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Friday, May 9, 2008

Pergola Part I

me: "Good morning building materials guy. You are delivering some lumber for me today and I realized that I ordered the wrong length of 4x4's, can I change them to 12 foot lengths?

wood guy: "Oh there is a problem with your order. You ordered 15 2x4's in 16 foot lengths and we only have 4 of them so we can either deliver the partial order or hold it until we get the others in a few days."

me: "WHAT?? OH NO! I HAVE PEOPLE COMING OVER TO BUILD IN THE MORNING! Why didn't you tell me this when I placed the order?"

wood guy: "Yeah sorry about that."

After I begged and pleaded, the wood guy agreed to find the other boards at another store so the delivery is scheduled for sometime this afternoon. Now I'm a little worried. For some reason I'm freakishly nervous about this project. I can't even tell you why. I handle fairly large projects at work all the time and I'm never as nervous as this.

I should take the opportunity to say AGAIN how much Thomas Landscaping ROCKS! I received an email from him a couple of days ago saying that he'd been following my blog and was a little concerned about a couple of things on the pergola plans. One of them was that the upper beams were upside down (take that, Pie Guy!) and the other was about how to properly place the corner posts. That he took the time out to email me about this makes him a rock star in my book. So, if you need any hardscapes or other fancy patio stuff and you are in the Chicagoland area, be sure to call Thomas Landscaping. They did a great job on my patio, AND he's a very nice guy!

Here's my informal plan for building:

Phase I: Friday May 9, 2008 AM
  • Prepare the area (move all the crap off the patio to make room for working),
  • Receive and validate lumber delivery,
  • Buy brackets for connecting top beams, sonotubes (thanks for that tip, Thomas!) and stakes to mark off area
  • Rent post hole digger
Phase II: May 9, 2008 PM
  • Mark off area, remove pavers for corner posts, dig holes, place sonotubes

Phase III: May 10, 2008 AM
  • Place posts in concrete, make fancy cuts on top boards

Phase IV: May 10, 2008 PM
  • Assemble top section

Phase V: May 17, 2008
  • Stain new pergola

4 comments:

  1. I'm pretty nervous about this one too. My fingers and toes are crossed and I'm sending you good thoughts from the east coast. I still hope you share the final cost of the project, it would be really helpful for those of us out here contemplating trying one ourselves.

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  2. My fingers are crossed that you get your wood order delivered today.

    And dude, you are SO organized ... wow.

    I'm so gonna want a pergola after this, I can tell. lol

    And, Thomas, if you are reading this, give me a call cuz we're ready to get going on the patio.

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  3. Heather - I'll be glad to share that! I hope it's a huge success and that encourages you and VP to try it, too.

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  4. Sounds like a plan! We'll be thinking about you all this weekend (it should be nice and cool for all this labor).

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