Arbor, part 2

Yesterday we really jammed through the arbor project. I'm exhausted today! But hooray, we have a really sweet addition to our home. I can't wait to plant wisteria to grow up the sides and make our little home feel like a fairytale cottage!
You can see here, the first pieces were cut out. We decided to not follow the complicated instructions from the book. Yikes, that's usually a recipe for disaster. But my husband insisted that the way the book instructed was way more complicated than necessary, and would take many days more than we had available (which was just 1). So I designed my own arches, and cut them out very carefully with the jigsaw while he worked on the framework and made the vital measurements.
We placed the frame near our back door, and leveled it out. Then big, long, metal stakes were attached to the legs, and pounded into the ground so that it wouldn't blow away. And finally, it was attached by boards to the side of the house. It may look funny at the moment, but it's going to be part of a whole fence, when we're finished.


But after cutting out 3 big arches for the top beams, then 2 small ones for the bottom frame, I got really sick of cutting out arches. So, instead of 7 for the crossbeams at the top, I ran out of steam at 6. I don't think it matters. The one disappointing part, however, was that those crossbeams are supposed to be notched so they set upon the beams below. But after trying to cut out 1 beam with notches, and being a remarkable failure at it (believe me, it's hard to get those little rectangles to be truly straight and even), we decided that they could just be nailed on top of the thing. It doesn't look bad, exactly, but it's not really how it should be.
I got really tired of the project after this point, so I went inside to do some sewing for a bellydance costume, and when I came outside, the latticework was attached to the sides, and we sat down for a moment to discuss a gate. I don't have photos of the gate, which is too bad, because it's really cute. It has an arch on top and on bottom, and a diagonal beam across the center, to keep it square. It has a black metal latch and swings inward. The whole thing is so pretty, I can't believe we made it in a day!




And while I'm uploading photos, check out this project from 2 weeks ago that Nitro built! (He should post his process here, I may bug him about that!) The little 4-wheeler was his as a child, so it's super tiny, but we needed something to toodle around the ranch, and also to clean out manure from the horse pen. He built this awesome little trailer out of an old wheelbarrow. It lifts from the handle in front (which is off an old frying pan!) to dump all the manure easily.