following Tuesday.

Third weekend: Lyle stained out all the lumber.

Fourth weekend: Jim drew up official plans in the computer. Hey, aren't' we going to need some sort of hardware to attach these posts and beams? So we went out and visited three different hardware stores in a 15 mile area because not one single store had all the stuff together under one roof.

Fifth weekend: on Saturday we put up the first three 4x4x10 support beams up to the sky. We even got the 2x6x16's on top of them. It took most of the day. we called it quites at 5 pm.

On Sunday we took down everything we put up on Saturday. Surprisingly, now that we knew how we wanted it to go up and how we DIDN'T want it to go up, it went really fast. We completed it by 7:30 pm.

There are still some details left to complete. Lyle is going to stain out the hardware connectors so they disappear and we need to put in more screws across the very top 2x4's. Then we will hang some fabric to create drape areas and finally start blocking out the neighbors.

Time to party!

From simple garage with nothing in front of it or above it...

To gracious arbor filled courtyard (yet to be filled with crap)

Lumber sits in the driveway stacked off to one side...

A gracious courtyard covered by our arbor!