Anyone have some money saving tips for building a gazebo for my backyard? We are heading into the summer and I would like to put something nice together that in relatively inexpensive. They have iron Gazebos at Costco for about 400 dollars. I would like to come in well under that.
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We wanted to do a gazebo but then decided to do an simple outdoor shelter because it was cheaper and still looked nice. It just has four 4x4 columns and a flat roof. I used cedar which is cheap locally. You can either put lattice on the roof or something that wll actually cover it. I looked around for plans online, this is somewhat like what we did...
www.bhg.com/
We constructed a nice 10'x10' sitting area in with $125- worth of lumber and a day's work -- basically an arbor, or pergola with 4x4 posts for the sides, and 2x6 lumber for the top and corner bracings. Grape plants were already established on the site so after just one growing season, the arbor was pretty well covered with vines, providing a lovely shaded area in the summer.
I saw an old satelite dish used for the roof on a gazebo. It was one of the old style, and I had to look twice to figure out what it was!
I would keep looking. I saw an iron one recently in an ad for Atwoods for only $89.
Target has somevery nice metal gazebos $100-$200 range. Also a book called Frugal Gardener has plans to build one out of PVC pipes.
Check out the book 2 x 4 Projects for Outdoor Living by Stevie Henderson and Mark Baldwin (ISBN 1-57990-164-6). There is a project in there for a "mini" gazebo, which will hold 1 or 2 people. There are full lists of materials, hardware, and cutting instructions. Perhaps you could double or triple its size.
This is a terrific book that gives many more ideas for outdoor living, such as lawn chairs, porch swing, picnic table, and an outdoor bar.
I saw one site where they used one of those large satellite dishes as the top of the gazebo and it looked really cool. Lots of people don't use theirs any more and probably would be glad for you to take them off their hands.
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