DIY Outdoor Pergola Project

When my husband and I bought our house five years ago, it had a fun bamboo shaded area in the back right corner of the yard. It wasn't great to look at, but it served it's purpose. Well, after a nasty storm a year ago (the construction was baaaaad) here's what our shaded area looked like:

We let it sit like that for a year. Womp womp. I kept pinning pergola ideas and showing Tony. Dropping hints like mad. This was the end of April. Then in May Tony asked what I wanted for Mother's Day. I said a pergola.  Mother's Day rolled around. We went to a beautiful brunch, and headed to Home Depot to get supplies so he could get started :)

First thing he did was tore down the old structure. (Second thing we did was give our old patio furniture away.)

Then he placed the main structural legs in all four corners.

 Then came the top cross beams. He made a little design, using a mason jar for a template.

He wanted to do something decorative, so we added some "pillar feet" to the bottoms of each leg. Not sure what else to call them ;)

For some even more decoration he added trim from the base board section of Home Depot, all around.

I totally forgot to take pictures of the next step, but we painted the majority of the pergola a dark, chocolate brown  - "Barista" by Valspar (Lowe's) and it's an exterior satin finish. The creamy color is "Raffia Creme" by Behr (Home Depot) and is also an exterior satin.

And then, voila! We had a beautiful pergola :)

We made super simple drop-cloth curtains, thanks to excellent instructions from Centastional Girl!

I was very excited (and very proud) to buy a gorgeous patio furniture set, with one of my Stella & Dot checks.

We added some decorative touches along the wall, with California prints found on Etsy, my cute chalkboard that I wrote "patio, sweet patio" on (chalkboard from The Vintage Fern), and a California flag. (Can you tell we have mad state pride?)

I spray painted a wire shelving unit turquoise, so that we'd have a bit more area to place plates or drinks. I've also got a basket filled with magazines, and some cute luminaries:

We got a big old basket and filled it with blankets, for when it gets chilly at night:

And we've planted jasmine in all four corners. The hope is that eventually enough of it will grow up and outward across the top to provide some decent shade. For now we've got a shade tarp up there, and it's doing a great job, but it's not as pretty, nor does it smell as good as jasmine!

Overall this project cost about $150 in building materials, and just a few days of Tony's time.

This outdoor living space is my happy place. It's where we have our morning coffee, lounge in the afternoon reading books or magazines, sit down and chat about dreams of our future, and where we sit to watch the kids play. We entertain friends and family here, and just love it.

I'm so thankful to my sweet, and handy husband for building it for me! (I have a few more projects to show you guys in the following weeks, so make sure you come back!)

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