Putting Up the Gazebo

The gazebo all put together.

My friend Christian had his gazebo ruined last year in one of the many storms that we had. It wasn’t the big derecho we had at the end of June. This happened in September. Essentially the wind picked up the gazebo and smashed it against the fence. Not much left of it.

So it needed to be replaced. Christian got another one. He asked for help in putting it together and in return he supply lunch and we’d get to swim in his pool. I volunteered and said I’d bring chocolate chip cookies as an added incentive.

Saturday dawned nice and sunny but in the 50s and rather windy. The idea of swimming in the pool fell by the wayside but putting the gazebo together did not.

I arrived around 10 and Christian and I started on assembly the gazebo. Our other volunteer, Diane, arrived about a half hour later. Then we started assembling in earnest.

I wish I’d taken a picture of all the parts there were to this thing. I will say that there were 97 of one screw which was labeled Z1. What was a little strange is the parts ran the gamut of the alphabet in labeling. Once they ran out of letters, instead of using double letters like AA they used letters and numbers. So there were parts labeled Z1 through Z10.

We started working on the patio (where over time we got some sun) by the pool but then had to move the gazebo to where it was going to be long tern. This of course took us out of the sun and it seemed that the wind decided to come up then. But we persevered.

We only came across a couple of things that we couldn’t figure out. One was a light that is solar powered. The light fits into the ceiling of the gazebo. But the cord from the light to the cord to the solar panel were both male plugs and wouldn’t fit into each other. In fact it looked like the solar panel was not the right one for this gazebo. The other was a flap that was supposed to connect to the top of the gazebo. A medal rod went down each side of the flap. There were three places to put in screws to attach it to the gazebo. The thing is no matter how hard we tried we couldn’t get all the screw holes to match up. So we ditched the metal rods and just screwed in the fabric. I don’t think it will make all that much difference.

Once we gotten the roof completed we had to lift it up on its legs. Thankfully there were a couple of guys working on putting in windows in a house nearby. Christian got them to came over and help lift it up and we screwed the roof to the legs or is it the legs into the roof. I’m not sure.

There were a couple of more things to do but we broke for lunch. By that time it had warmed up and was very nice out. After lunch we finished up.

In all we did a really good job in putting the thing together. It didn’t take all that long either. I had fun doing it. And it turned out great as you can tell by the pictures.

Diane putting it together

Christian working on the last major step to the Gazebo

The final product