Pergola Raising - Part 1

Greetings All,

I have stolen my wife's keyboard to bring you this special announcement. "The Pergola Project Has Begun!" Well, it did. Many weeks ago. This is the first in a series of Blogs that will tell the story of the Daniels' Family Pergola.

We have been planning this project since the day we were first shown this house. On our first visit to this house, it had other people's furniture in it, and other people's name on the door. We loved the house, and it had all of the amenities in it that we could want. But when the Realtor took us out the sliding glass door on the back of the house and into the inferno, we found the first real problem with the house: The kitchen dining area was uninhabitable between noon and sunset, and the back patio was a concrete oven.

We bought the house anyway. We had talked about putting in some kind of shade, but never actually did anything. Since we moved in, the kitchen dining area has been taken over by things that love a hot sun - namely, my plant collection and a random collection of stuff.

Here we are, two years after moving in, and we finally started addressing one problem with the house. We saved up cash (lots of it - just in case) and did a lot of research. We found pictures of what other people thought pergolas should look like. We settled on a simpler design - one that we could build ourselves. I developed the design in Google Sketchup, and probably engineered it just a little too well. I envisioned that the thing is not going to come down anytime soon.

Now, it took me two months of thinking, reading, skull-sweat and fiddling with the design before I was happy with it. I got a lot of input from My Gary, My Wife, People at work, and anyone else whom would sit still long enough for me to instruct them on what a pergola actually was. I did get a lot of good input, and some of it has actually saved us a lot of time.

We thought we had everything we needed, so we called in the cavalry. My Gary offered to bring a truck full of tools, Dad offered to come, Glen offered his services, and Mike wanted to come.

"Come one, Come All! And bring your families! We're gonna have us a Mennonite Pergola Raisin'!"

We planned the Pergola Raising to happen over Memorial Day Weekend. Somewhat appropriate, since we moved into this house over Memorial Day Weekend two years ago. We had cash, we had food, we had a cooler full of Diet Cokes, we had people coming, and we had a really large pallet of wood in the front yard. We were ready. Or so we thought...

One question that kept coming up was "Have you gotten a permit?" No, we didn't get a permit. We didn't think it needed one - We were right, but more on that later. I looked on the Roanoke County Inspection board website, looking for any clue as to whether we actually needed a permit. There are many criteria that determine whether one is required or not:
- Any Electrical work? No.
- Any excavation? No.
- Will this have a roof? Not really.
- Will this be used for the production of alcohol? You are kidding, right?
- Is the total square footage over 140 square feet? Um, Yes?

Shucks..

So, Lana grabbed the checkbook, and headed over to the Roanoke Inspector's Office. Paid the $30 bucks, and got our paperwork. This was on a Tuesday. We were assured that the inspector would be able to stop by the next day to inspect everything. We were given explicit instructions: Don't start digging until the inspector sees it. Lana was ready for the guy on Wednesday, but he never came. When I got home from work, she was fuming because he didn't show up. We called the inspector, and after several voice mails, he called us. We found out that he had spent all day in our neck of the woods, but never had us on his list. Turns out the lady who signed us up didn't quite follow through correctly. He assured us that he would be over Thursday morning.

Now, by this point we were panicking. We had people coming over to help work on Friday, but we couldn't start work until the inspector was done. I kept talking with the inspector for about an hour that night. Trying to hammer out what he was to do, what was expected of us, and what we could do about it. As he talked, my hopes for finishing the pergola were evaporating quickly. He would have to come out to inspect the land, then come back to inspect the holes, then come back again to inspect the footers for the posts, then come back one more time to inspect the posts themselves - and one final time to inspect the final structure. None of which he could do before Memorial Day Weekend.

In my mind, I was figuring that we could have people use the wood and parts to build a nice set of shelving in the garage. Not quite what we were planning, but something useful anyway.

It took some talking, but after a long discussion, the inspector had a good idea of what it was we wanted to do - and he didn't think we needed a permit. But, we had paid our money, and started the process, so he was obliged to follow it through. It was then that the inspector gave us a huge present. "If you can have the holes dug by the time I get there in the morning, and I approve of them, I'll give you the permit to build your pergola." Music to our ears. We would be able to build it - but only if we could dig six holes to his specification before sunrise.

Two foot down, and eighteen inches across. That's a big hole. And we needed six of them.

It was six o'clock pm, we had a post-hole digger, a fresh batch of sweet tea, two shovels, it was getting dark - and we were wearing sunglasses. "Dig it!"

We grabbed our tools, and started digging. We had a rough idea of where the holes would go, but no way to know for sure if it the placement was perfect. (No, it wasn't) But we dug anyway. We had to have six perfectly dug holes ready for the inspector before I left for work the next morning.

Four of the holes went quickly. Two posed quite a problem. One of them turned out to be exactly centered on the Verizon cable that runs through our backyard. Nevermind that Miss Utility marked them a foot and a half over there. Ugh. We carefully dug next to it, and did a fine job not cutting it.

The other hole required that we break through five inches of concrete patio. Not an easy task with a four pound mini-sledge, and a rock chisel. I made lots of neat little dents on the surface, but I wasn't making enough progress to finish the hole before sunrise.

We needed help. It was getting a little too dark to dig safely, and Grace was getting cranky. Bedtime. That meant that I would be out there on my own digging. Now, I don't mind hard work, but it sure makes it easier to take when you have someone to share the misery. Doing it by myself just isn't a whole lot of fun.

So we called for help.

Lana, Grace and I walked over to Todd and Cameron's house. Now, we are on friendly terms, but I'm always leery about ringing people's doorbells, and disturbing them. Lana encouraged me: "We do have people coming, and we need help." So I pushed the button.

Ten minutes later, Todd was helping me figure out a way to handle the concrete. His wife and daughter were entertaining Grace, and Lana was finishing off the holes. Thank you guys! We owe you a dinner!

We finished those holes. Lana and I stayed up until midnight digging those holes. They didn't look like much, but the inspector was happy with them. He approved our permit. We had our completed paperwork, and we were good to go.

The show could go on. We were excited!

To be continued...