<p>I am obsessed with having a gazebo erected in the backyard of our new home here in New Jersey. Trust me, I’ve never been the gazebo kind of person. What is going on?</p>
<p>Gazebos are charming. :)</p>
<p>Me, too! We have a stand of tall pines on the edge of our backyard, and I have always wanted to put a gazebo in it with a nice little rock garden path to it. But… sigh. I don’t even sit on the screened porch that I have across the yard from that very often, and I can’t keep up with the gardens that already exist. But I know that craving…</p>
<p>Maybe it comes from watching The Sound of Music too many times :)</p>
<p>
You are suffering from severe winteritis, which is characterized by the desire to sit outside and admire the foliage, instead of the 6 feet of snow it is buried under.</p>
<p>To cure yourself, think ahead to August, when it is 95 degrees out with 90% humidity, the mosquitoes are all over you like ugly on an ape, and the thought of being outside kind of makes you miss all the snow.</p>
<p>If you are still wavering, imagine yourself up on a ladder scraping and painting that sucker every single year.</p>
<p>My in-laws have a gazebo. They love it! I say go for it.</p>
<p>I love gazebos but the prices for the pre-built ones seemed prohibitive to me and I’m not handy enough to construct one from scratch. In the “gazebo spot” at the end of our garden, I did however build a pergola using fiberglass porch columns invisibly attached to fence posts buried in concrete (a friend of mine who is an architect told me how she’d done this for the garden at our church). On top of the porch columns, I attached treated plywood caps, and then treated wood beams in a cross-hatch pattern. It only took a weekend and cost about $500 for the materials. I grow flowering vines up the sides and top.</p>
<p>I am building ( or having built) a greenhouse/shed/room of thine own myself this summer.
My H has 1/2 the basement for his workshop ( oh gee- he " counts" the laundry area as * mine*)- plus he has taken over the detached garage- I need some space too!</p>
<p>these are a little expensive but I am getting ideas.
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<p>Before building one, see if you can find “The Gazebo” starring Debbie Reynolds, Glenn Ford, and Carl Reiner. Very funny 1960 comedy about the wrong body winding up under the cement foundation of a new gazebo. </p>
<p>No gazebos in our backyard, but I work adjacent to a park with a pretty one. Though the seagull souvenirs are a little daunting.</p>
<p>I like the Bali Tea House, except that it costs a year of college (!):</p>
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<p>I think that would be in the “advanced” DIY category.</p>
<p>Who knows? Maybe this is your new direction. </p>
<p>I keep thinking I’m going to get a new direction soon, now that the kids are not interested in being my “direction” anymore. </p>
<p>perhaps this is you drinking lemonade this summer and reading one of the long list of must read books to be found on this site? Could happen.</p>
<p>Feel free to release your desire in my backyard.</p>
<p>Not a gazebo but I had a pergola built (by a contractor) over the patio behind our house. It transformed the patio into a wonderful outdoor “room.” We now spend more time on the patio than ever before. I grew flowering vines (climbing clematis & trumpet vine) over the top and hung strings of lightbulbs across the pergola.</p>
<p>We usually keep the mosquitoes at bay with citronella torches but also use Raid Yard Guard when we need to deploy heavy artillery.</p>
<p>Mosquitos HATE tea tree oil. I mean, I HATE tea tree oil, too, but not as much as deet. FWIW</p>
<p>We too had a pergola built; it has transformed the appearance of the house as well as the garden…love it. Don’t fight the urge sewhappy.</p>
<p>This reminds me of when I was a little kid. My grandfather was a carpenter and he was ALWAYS outside building something. I’d always have that uncontrollable urge to build things too. So I would go to join him and his scrap wood would be all over the place. He’d give me a hammer and a box of nails and tell me I could build whatever I wanted as long as I didn’t interfere with what he was doing. I used to come home with these random blocks of scrap wood nailed together. Lol. I remember the one thing I made kind of resembled a duck and my mom let me spray paint it white and we painted on eyes nose and a mouth and we stuck it in our flower bed.</p>
<p>That being said, my friends parents have a Gazebo in their back yard and it’s gorgeous. They have a grill right there too and it’s the perfect place to have a cook out and just sit back and relax.</p>
<p>Do it, give into your desires. Gazebos are beautiful. Every time I see one, I want one. Get it for the rest of us who don’t have gazebos. We want you to do it!!! DO IT!!</p>
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<p>I am really gratified by the generally positive responses to building a gazebo. My husband seems to share the obsession. He’s good with electronics and wants to light it, have a fan, and pipe our sound system to it. I must say our neighbors have a gazebo and it was lovely in the snow - all lit up and festooned with holly and red ribbons. Just silly and wonderful. </p>
<p>We could all use a little more silly and wonderful in our lives!</p>
<p>(We bought a house that was built by a builder for his own family and it has many nice touches - including a pergola over the deck - agree this is just a brilliant concept - creates a really lovely latticed light in the afternoons.)</p>
<p>It’s just…we all want a gazebo. And if you have a handy husband who can do alot of the work, it can be relatively inexpensive for the enjoyment you’ll get. It will also add value to your home, for curb appeal.</p>
<p>I would love a gazebo, and I also have a husband who is handy. Though he has a pretty long list of things to do, maybe your thread will help me to encourage him to move it a little further up the list!</p>
<p>I saw something like the arbor in these photos (scroll down) at Epcot’s Garden show a year or so ago. It wasn’t this elaborate, just unfinished but stripped branches glued together in the right shape and trimmed. It looks like the trees just sort of grew into the form of an arbor or gazebo. If you have somewhere to collect fallen branches you could create a very rustic but charming seating area with little money. The guys I spoke to at Epcot said they felt the structure would last ten to fifteen years (barring blow-downs). </p>
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