Garden project

I am one of those people that never knows what I want for birthdays, Christmas, Mother's Day, etc. Or at least, I'm one of those people that thinks of things all the time and then the actual time comes and I draw a blank. Then I usually try really hard to think of something I'd like or need and end up just saying something I neither really want or need. Fortunately, this past Mother's Day was not the norm. For some amazing reason, I got inspiration and I knew EXACTLY what I wanted - a grape arbor.
I know, I know, I'm super exciting, aren't I? In all seriousness, I really did want this. I have these visions of growing grapes and making the kids fresh jam. Any person I told about my hope to grow grapes assumed it was for my own personal wine making venture, and though that sounds tempting, I think I'll leave wine making to the experts.
My first thought was that we would buy and arbor from a box store. So went on all the websites and nothing was really the look I wanted, or the price we could afford. All was not lost though, this research helped me narrow down that I was more interested in a pergola style arbor vs. well, any other style I saw.

We already had a pergola style arbor by the water well (above).

Actually, here is a better picture of it without all the greenery. Plus an added bonus of a family picture.

I was thinking something as simple and small as this would do. I started scouring craigslist. Maybe someone was getting rid of one. I struck out there too. There wasn't much, what there was I didn't like or again was way out of my price range.

My next route was to get the hubs to make one. Why not? He's handy. I went to the place you go for all inspiration ideas - pinterest of course. I found a few direction pages but in particular I found this one here. From there, I just had to keep reminding my husband that Mother's day was coming up and I think it was going to take a while to build. *hint hint*

Well, Mother's day weekend came. My husband went to buy lumber. Our first stop was the local lumber yard. Lets just say, the cost for just the cedar lumber was much more then buying one of the expensive ones we had looked at online. Off to the big box store it was. A reminder that going local is not always the most cost effective. Instead, we got all the pieces we needed for about $180. And that was the only cost.

It took a day, almost the entire day, the 95 degree, humid day of mother's day to built. But it is huge, it is cedar, it is gorgeous.

Ta Da!

Honestly, building the actual structure was easy. It was digging out the holes, leveling it and cementing it that took the most time and physical endurance. We have a lot of rocks down below that grass. Isn't it beautiful!?!

Stay tuned for part II, the walkway... the story of how one woman, took on too many bags of cement.