As the snow starts to melt, homeowners across Calgary start to dream of the warmer summer months and being able to spend time outside in their gardens after being cooped up all winter. Spring is a great time for planning out changes to your outside spaces, both in terms of renovating and reimagining your garden beds, and also how to get you and your family out in the garden more often. The most common answer to the latter is to create defined outdoor living spaces, and a new pergola area is a great way to get everyone outside all summer long.
Benefits Of A DIY Pergola Kit
Pergolas come in all shapes, sizes and designs which means that your pergola project is only constrained by your budget and your imagination. As with all outdoor home improvement construction projects, you’ll be able to find local building contractors who will plan and build your pergola for you. However, this considerably increases your overall budget, so a DIY pergola kit is a much more affordable option. They tend to come in more uniform sizes to keep the costs down, but unless you have a tiny yard, it’s unlikely that you’ll benefit from a custom sized outdoor pergola. An affordable DIY pergola kit means that you can take on the project on your own timescale, and with a few friends helping out, you’ll be able to transform your backyard in next to no time.
Easy Outdoor Pergola Ideas
Once you’ve decided to take on a DIY pergola project as your major spring backyard upgrade, you get to plan out how to make it your own. Some popular outdoor pergola ideas include:
- Create a dining space – it’s important to think about how your new pergola space will be used throughout the summer when you’re installing it. A creative use is to make it into a romantic dining area. For this, you’ll want a solid floor (such as a raised deck or stone patio), and access to electricity so you can string lights across the beams. Invest in a good quality outdoor dining set, and upgrade your grill to complete the set up for a summer of outdoor dining fun.
- Let it grow – most Calgary homeowners will have the traditional image of a pergola covered in climbing plants and drooping flowers, and it’s really not that hard to bring that picture perfect vision to reality. Either create wide flower beds around the base of each post as you dig it in, or buy big pots to place against the bottom of the pergola. In either case, do research about the types of climbing plants you want (roses and wisteria grow quickly, while jasmine and honeysuckle will smell amazing) and then let nature do its thing.
- Simple elegance – finally, there is always something to be said for a “less is more” approach to pergola decoration. Keep everyone’s focus on the simple beauty of the post and beam structure by avoiding clutter underneath it. You can achieve this with fold away furniture, or some simple understated wicker pieces to allow the simple elegance of your new backyard space to shine through.
