Our home is always changing--inside & out; & every change creates a new "pop":. This time we added a room!! It all started after switching out the last section of old board decking to brick, matching the rest of the existing bricked deck--improving both the look & function of our yard. But, looking out at the expanse of this all brick deck, even with colorful furniture & our usual riot of plants, something was missing. Somehow, we needed to frame that section, a place where we entertain and also shelter a lot of plants. (I'm a gardener). It's Florida; summer sun is merciless on human skin and, more importantly, all of our plants shriveling in our summer heat; they can't hop up and escape into the AC. What we needed was a pretty shelter from direct sun; we needed a pergola! And this baby is a champ. Ordering was easy, the perfect size for our spot, delivery on time; my husband Bill added 2 applications of weather coating, we hired the brick guys to assemble it (we are old :-)). And now we have more than a pergola; it is a ROOM-- partly nestled under our old magnolia, decorated by our happy shaded plants, and furnished by our colorful furniture (I am a painter), the pergola frames it all and creates the perfect space whose form is lovely and which functions to give us what we needed: a solid, sturdy, shade-providing structure. We already have subprojects planned: our copper pelican perches on the top corner; to add even more shade, we are installing lattice panels over the widely spaced roof slats, and we are adding electric outlets for some good old Florida fans, also hanging solar lights to line the top structure. That's for starters. You never know what might come next! It never ends. Thank you, Backyard Discovery!

Backyard Discovery must have made improvements to the QA of this product because mine fit together perfectly! The most time consuming part was re-staining it to fit the look I was going for, but it was well worth it. I was able to set it up over the course of an afternoon and couldn't be happier with the end result. At this price point and the ease of setup, I wouldn't recommend any other pergola.

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!

I'm very happy with this product. It arrived within the time frame advertised. Some external damage to cardboard box but no damage to parts inside. All parts present and of very good quality. We sealed all wood with three coats before assembly. Directions for assembly were good All went together nicely - predrilled holes lined up ok but required some freshening up of entry and exit points. Hardware was good and looked professional with nut barrels instead of nuts on the bolts. I had some concerns with the recommended anchoring method and chose to make 12x12x12 concrete with embedded brackets bolted to the posts since we live on a mountain with high winds sometimes. Project was completed in just a few partial days with two helpers. Very happy with the results

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] We planned our backyard patio around the pergola. We laid out the patio stone and ordered what we picked out; unfortunately they told us the stone we selected, or any color stone for that matter, was on back order for 22 weeks. Thank goodness we didn’t order the pergola at the same time. We didn’t want the pergola laying in the driveway in cardboard and getting wet. We had hoped to have everything done for Christmas but thought that was going to be a dream. We checked periodically on the delivery but no one was going to answer. I had counted the weeks out on the calendar and decided to order the pergola. My husband said this is a mistake – the stone will never come in on time. When I ordered the pergola it was scheduled for delivery in 10 days. A few days later the stones came and the crew said they would be on it immediately. Right on time the pergola delivered it silently and in our driveway. Never saw the delivery man or truck. Checked boards and hardware and all appeared fine. The stone completed and we immediately started to build our pergola. My husband and I started and our daughter arrived in time to help. Three days and all is done – one day before Christmas. We celebrated with a dozen family and friends at the table under our pergola. Couldn't be more pleased with our pergola.

We purchased this in June. We had to wait to install once the concrete patio was completed. It took about 6 hours to install completely and we were completely impressed with the construction. All of the components necessary were included. It turned out to be much stronger than I expected. Originally I was going to build one from scratch but after pricing Cedar components and figuring out all of the hardware required we decided to order from you. So glad we did.

Handyman and myself put it together in 13 hours over two days. Wife thinks it’s great. Pieces were well marked and the bags of hardware were also well marked. The only thing missing were two pilot holes but extremely minor point. Well pleased with the product.

This is a two person project and was completed in under 8 hours. Everything piece of wood is labeled, including the screws. Instructions are easy to follow and downloadable app with instructions and 3d visuals ensure you move from step to step with confidence and ease! The finished product is beautiful and makes a big statement!!

Started with just myself up thru STEPS 7, then two men for STEPS 8, 11, 14 thru 16, and 18. Most of the entire family joined in from this point on. Preliminary assembly and assembly-STEPS 1 thru 7, 9 thru 10, 12 thru 13, and 17 I did in my garage while waiting for HOA approval and concrete slab completion. (The good news is, there were no missing/damaged parts, save for what I considered to be minor blemishes in the surface of three different boards. Upon final assembly, there were no shortages and surplus in nearly all of the hardware parts). We chose to pre-stain everything from this point forward in the installation. 1st complaint: The sum of the various lap-joints does not produce the same thickness as the original board. Note: Depending on your selection of stains, this can be less noticeable in the final assembly. 2nd complaint: The depth of the lap-joints is often inconsistent, resulting in gaps as large as 1/8 inch. I know of no easy way to camouflage this, Note: I consider both of these complaints to be the result of a quality-control problem. If you choose to follow the Manual (Anchoring Layout pg-3, as we did), this can result in some of the Posts not standing perfectly vertical. To the critical eye, this can be annoying. Suggestion: Follow the Manual (Anchoring Layout pg-3) for a starting point, but before anchoring the base of any Post, tighten all hardware except those affecting the Post alignment. Then, make any fine-tune vertical alignments to the Posts using a carpenter’s level. (If everything has been done correctly up to this point, this should be very minimal). Lastly, anchor the Posts. Caution: I didn’t pay enough attention to the location of the pre-drilled holes in the JOIST and ended up with some of the pre-drilled holes facing down instead of up and on the outside instead of the inside (or vise-versa) of the POST. This will extend the installation time no matter how you choose to solve it. 3rd complaint: Neither of the inside POST (POST P03) were pre-drilled for the CORBEL on one side only as they should have been. Note: This I consider to be another quality-control issue. 4th complaint: Because there is no staggering of the lengths of the PURLINs, all the joints fall on a single SLOTTED-JOIST at each splice point. This leaves you with no attachment to the PURLINs to those two particular SLOTTED-JOIST leaving them less stable than the others. I chose to replace the PURLIN splicing bolt, nut, and washer in four staggered locations across the length of these tow JOIST with a 3” long - ¾” lag bolt and washer making the splice point serve as the anchor point to the JOIST in those four locations. If you are anchoring your Pergola to concrete, I discovered that dipping the concrete anchor screws in thick liquid soap such as hair shampoo before driving them will keep them from seizing up during driving. (Learned this the hard way).

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....