We are in full fledged end-of-summer mode around here. The garden is doing fairly well for just getting it planted mid-June.  We have enough tomatoes right now to have 1-2 for every meal including breakfast.  But, I have a feeling in about 2 weeks or so, we will have an overabundance of them and have to can tomato soup or spaghetti sauce.  And…. I actually owe you guys a HUGE update on our garden area because it has seen so many changes since the last you saw it if you aren’t on social media.  We made a grand entrance to our garden and I absolutely love how it turned out.

In case you don’t know, we have a list of to-dos a mile long every day.  I’m not even kidding you.  Whenever we mention that we would love to have this or that on our property, I write it down.  It really helps me stay organized with my constant spinning thoughts in my head.  And, if we change our mind on some of them, they simply come off the list.  We usually start and finish one major project each summer. And, then do a bunch of smaller ones. Two years ago, it was our pergola porch swing.  Last year it was the beginning of our chicken coop.  So, this year, our list included finishing the coop and make them a run and get our vegetable garden boxes placed and planted. Well… that snowballed.

A Grand Entrance to Our Garden

Once the chicken coop and the run was finished, the garden boxes were placed and our vegetables were planted.  We decided that we should just go ahead and install the picket fence around the garden this year.  It was something on the list since last year. Also on the list was to make a grand entrance to our garden, but I really didn’t know it was going to turn out THIS grand.  Ha!

Let me back up a bit.  Our son-in-law works for a roofing company.  He was putting something in a dumpster last summer and saw some wood columns that someone had removed from their house.  Well, he knows us well.  He grabbed those wood columns and brought them to us because he knew we would use them.  They have been in our stash.  Both Deb and I chatted and said how cool they would be as the entrance to our garden.  So we got to planning this entrance using those wooden columns. 

Some of the columns were missing the tops and a few didn’t have bottoms.  And the ones that we had were in rough shape.  Since the columns were free, we decide that it would be easy to replace the tops and bottoms.  Well, it wasn’t as easy as we thought.  And, when we did find them, they were going to cost $125-$200 PER PIECE.  We needed 8 total which would cost anywhere between $800-$100.

No thank you!  That was simply out of the question.

We had this grand entrance design in our heads and couldn’t stop thinking about it.  Every day we would go back and forth with what to do.. should we wait until next year to finish it?  Maybe Deb could make a top and a bottom to these columns that would work. We also knew that they were wood and in pretty bad shape. So we didn’t want to put all of this money into this grand entrance for it to rot in a few years.

Deb is a Facebook girl and scrolls it daily.  As you know, with Facebook comes the Marketplace. Well, just like Deb and Danelle fashion, when we speak things into the air, it happens.  I have no clue how or why it happens but it does regularly.   Two days after we saw the price of the pieces we needed, Deb saw 4 fiberglass columns pop up on the marketplace with the tops and the bottoms.  We scooped them up right away and continued on with our project. 

I shared all about them including what we paid for them in this post.

If you saw social media stories, this garden pergola was called the project that never ends.  We worked on this garden entrance for WEEKS or maybe even MONTHS.  It seemed like forever. 

The columns are hollow and were set in place by putting them over 4 x 4s that we concreted into the ground.  And then we made up the design ourselves for the top of the pergola.  These columns are 10′ tall so it was a pretty big job to get all of these 2 x 12s on top of the columns and attached. Once Deb shimmed up the top and made everything sturdy, we added one final thing to put it over the edge.

Do you recognize this light?  We found it here!

The moment I saw this old lantern light, I knew what I wanted to do with it.  I just knew it would make this grand entrance to our garden EXTRA just like the rest of our projects around here.  Ha!  I love the way the lantern looks here.  We just got a solar light bulb to add to it to make it even more fun.  That’s happened today, so stay tuned to stories as I will share.

I’m not sure we are done with the structure of this grand entrance, because we have a few more ideas for it…. like possibly incorporating some old windows in the sides of it.  But I think for this year, we are calling it a wrap as far as that goes. I still have to give the column a fresh coat of paint (still on the list) and figure out if we will be staining the top or painting that white as well.  The top part may wait until next year.

Man was this a huge project.  What do you think of it?  And what is your vote?  Should we paint the upper part of this garden pergola white or stain it?

Oh… and don’t worry.. .we still have plans for those wood columns that our son-in-law dropped off.  Ha!