Pergola Arbor Seat

The Lady of the House said that she would like a seat in the orchard to contemplate her navel! And being a good husband, with an unhealthy passion for powertools, I thought " I can do better than that"

I had a bunch of 4x4 (100mm x 100mm) poles that I bought eons ago for another project that never got done,

So using a circular saw I cut a recess at the top of 4 of them.

So I assembled 2 of the poles with some trellis using 50mm screws and dug a couple of holes with my post hole tool, I also added a horizontal upper from 40 x 100 decking to give the whole shebang some rigidity.

I then made sure it was all level and upright and concreted in with Postmix

I then cut a "bird lip" out of the upright for the seat back top runner, I was going to cut a second one lower for the bottom rail, but then thought better as it would weaken the post too much, so as I was very much "winging" this (making it up as I go along), I used the cut out "wedge instead as an infill to get my angle for the seat back.

Once both top and bottom horizontal were in I cut slats to fit for the back and attached with 50mm screws.

I used 2 pieces of trellis for the sides to get the correct position for the front poles assembly. These were attached using 75mm nails.

It looks a bit cack handed in the first pic as I was doing this on my own ( as the wife has just had back surgery) so improvisation was called for.

Once I had located one side, I could dig the second hole and square everything up.

Again all concreted in with Postmix

Then I put in 2 "fore and aft" pieces at each end to attach the seat slats using 75mm nails, then cut the seat base slats to length (1800 mm) and attached using 50mm screws.

I cut 13 1 metre lengths for the roof, cut off the corners and clamped together.

Then cut 2 slots as shown in each to fit (750mm apart)

I spaced out the roof slats evenly and nailed in position using 75mm nails

Just need to stain it and plant something to grow over it and I'm done