A Backyard Pergola

It’s a beautiful Monday here after a weekend of rain.

We had a little birthday celebration for Justus who turned 13.

I can describe Justus in one word — Amazing.

He’s taller than me now, has a tender heart, loves the Lord, loves to learn, so diligent that I have to tell him to stop doing schoolwork for the day, responsible with his daily chores of caring for the goats and does not shy from work of any kind.

(The girls made him an ice cream cake.)

I know. He sounds like the perfect boy. But… he does have his problems.  He has a new nickname… “The Wrecker” due to the fact that he’s been responsible for several dents in our vehicles and various parts of the cars being ripped off after he runs into them. I’m hoping his learning curve starts to pick up soon!

But he’s still a keeper and I’m so glad he was born into our family. We love him dearly.

One Sunday morning shortly after he was born.

(Oh hey, LOOK! There was a time I actually tried to color coordinate.)

In other news, the pergola is now finished, (here are the before pictures)  well, the structure is up at least. I am hoping that we can stain the wood at some point. But that won’t happen for awhile.

I placed the rustic buffet server that my hubby made for one of the kids’ high school graduations here to get a visual for an idea I have brewing in my head but it will be moved later. The pergola is so large (big enough to seat 130 people) that anything you put in there is going to look dwarfed. I don’t want to look at this expanse of concrete year-round without having something in there but not just anything will work.

No flowers for sure – cows or goats might find them entirely too tasty and besides it would be too much maintenance trying to keep them well watered.

I love the steel plates that were used on the pergola.

It’s pretty amazing how much shade the lattice effect gives.

We are planning lights for the pergola, serving counters, BBQ grill, sink and a few other things and those are all items I need to think about and figure out exactly what I want… something I enjoy doing.

There are some fun ideas out there. Ideas that would never work for us but kind of grab you anyhow and of course, they can always spark an idea in your mind that will work for your home and yard.

Indoor/Outdoor kitchen

I really like this rustic look.

Cozy

Okay, I’ll never have things this green here in Arizona but I do love the stonework and counters.

Love this look.

This is very practical for serving large amounts of food,

except if it were to work for me I would need to make it where people could go down both sides.

I’ll be doing some more hunting for good ideas but in the meantime the next thing on the agenda for the men is to build a wall in the backyard while my oldest son is home. He’s been in Ohio for the last 3 weeks and then we get him for 3 before he flies the coop again for Canada.

I’ll keep you updated on that project as it comes along.