A few weeks ago, we decided to get our white picket fence going by first building our arbor.
I decided that typcial 4 X 4's just wouldn't look right, so we pulled out 6 X 6's at Lowes and stood them in the aisle. They were HUGE! Cynthia suggested we try 4 X 6's and they were just right. She's knows I always over build...
We choose to include the "dragon mouth" detail that is on our house, so a little tracing and copy-machine magic and I had a scaled version for the cross beams.
We cranked out all the parts in the back yard and prepainted and predrilled everything for quick assembly.
Out front the neighbors watched as we balanced these heavy beams while I bolted it to the footings and added the cross peices to hold it together...
It was crooked for a week, until I could get back out there to straighten it to to perfect plumb!