It’s never too late in the season to upgrade your yard. Even as the summer months wind down, fall offers plenty of opportunities for relaxing and entertaining in your yard for a few more months. It makes sense, therefore, to find a way to bring your yard to the next level with something permanent that will last beyond the last of the summer flowers. In this case, you need to look no further than a pergola to make your outdoor living better.
What Is A Pergola?
If you’re not familiar with a pergola, it’s still likely that you’ll have seen one without knowing what it was. The key features of a pergola are the simple post and beam design. The load-bearing beams sit on posts attached to the deck, with rafters attached to your existing flat surface that support a series of horizontal lattices. Some larger pergolas will have the beams going in both directions to give the roof of the pergola more strength, and you can opt for this design if you want more shade under your pergola.
Location, Location, Location
As with all good home improvement projects, the key to making your outdoor life better with pergola is choosing where to put it. A pergola will quickly become a statement piece in your yard due to its size and contrasting colours, so you need to think about where you’re going to put this new addition. Fortunately, they are simple structures so it’s not hard to visualize how they would look in your garden.
A Transitional Space
The most common way that you’ll see a pergola being used in Calgary backyards is right outside the back door. This is because installing a pergola on top of your existing deck or patio can save you time and money when it comes to digging solid foundations for the posts. Putting a pergola next to your home creates a transitional space, both functionally and aesthetically. It creates the feeling of an extra room in your house, and many people use a deck based pergola as an outdoor dining room or seating space. It also blends the best of being inside (the shade and furniture) with the best of being outside (the warmth and the breezes) so put a pergola on your deck to get the best of both worlds.
A Garden Centrepiece
If you want your pergola to be something that people leave your home talking about, then you want to find a location where it becomes the focal piece of the garden. Often this will be in an area of your garden where there’s nothing else nearby so your pergola stands out, and you’ll increase the visual effect by creating paths with gravel or flagstones that lead to and from the pergola. For this type of pergola, you’ll want to go for a classic wooden frame which gives you a blank canvas for additional decorations and artistic touches.
A Quiet Hideout
Finally, a pergola can be a great place to create somewhere quiet away from the hubbub of your home and busy family life. If this is your goal for making your outdoor life better, then finding a secluded area of your garden for your pergola project will be key. You can add extra layers of privacy with shrubs or trees around your pergola, or simply hanging drapes or curtains between the posts to make your perfect pergola hideout.
Popular Pergola Designs
As you’re looking for a way to upgrade your yard to make your outdoor living better, a pergola is an affordable and efficient way to add some classic beauty to your garden, as well as creating a unique space to sit under. You can use a pergola to define an outdoor dining area, a sheltered place to grill or simply a place to sit around a fire put to ward off the cooler evenings. Some popular pergola designs include:
Add a trellis for privacy
One of the slight drawbacks of a pergola is that it is completely open on all sides. While on the one hand this means that you get unparalleled 360 degree views out over your yard, it also means that your dinner party is visible to everyone in your neighbourhood. Adding a trellis to one or more sides of your pergola allows you to block off prying eyes while also giving you a place to add lights or climbing flowers to make your pergola area into a private oasis.
Incorporate your garden
If you look up pictures of pergolas in Mediterranean countries, you’ll see that they always have greenery growing up the sides. Incorporate your garden with climbing flowers in pots at the base of each post. Great options include clematis, wisteria and jasmine for an extra scent of summer. If you live in the right conditions, you can grow different varieties of grapes that will climb up the posts and across the lattice to give you dangling fruit when you need a summer time snack.
Enhance existing features
Finally, you can enhance your yard by picking up on existing design features from your home with your pergola. If the siding on your house has a unique pattern or wood type, use these in your pergola design. You can also use your new pergola to frame special design aspects of your home such as a second floor balcony or bay window. You can also use your pergola to create a contrasting design effect. For example, if your home has wooden sidings (or wooden effects), then choosing an aluminium finish can make your pergola pop out. You can also use your pergola design to dictate the kind of outdoor furniture that you put underneath it so you can upgrade your whole outdoor living experience.
