Posts Tagged ‘creative design’
Probably Done
Despite the relentless drizzle saturating everything not under a roof yesterday, our contractor, Justin, showed up to complete the framing on the shade sail and remove the ground supports.
It looks a little spider-like due to the funky way I persuaded him to attach the 45° braces above and below the header boards on the four corners. I’m satisfied with the unconventional look, but wish we’d have achieved more stiffness from those additions.
There are two more things we can do to bolster the header boards, but it will take an additional lumber purchase, so I am choosing to wait and take those steps if we discover a need.
As soon as we removed the temporary lower support boards, I took down the barrier to allow the horses full access to the small paddock. They were way more interested in the grass that had been untouched for a couple of weeks than the strange canopy overhead.
Since they’ve watched it go up and probably viewed it in my head the whole time I’ve been imagining it, I suppose it’s not all that new to them.
Horses can be so matter-of-fact sometimes. Weirdly, they can also simultaneously appear somewhat flighty, so figure that one out.
I did some calculating to get an estimate of how long a braid I will need to wrap the 6×6 posts for a span of about a meter to discourage the horses from chewing on the wood or catching their tails or manes in splinters as the wood dries. I’ve completed only a third of what it will take for one post using the cut pieces of poly bale twine we have accrued.
It’s time to up my braiding game. Should have done that a long time ago.
Cyndie made use of several of the hollowed chunks I cut from the fallen maple tree.
They are becoming flower planters. I like! See why I am so smitten with her? Not just things like that, but she lets me make crazy things like the shade sail frame, and then tells me she likes how it looks when it is done.
I’m a lucky guy.
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Adding Lattice
On a gift of a day in late November when warmth and sunshine belied the proximity to winter and scores of others were hanging Christmas lights on their homes, Cyndie and I were weaving branches into the frame of our gazebo.
The inspiration struck a few weeks ago when I was pulling down the aging canvas canopy in preparation for the onset of winter. The old cover had long ago faded from the original brown color to a silvery-blue and the fabric fibers, weakened by the relentless bombardment of solar rays, were breaking around the edges.
I was pretty sure it didn’t have another summer of life left, so I considered alternatives. A natural canopy of live vines would provide shade in summer and leaves would fall off for the winter so I wouldn’t need to do any additional work.
All I needed to do was convince Cyndie the idea had merit. Since we share a similar perspective about these kinds of things, she was all in.
While I was taking a few weeks to think through how I might execute my vision, Cyndie was thinning our woods of saplings in preparation.
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First, we wove one long stick along the front face, then, two. Continuing around the four sides, we worked our way up. The closer we got to the top, the harder it was to weave the branches through, so we switched to cuttings from wild grapevines.
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Next spring, we will transplant some wild vines from our woods to the four legs of the gazebo in hopes of establishing a natural canopy that thrives on the massive exposure of direct sunlight.
My only trepidation is about how much snow might collect throughout winter to stress the modest strength of the metal framework. I expect it will depend on how wet or dry the snowfalls are and how frequently separate snow events will occur.
It’s a gamble we are willing to wage. I figure, worst case, I could use more cut trees from our woods to prop up the frame in places where the metal shows signs of buckling. The whole thing is already flexed out of level due to the lack of solid footings. We merely set the four legs on spots I prepared when we moved the gazebo to this spot beside the labyrinth. The ground in those spots has not shifted in unison from the subsequent seasons of freeze/thaw cycles.
The structure has a quaint “askew” look that I expect will fit nicely with the vision I have for a natural canopy of living green growth by the middle of summer.
For now, we just watch and wait.
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Relative Something 