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Cottage

Construction update No. 12: Pergola sitting pretty

January 5, 2011

I bet Mr. Much More Patient had never heard the word pergola until about a year ago when I said, “Ooh, we should have a pergola!”

His response was, “What is a pergola for?”

Now that we actually HAVE a pergola, I thought it would all be clear to him. So when it was assembled on the deck last week he called me at work to let me know it was going in. The conversation went something like this:

Him: “The pergola is going in.”
Me: “Awesome! How does it look?”
Him: “Pretty good I guess. What is this for again?”

Our next door neighbor has been anxiously awaiting the arrival of the pergola because he has pergola envy. A friend we saw at a holiday party lit up when I mentioned it. Her husband said “What do you need a pergola for?”

I guess you either “get” pergolas, or you don’t. The answer to the question “What is it for”, by the way, is nothing. In this case, it does nothing. We don’t really need shade on this east-facing deck. I just like it.

I also think it serves the purpose of breaking up a rather large expanse of house that rises much higher than two stories normally do because our foundation is raised out of the ground quite a bit.

So here’s what it looks like (at 4 p.m. on Sunday when I got around to getting outside to take some pictures):

Photobucket

It’s smaller than I think it was supposed to be, but it’s OK and I’m to the point where I’m not sweating the small stuff. Yes, I would have liked it better had it been another foot or 18 inches bigger, but it’s OK the way it is too.

It’s not very impressive when you look at it from that angle, but here’s how it looks from the yard.

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As an aside, do you know how excited I am to start planning the landscaping around it? I can’t wait!

To get a better feeling for how it helps this side of the house, here’s what it looks like without the deck or pergola.

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And if you really want to have your minds blown, here’s what the house looked like before we started all this.

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I really can’t get over how different it is.

By the way, did you notice the railings on the deck?

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These fall under the “major score” category. We really wanted a railing that was sort of reminiscent of a ship railing. Since we’ll be putting in cable railings (which look just like lifelines on sailboats because they ARE lifelines from sailboats) come spring, we thought a ship-type railing would look nice. As it turns out, hardwood railings are pricey items, and when you get to the end of an over-budget renovation it’s hard to justify an expensive railing. So we had sort of given up hope, when our contractor called us and said he had found several lengths of Brazilian redwood (I’m sure that’s a generic name for it) in the remnant bin at the lumber yard. It was all left over from a big deck job and there was enough for our relatively small deck. I think the cost was somewhere around $3.50 a foot, compared to the more than $10 a foot for Ipe.  Not bad huh?

I love the look. We almost put the kabosh on the deck when it was obvious we were going to go over budget but I’m so happy we didn’t.  I think it’s going to really expand the living space of the house and I can envision a lot of great parties on that deck when the weather warms up.

If you’re interested in what else has been going on with this renovation, check out this post.

deck pergola remodel
by Erin @ The Impatient Gardener 
3 Comments

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Comments

  1. Kara says: January 5, 2011 at 6:45 pm

    I love a pergola!! And I think yours is the right size. It adds just the right amount of interest. Just beautiful. 🙂

    Reply
  2. Liz @ It's Great To Be Home says: January 6, 2011 at 4:41 pm

    I'm in love with the pergola, too! It definitely adds some depth to the back of the house, and it's just so pretty. You guys are doing a great job!

    Reply
  3. Erin Schanen says: January 6, 2011 at 5:15 pm

    Thanks Kara and Liz! With all the unfinished bits inside it's nice to see the outside view close to completion (well, as close as it's going to get until it warms up!)

    Reply

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The Impatient Gardener

Do you love gardening? Me too! I'm Erin and I garden in Southeastern Wisconsin, zone 5. The Impatient Gardener is all about real-life gardening: the good parts, the bad bits and even the funny stuff. It's part information, part inspiration and a little bit commiseration. Thanks for visiting.

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Erin Schanen 🌿 The Impatient Gardener
I fell in love with gardening through container de I fell in love with gardening through container design and it’s probably still my favorite type of gardening. My trip to Philadelphia area gardens was full of so many excellent ideas. For several years I’ve been enamored with clustered pots, but in my opinion they work best when they are able to stand alone in a space. And you probably know me well enough by now to know that as far as I’m concerned, the bigger the pot, the better. Feast your eyes on these beauties and use your zooming fingers to really get into those nooks and crannies. 

