assembly was easier to follow with Bilt than with instructions that came with kit. Wish I'd have purchased and assembled in January instead of June. Texas heat was brutal.\nI had a little issue with holes not lining up. Ended up drilling larger holes to get boards lined up\nIt's now finished, sun shades are mounted and we love it!

We bought this Pergola from Sam's Club. It said it was to be delivered in a month, but we received it much earlier. We love it. I had so many people message and call me asking where we got it. It is definitely a 2, maybe even 3 person job. I give it 4 stars because my husband did have to redrill some holes, as not everything lined up as it should. We also noticed after it was up, a front post split vertically down the middle. Otherwise, we love this Pergola.

Light-weight cedar is easy to work with, and the kit is fairly well-made. Not a lot of warpage, and the bolts and washer stuff seemed fairly-well machined. Pungent Chinese cedar (too bad it wasn't from the U.S.). Only one short piece was split and nearly unusable. We'll see how the warranty goes....

We were looking for something to put over the top of our water garden. This worked perfect. It still lets the sunlight through but at the same time provides the shaded that is needed. Looks Fabulous in the back yard with the water garden. Wife is very happy!!!!!!

Purchased several months ago and finally had the time to assemble. I hired help and it went up easily and quickly. It took 2 guys about 5 hours to assemble. It helped to have all the parts laid out. I love and plan to put shade cloth over the top for extra shade in the summer.

If you are on the fence deciding whether or not to purchase, make the purchase. We bought ours this past July and have been making it our own ever since. When we first received our on time shipment, we thought we better check all the parts right away in case we needed anything replaced. When I called customer service to tell them we wouldn’t be putting this together for a few weeks and what if we discovered at that time we needed replacement parts, customer service assured us they would send us whatever we needed and not to worry. We built our pergola for a few hours each day during the week so all we needed to do on Saturday was raise up the posts and add the cross beams. This definitely makes the project less daunting and it only took us 3 hours or so when we lifted the posts. We have received several compliments. The color you see in the photos is the actual color. We have not yet stained. The purlins that came with (top) were just ok. They seemed crooked when we screwed them together. In the end, we added 1x3 cedar slats so that we had more shade. Directions were straight forward.

At 73, I have been putting together kits for a very long time and in all those years, this is the best kit ever. Everything was included, everything fit, the wood was excellent and the hardware was first rate. Thank you for extra hardware as well as this would be hard to find locally. The directions were terse with great illustrations leaving no doubt as to how to put the pergola together. I am one huge fan of Backyard Discovery!

Pros: Great wood, durable hardware, good design. Very solid. Extra hardware. Cons: Plastic caps on top of four set posts leave 1/8" gap so that brace boards are unable to have bolds and nuts be threaded through - too much space. We tried cutting some of the edges and ultimately discarded the caps. Instructions not detailed enough to explain that two of four brace boards have a row of holes along their top (for the lattice) and need to be placed on outside of the two that lack holes. Probably should have had an extra page in the instructions for this or give the boards with holes a separate number. Neutral: Plastic base plates too flimsy for Florida hurricanes. We used steal base plates that worked well. Interior of set post are not solid cedar, but ripped pine 2x4s. However, cedar overlay done very well - looks like solid cedar. Wish the brace boards were 14' long w/o extensions, but shorter boards with extensions seems to work. Really need three people for this construction, not two.

The Instructions for laying out the footers was really great if your doing individual footers for each post. I assembled the pieces in my garage, and carried them out to the site for install. It took me, working by myself for the most part, less than three days total to get it done. It looks and is sturdy. I priced Pergola's at 4 times the cost that don't look any better than this. Great Value!

We had looked at many different pergolas before deciding on Backyard Discovery. We could not be happier with the quality, beauty and quality of the product. We are so thrilled to have added beauty and value to our property and look forward to years of enjoyment.