We get a beautiful Gazebo and transform the backyard from a sloping lawn to a gathering place with shade for our friends and family. Plus, we now have additional living space, it just so happens to be outside. I drive my hubby nuts complaining about our 12′ x 12′ deck. The deck is great, but a yard needs more use than 144 square feet. We’re in Wyoming, and you have never seen so much sun. We don’t have a pet that needs a lawn either; however, we are the human living animals that need the outside and fresh air! Do we really want to mow the sloping lawn?! Remember to enlarge the photos with your mouse.
Fun Decision
The decision is made, after us living in the newly purchased house with one summer behind us. Are we going to put off a large outside remodel job for years or do it now and have years to enjoy the remodel? We bite the bullet and start our research for a shade structure.
Our house is 18’4″ from the back fence, and yes, I know your yard is bigger! Maybe not but I digress! I like the neighbor’s attached covering they have that is made with cedar. I check with the city to see if we need permits, and guess what, we can’t have an attached cover. The end of the attached cover has to be 20′ from the fence. We have 18 feet I tell the stranger on the phone! He lets me know our yard is 20′ deep. So now I know we have a fence that cut off an extra foot and a half of our yard!
Facts to Consider
I do more research and look into free standing covers. There are beautiful different products that we look at. We look at one particular aluminum cover and start checking the stats. We have to consider our wind and snow weights. Well, we are in Wyoming and the winds get to 60 miles per hour on a regular basis. We also get snow several times during the year. The structures I check out are not strong enough. We happen to be in Sam’s, and I tell Greg they have the nicest gazebo I have seen. The other one at Sam’s competitor is rough and not cedar, but this gazebo at Sam’s is finished so smooth and is solid cedar. We decide we get a beautiful gazebo for out yard with a wind rating of 100 mph and snow weight of 7,500 pounds.
Make it Official
I contact the city again and I request they write a letter saying instead of the required 5′ clearance from the fence we can have our structure 15′ furthest from the house. Now we can order the largest gazebo at 12′ x 16′. We have room for 2′ of landscaping along the house wall and 3′ 4′ of landscaping beyond our 13′ deep concrete pad. Once we build the gazebo, we gently slide it closer to the house and have a little walking space on the concrete near the plants on the fence side.
We get a bid of $12,000 and a bid of $4,000. I check with some reviews and go for the $4,000. The biggest complaint from the reviews is the mess, well, I can work with that. I ask Randy, my new best friend for concrete work, to remove all of the lawn and have the ground ready for gravel. I offer to pay an additional $500, even though the grass where the concrete will be, is already in the bid for removal. This is he best investment I ever made, not to mention good will! The ground is prepped perfect and is even in depth along the whole length of the fence for gravel.
Gazebo Time has Come
A team we hire assembles the gazebo and I proceed to stain the fence a dark brown to match the metal brown trim and roof of the gazebo. We throw in some plants and gravel and we’re all set. Now is a great time to buy patio furniture, and it’s on sale! We are out in the backyard all the time, and when we’re not, we have some great covers for the furniture. This is our first true set of patio furniture in our marriage of over 40 years. And we are loving it! Cool mornings are on the upper deck in dappled shade from a neighbor’s tree. The warm afternoons are under the gazebo in the full sun. We love it here!