You see, I have this rose growing in my side yard. It’s hardly a bush—it’s growing mostly in shade, so it doesn’t look very good in rose bush terms, but it still blooms. And I can see it from my living room window. It grows in long canes, searching for sunlight. So, I thought if I gave it a trellis or an arbor to grow on, it might do better, and might find more light.
I also thought that the gate needed a little TLC. I have the arched arbor over the front walk so I didn’t want this gate to compete with that because they are both on the front side of the house.
I saw some photos on Pinterest that were inspiration for what I did with my arbor. See my Board “Arbors & Trellises” on Pinterest. The “pin” labeled “Three Dogs in a Garden” is the closest to what I actually did with mine.
I actually found some extra pieces of the fence post 4×4 laying around in the yard. (It had been there since I bought the house!) I took the plastic post caps off, and using my neighbor’s reciprocating saw (Thanks, Sean!), I cut a half lap joint into the top of each post and then did similar cuts to the ends of the post “extension.” I screwed the two pieces together. Where the two pieces met, I used scrap moulding to cover the joint, which I had primed, then painted and caulked it after I installed it. The top cross bar is a scrap 2×4. I also cut some smaller pieces of the post 4×4 to extend it up above the cross bar so it would look proportional and allow me to re-install the post caps.
The brackets, made of PVC, virtually indestructible, are the only things I spent money on; everything else was free. It was about $50 for both. I found the brackets online at architecturaldepot.com. This is really a great site for all things architectural—brackets, mouldings, etc.
The gate, fence and lattice still need some work, but it’s a little sweeter than it was…