pinterest challenge: a backyard arbor

At last, it's time to show you a little more about this teaser photo I showed at the end of my last post:

Of the many pins on my Curb Appeal Pinterest board, most are variations on the pergola/arbor/garden arch theme. I've been collecting ideas for nearly two years now. 

In front of my house, I have two random metal garden arches (in different styles) that came to me on sale from a couple of different places. In the backyard, the "arch" in front of the studio building (which is now mostly sided! Hooray!) looked like this:

Urgh. The green metal arch (can you even see it?) is a leftover craft store "wedding arch" from our wedding ten years ago. It was clearly not meant for heavy labor.

I had it pretty neatly disguised for awhile with twigs and branches woven in. A windstorm collapsed the whole thing last year. 

I then had it supported by the side supports of a pergola that had also collapsed in the windstorm . . . total eyesore. That part had been removed by the time I thought to take this photo, along with a lot of the sticks and weeds.

Yes, I'm embarrassed that things got to this neglected, overgrown state. That's life in a fixer-upper, folks. Some things get fixed-up faster than others.

Which explains all of those arbor pins on my pin board, and my burning desire to take care of the issue.

This project was uploaded to Instructables by someone calling himself/herself SpecialK, who deserves the credit for this photo. And it's the project I decided I could take on, by myself, before my husband came home from work one day last week.

So, that didn't exactly work out. I did have it about 90% built by the time the mister rolled up that evening (just needed cross bars and lattice on top and sides), but in my eagerness to get to building, I built it out of place. This presents some challenges I hadn't properly anticipated, like, say, assembling the thing with only one adult present, and moving it, and keeping things square and level. But let's set that aside, and assume that you'll do things the EASIER way: holes first, arbor built in place.

I finished it up the next afternoon (with some help from my kiddo and his toy drill) and started measuring for and digging the holes for the legs.

After the mister helped me finish digging with the post hole digger (approximately 15 inches deep), I put some pea gravel in the bottom of each hole (approximately 3 inches worth) and we finagled the arch into place, working until it was in-line with the roofline of the studio.

The bottoms of the legs are coated with spray-on rubber sealant about 18-inches along the bottom and sides. They are made of Douglas Fir, which needs a little insect and rot resistance. The gravel is for drainage as well as anchoring. I filled around the legs with some more pea gravel, and finally some larger river rocks near the top to disguise the sealant and to keep dirt away.

 

I also trimmed back the rose and grape vines a ton, which hurt to do. The rose will grow back quickly, but that grape vine takes awhile, and it really only started producing mass amounts of grapes last year. Fingers crossed that it snaps back. 

The next step was to paint. I had some oil-based primer left from ye olden days (maybe we used it on the pickets in the front yard?). Had I used all cedar or all pressure-treated wood, I would have kept it wood-colored, but I used a variety of woods and thought a little paint protection would go a long way.

The original project parameters call for pressure treated wood and store-bought lattice, and estimate the cost at about $100. I have three of these to build (this is the first) so I wanted to bring in my practice arch at closer to $50.

Here in Oregon, 8-foot 4x4 Douglas Fir posts are about $7 apiece. I used a mix of recycled shipping timbers (79 cents) and utility grade 1x2s ($1.50 for an 8-foot length) for the side supports, horizontal lattice,  and crosspieces on the top. The long skinny pieces on the side lattice are 6-foot long cedar garden stakes I already had on-hand.

The front and back pieces at the top are made from 1x6x6 clear grade cedar fence boards for $3 each.

I came in under my $50 target thanks to the river rocks, screws, and paint I already had on hand, as well as using utility grade lumber and a few on-hand and recycled bits. I'm sure that (free) pallet wood could stand in for most of the pieces here, too, so it's entirely possible to build one for even less (in fact, over on my Curb Appeal Pinterest board, there's a link to a plan for a pallet wood arch that's kid-sized).

I'll have more for you later, as the path gets re-done and the garden beds get rebuilt (I'm thinking cement retaining wall blocks this time around), so check back later in the summer!

In the meantime, thanks for reading the latest in my series of posts for the Young House Love / Bower Power Pinterest Challenge! Head on over and link up if you've finished a project inspired by Pinterest, too.

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bedspring trellis + shipping crate planters

Here's a little story about a project using recycled materials and inspiration from Bring.

You might remember that the last time I wrote about Bring, some of the items I'd considered bringing home were these beat up old shipping crates, which I imagined would be awesome as movie props.

