Did I mention that we are getting one of these?
We’ll be taking home a male vizsla puppy on July 19th. We have wanted a companion for Nyah for a while now, and this summer seems the perfect time to make it happen. The pup is bred in Illinois from Busch Vizslas, the same amazing place that Nyah’s father came from. Can’t wait! More on the breeder can be found here.
When we moved into our house the back yard didn’t have a whole lot going on besides an impressive crop of crabgrass, a whole lot of sunshine, and a ceramic chicken. We have a fairly large area out back (by Vegas standards) and wanted to create some more livable and usable space. We spent most of the Fall planting greenery and working on the crabgrass, and as Spring rolled around and things started growing, we realized we would never be able to enjoy our hard work without some shade from the desert heat. We needed a patio cover. We considered getting one of the pre-made aluminum covers, but I realized that if I built it from wood I’d have an excuse to buy all kinds of cool tools, so the decision was made. Initial sketches look like this:
Attached to the house at the roof rafters, with two posts out front. I had initially planned on using redwood for the entire project, but realized fairly quickly that my budget was not nearly large enough to cover that kind of cost. Redwood is about four times the cost of fir around here so the main structural pieces ended up redwood, and the crossing rafters and lattice as fir.
First step was laying out everything on our slab, then the footings. I dug holes about 24″ square, made some forms, and dumped in almost 20 sacks of concrete. I used the biggest post holders I could find, and set them in the concrete.
I used 4×4 posts, and capped them with 2×6’s to conceal the metal post holders. The hardware for the project is all 5/8″ zinc, and I used some regular steel load bearing plates painted black to dress it up a little.
Its so dry and hot here that wood tends to self destruct in record time. Because of this, I wanted to build the patio cover with very little dependence on fasteners. I didn’t want to be able to see any screws or clips from below, and I didn’t want any weight hanging off of flimsy screw threads. (More like I didn’t want to have sleepless nights a few years down the road every time the wind blows, thinking my patio cover’s going to tear the house apart.) I figured a way to notch out the 2×6’s on the posts so they would bear the weight of the main cross beams, then carved and notched the beams themselves to hold all of the rafters. I used a template and my handy new router to make some foo-foo ends as well.
The main cross beams are 14′ long 2×10’s. Each one weighed a bit more than 100lbs. You can imagine that it was an adventure to get them up 10′ onto the posts….
Next up I made a matching ledger board for the house side, and reinforced the house with hurricane ties off the roof rafters on to the 2×8 fascia board. Then I ran the main 2×8 rafters out to sandwich the posts in place.
Up next came the most time consuming part. Cutting all of the decorative ends on the 2×6 rafters. Took forever. I think it was worth it though, the swoopy ends make it look nice and finished.
The final step was to create the shade layer on top. I did this by ripping 2×4’s down the middle, basically making my own 2×2’s to put on top. I cut all of them, then put them all up on top of the rafters. Sandwiched them all together, and screwed down every other 2×2. The you pick out the ones you didn’t screw down and re-stack them. Repeat again and again, and it evenly spaces them across the cover.
I put in two more posts near the house to help bear some of the weight of the cover, and some 45 degree braces at the big posts to stiffen it up a bit. I don’t have a final picture of how it looks nowadays but the one below is pretty close. I’ve cut off the post ends, and put the first of many coats of a waterproofing wood stain on it. The closely spaced 2×2’s block the sun for the majority of the day, and the cover has really opened up the backyard for us. Unfortunately the neighbors are still RIGHT next-door, so next up is to get some outdoor curtains to enclose it a little bit. Then some patio furniture and lighting and we’ll have a quiet place to eat some meals outside in privacy.
