Our Grape Arbor

Like most things around our home the grape arbor wasn�t exactly a planned thing. I had gone and bought two grapes, a muscadine and a Concord grape and had nowhere to put them. I didn�t really know anything about growing grapes or about grape arbors so had started looking on the internet and came across this really neat arbor some man had built which had the seat under it. I just loved it and I showed the picture to Phil and he liked it too. For the next several days Phil started bringing home wood from work that the carpenters throw away and one day he came home with a whole bunch of these pieces of wood all the same size about 3ft long and a couple inches wide. I didn�t really know what he was going to do until he got started that weekend. The tops and sides were so simple. He took the two longer pieces of wood and just nailed the 3 ft pieces across them about 5 inches apart leaving a few feet on the bottom empty. These he put together on the ground and when they were done we dug the holes for the side pieces and put those up and packed the dirt back in around them. The top went on next. The sides now are about 75 inches tall and 6 ft across the top. Putting two more pieces of wood from one side to the other made the seat. These are nailed on the inside of the beams on each side forming the support for the seat. Then further up there is the back board, which goes across it, and  is nailed to the outside of the side beams making it so that the back will be slanted. He then cut the little boards for the seat and back and nailed them on so there is just a bit of room in between each board. Afterwards he decided to add the two legs in the middle of the seat just to make sure the bench stayed sturdy. When it was all done we painted the whole things with wood sealer.

          While I haven�t gotten a single grape from those vines, I still think it is one of the nicest things we have ever built. I do enjoy getting out there first thing in the morning and drinking my coffee while sitting in the sun on that bench.

                                                                            Rebecca Whitford