Pergola Build All details inside including price break down

Hi Friends! If you have been following along the journey on Instagram you kind of have a heads up! If not we are happy you are here!! To rewind a bit, I decided that my back patio at home needed a little make over! It is one of our fav. things to do is renovate a space. So I will take you through the materials list, tools you will need & link to go with!

The materials that we used.

You will need

 -Pergola Brackets

-Battery opterated tools we used

        Skill saw

       Reciprocating saw (sawzall)

       Drill & correct size bits

-Speed square

-Level

-Tape measure (use the same one for the whole project)

-Contractors pencil (or colored pencil hehe That is what I had quick access to)

-treated 6x6

-4x4/6x6 cement deck block

-Lots of muscle (this is key!)

Our Amazon tool list links! 

Building List & Cost

-4x4/6x6 you will need 4 cement deck block (Menards is the only place I could find these exact ones, You can use 4x4 or 6x6 with these cement blocks)  $9.19 each ($36.76 for 4)

-6x6x10 (depending on what size you want to make you is what size lumber you will by. I had to buy 10 & 14ft) the 10 ft tall ones were for the vertical post

    I bought 4 10ft at $44.88 each ($179.52 for 4) menards

-6x6x14 for the top 4 at $66.19 each ($264.76 for 4) menards

-Pergola Brackets $159.99 amazon does come with hardware

Total for the wood & brackets needed for the pergola was $641.03

To finish it off because I didn't add any wood going across the top, I did a shade and lights to complete it! The shade was $33.99 on amazon & the lights I did 2 48ft strands for $35.99 each (71.98 total) & cup hook with clips on them to hang the lights were $10 on amazon

So with those two things added 115.97

Grand total being $757.00 total!

 Here is where we started!!

To try to explain step by step on how we put it up I will do my best. First thing that we did was Cut all of the vertical tall post to size. We had to shave a little bit off of the 10ft post to fit under my roof line on one side. To cut the 6x6 with a skill saw we had to mark all the sides with our square then cut 1 side then turn it, cut another side then turn it cut one more time & then finish cutting through the center with the sawzall. So it was a little tedious to cut down the 6x6's but we did it all with power tools in my back yard. If you have a bigger saw available at your home, Use it! Ha!

Then we cut down the top 4 post to size. Making all the cuts at first was key because then you could focus on just getting all of the pieces into the brackets.

IMPORTANT PART RIGHT HERE THAT WILL SAVE A LOT OF FRUSTRATION. Test fit your brackets to the pieces of wood before you are all the way up in the air trying to slam one in that doesn't fit!

There were a couple of 6x6 that did not want to go into the bracket easily so we sanded and notched one of them down. It could have been because I had my lumber outside for a week before we got to the project, but def. test fit them!

Now onto the fun part!

Now that you have all of your 8 boards cut down and test fitted into each bracket now you get to start putting it together! Funny me thought that I was just going to whip this thing together...... Yeah no. It took myself, my dad (who took lead on this pergola & I did learn a lot), husband and mom's strength to do this. So have a couple of extra people on stand by.

First thing we did was we put two vertical post into their blocks, then built one of the 6x6 top post on the ground. So one side had 2 bracket on them, Then we set that top post that had two brackets on them on top of the two vertical post that were already in their block. I hope you are still following.

Then once we had that standing straight with the level. (the deck blocks were a huge help because it made it to where these 6x6 would stand up on their own. Then we went one by one for the next two post. We set the next post and then we could only put one bracket on the next top post because one was already on the post that was already set. So my husband walked the top post up the ladder and (this is were the test fitting comes in handy btw because treated 6x6 are HEAVY) slid it into the previously set post bracket while my dad was on the ground making sure that the next post was in the right place to fit under the next bracket. Then did that same process one more time.

For the last top post being fit, at this point there are three sides up all brackets are already fitted onto all of the top post, this is where muscle and patience comes in handy. My husband again took the last top piece up the ladder and fit one of the sides of the top post into one side while all three of us are pulling the one vertical post out as far as we could to clear my husband to be able to fit the last part in the last bracket. It got a little fun there at the end, but it is so worth it!! I absolutely love it so much!

 Here is the first night being done!! This is a space we will use every single day! I hope you enjoyed this blog post ❤️🫶 

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