Don’t forget to save your favorites because you know you’re going to be looking for them come next spring. 😀

Photos 1 & 2: Amazing container cluster at @longwoodgardens  that works particularly well because of the restraint used in the design. Also how many different ways is the universe going to tell me I need to grow agave before I actually listen?

Photo 3: This was probably favorite display I saw the whole time and of course it’s from the masters at @chanticleergarden This is a master class in texture. It’s also probably not attainable for the average home gardener because it relies heavily on tropicals that need proper overwintering in order to reach a good size. But there’s no reason why I (or you) couldn’t use this as inspiration to create a similar feel with other plants. 

Photo 4: Strappy foliage, bright orange and colorful pots create such a good doorway collection at @chanticleergarden 

Photo 5, 6 & 7: Similar colors were used at a patio doorway at Steve and Ann Hutton’s Owl Creek Farm home garden. A pot is perfectly framed by an arbor off a side patio. The front entrance has a pink theme (and an amazing feature pot that I couldn’t show here because all my shots are vertical). 

Photo 8: Back to @chanticleergarden where I could have studied this container planting for an hour just to soak up all the detail. 

Photo 9: And while I love a pot with a lot going on, never underestimate the power of a simply planted, gorgeous pot, like this one at @abunting64 garden Belvidere. 

#gbfling2023
I think every garden probably needs a little bit o I think every garden probably needs a little bit of water, even if it’s just a bird bath. All of the fabulous gardens I saw recently in the Philadelphia area incorporated water into them. Here are just a few examples of how lovely these water features were. 

@paxsonhillfarm @northviewgarden @brandywinecottage @longwoodgardens #gbfling2023
Gardens must have places to relax and enjoy the vi Gardens must have places to relax and enjoy the view even though we all know that most of us rarely take the opportunity to use them. The seating I saw in gardens in the Philadelphia area reflected their gardens and all were special. 

Make sure to share your favorite!

Photo 1:  I adored these perfectly lichen-covered chairs at @brandywinecottage

Photo 2: Great lichen game on this bench at Wayne Guymon’s mind-blowing garden WynEden. 

Photo 3: Perhaps my favorite seating moment of the whole trip was this chair in @jennyrosecarey @northviewgarden . Not only was it perfectly lichen covered (are you sensing a theme here?) but a volunteer cleome was growing right up through the middle of it. Unfortunately this photo of it isn’t grata because by this point in the trip my phone (I didn’t want to use my DSLR in the middle of the tropical storm so I switched to my phone) was getting very grumpy about the rain. 

Photo 4: I’d be happy to hang out on these chairs in @abunting64 ‘s gorgeous garden Belvidere. I loved this space. 

Photo 5: Color was the name of the game on this patio at Steve and Ann Hutton’s Owl Creek Farm. 

Photo 6: The most original table and benches I saw were at @abunting64 garden. This was a portion of the garden that was actually on the neighbors’ property adjacent to Andrew’s. It had been a vegetable garden but is getting a bit too shady so it will soon have a new life. 

Photo 7: We visited Barbara Tiffany’s Mill Fleurs in a deluge, which is a shame, and dotted throughout the property are examples of her husband Tiff’s amazing furniture. This was, called the Centipede was upholstered and quite different from the others. All were amazing works of art. 

Photos 8 and 9: The @scott_arboretum at @swarthmorecollege had some excellent seating, from brand new @deebenarc chairs to more lichen-covered charmers.

#gbfling2023
*** I can already see that some people do not unde *** I can already see that some people do not understand humor so let me just say this: 1. I was fully aware of the escaped convict situation (I’m an avid follower of the news, which is common for us journalists). 2. It’s ok to laugh about the fact that I’ve missed the Longwood meadow twice through weird circumstances while being a rational adult and realizing that I’m not making light of the situation that led to the meadow being mown. ***

I missed seeing @longwoodgardens beautiful meadow the first time I visited so I was excited to see it the second time. Not so fast! Turns out it had to be mown down during the search for an escaped convict who was hiding out there (at least that’s what I was told was the reason for the mowing). He’ll never see goldenrod the same way again! 😀

That whole situation was really unfortunate for @longwoodgardens (not to mention everyone who lives in the area), which had to be closed for about a week while the hunt was on!
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