I’ve heard people call a pergola anything from an arbor, a colonnade, or a trellis to “one of those garden things.” But regardless of what my clients call them, I enjoy building them. The balance of site work, layout, and trim is just right.
Plus, they’re profitable. Since pergolas are luxury items, the budget to build one is usually large enough that I can use nice materials and take extra time, as I did even on the fairly modest project I describe here (see photo, right). I was able to carefully prepare the site — providing drainage and a buried electrical line as well as a level pad — build a template, and use custom-finished rough-sawn cedar.
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