You might further remember that they were free, which made them a pretty good deal, considering that the hinges and handles cost a couple of bucks apiece at the hardware store. Since I was in the market for some gate hinges anyway, I ended up going back and picking up a couple of the crates after all. In the end, I needed a couple of planters for a little area of my yard that's been neglected.

Why, here's that neglected area of the yard right now! It is terrible. Weeds, chain link fencing (I hate chain link fencing), old windows leaning against the carport . . .

And here it is, looking better already, after I removed the chain link from the front, weeded (you can see my yard waste bin filled to the brim in the foreground), and put two treated fence posts in place.

Your next question might be, "Why do you need posts for planters?" Well, I don't. But since I took down the chain link fencing and planned to use the alley space to store my recycling cans, I wanted to put in a recycled trellis and some vines to keep that area of our yard private and somewhat secure. So I moved back the fence line about six feet, and used our post-hole digger to dig two post holes about 18 inches deep. Luckily, the ground was soft from recent rains, so digging only took an hour or so during the kiddo's nap time. Then I put the treated timbers into the holes. (I used treated timbers to help prevent damage from rot and termites.)

Next, I used my handy-dandy heavy duty wire cutters (which I also used to remove the chain link) to trim down my bed spring. Yes, I said bed spring. I've had this sucker sitting around for awhile, another inspiration from Bring, where they use them as trellises, and sell them for that purpose, too.

Then I used zip ties to temporarily attach the bedspring to the fence timbers. The posts sandwiched perfectly between the outer edges of the springs.

Here's what it looked like, temporarily held in place by zip ties. This is a good way to make sure your posts stay the right distance apart before you permanently set them in place . . .

. . . using Sakrete. I used one-and-a-half 60-pound sacks. Since the ground was already wet, I just poured the dry concrete into the holes and added a little water to the top. Then I let them set for a couple of days, so that I wouldn't upset them if they got bumped or knocked around.

Getting back to the crates, here they are in front of the trellis-in-progress. Looking funky and old.

I had my husband remove the lids for me. We set those aside so I could take the hinges off later for my gate project.

Then, I drilled some holes in the bottom for drainage.

This isn't the best picture, but it shows five holes in the middle and three holes along each edge of the bottom of the crate, drilled with a 1/2-inch drill bit.

Then I took off the remaining bits of box labels and staples, and hit the outsides of the crates with a palm sander. You can tell the one on the left has been sanded, while the one on the right still needs a little 60 grit.

Late last year, I picked up this free sample jar of Arborcoat in a cedar color, using a coupon off of Benjamin Moore's Facebook page. It's good stuff for exterior areas; I used it to coat the benches of our picnic table, but primed the top to receive paint; the primer, this spring, is all peeling, but the Arborcoat held up to a fall, winter, and early spring of heavy rains. Anyway, I had some leftover, so I used it on these planters.

First coat.

Second coat.

Here they are in place, stained and ready to fill. They sat overnight to let the stain set.

I had a plant pot full of pea gravel from a bottle tree I got rid of, so I used the now-recycled pea gravel to fill in the bottoms of the planters to aid in drainage.

I added dirt, evergreen clematis vines, and bark mulch. You might notice something else is different, too!

In those earlier shots that there are some big old windows leaning at an angle against the side of the carport, behind the trellis. Here, I'll show you an earlier shot so you don't have to scroll back.


BEFORE:

AFTER:

Luckily, I hadn't wired the bedspring in place yet, so I just clipped the zip ties on one side and pivoted the trellis out of the way while I dragged the old windows out of the alley and into the driveway.

A couple of caveats: because I don't know what, exactly, was shipped in those crates (or whether they'd been treated with anything), I decided it was safest not to plant food plants in them. The evergreen clematis was specially selected for it's climbing habit, but also because it can take part sun/part shade and remains green all year long (unlike regular clematis, which dies off in winter).

I also ended up digging out some space beneath the planters to put in some old pavers we had leftover from tearing out the broken fireplace. This was because, when I moved the old windows, the frames had begun to rot and there was some insect damage, and I really didn't want my planters meeting a similar fate. It's best to keep wood off of the ground.

Thanks for dropping by! I'd love to see your recycled projects, too! Give me a link in the comments section if you have something to share.

(p.s. you can make these photos bigger by clicking on them . . . but you probably knew that!)


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