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How To Build Beautiful Outdoor Structures

Spruce up any backyard with pergolas, arbors, trellises, and more.

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If your home has a backyard, building an outdoor structure could be a creative and affordable way to add character to your home and expand your living space when the weather is nice. Plus pergolas, greenhouses, gazebos and more can often be built in a couple weekends with readily available materials, making them perfect projects if you don’t have a lot of time or a big budget.

Fortunately, the Fine Homebuilding archive is full of articles that can help you to design and build anything from a simple archway for your garden path to a spacious shade structure for your patio or deck, and we’ve compiled our favorites right here.

  • How-To 1
    Video: Create a Simple Curve for a Pergola

    This technique for making a simple curve can be used for many projects.

  • Design 2
    Traditional Pergolas

    Design/Build: A nearly infinite range of profiles are possible. Here are four common designs.

  • How-To 3
    Build a Gateway Pergola

    This cedar structure combines the look of traditional joinery with contemporary lines — all built with simple techniques.

  • 4
    What’s the Difference: Trellis, Arbor, and Pergola

    Although the terms often are used interchangeably, trellises, arbors, and pergolas are distinctly different structures.

  • 5
    cedar-pergola
    Free Plans for a Cedar Pergola

    This cedar structure combines the look of traditional joinery with contemporary lines, all built with simple techniques.

  • How-To 6
    hinged trellis
    Hinged Trellis

    The drawing shows my solution to a problem that confronts just about anyone who lives in a house that is landscaped with vines on trellises. The problem is what to…

  • Design 7
    Designing a Grilling Station

    An architect offers safe, practical tips for building this open-air cooktop

  • How-To 8
    Gazebo-Layout Template

    Build an eight-sided gazebo with precise post placement using a simple layout template.

  • Design 9
    Greenhouses and Potting Sheds

    A dedicated outdoor workspace--whether used for nurturing plants or storing tools--can make tending the yard much less of a chore.

  • Design 10
    A Recycled Greenhouse

    Framer Larry Haun shows how he built this simple garden structure with plank walls made from salvaged lumber.

  • How-To 11
    Building a Pergola

    Integrated into a deck, a pergola adds character, beauty, and shade.

  • 12
    Building a Privacy Screen

    A lattice screen topped by a pergola provides the triple benefit of privacy, shade, and wind protection.

  • Design 13
    Building Benches and Planters

    A combo bench and planter not only adds functionality and beauty but is also a great way to use up decking scraps.

  • How-To 14
    Custom Details Make a Better Deck

    Smart framing eliminates the ledger and adds a shady seat.

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Ask questions, offer advice, and share your work

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View Comments

  1. user-7306700 | Aug 01, 2020 06:07pm | #1

    My copy of the IBC for use in Georgia for deck building firmly states that "Support of beams w/fasteners only is prohibited. Bearing is required."

    Thus, at least in Georgia (One might think the US given the adoption of the IBC by the various states) this author's technique of using the galvanized bolts only to support his lumber as a beam would not be allowed.

    What am I missing?

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