DIY: How to Build an Outdoor Accents® Arbor

Adorned by luscious vines, a garden arbor can add shade and style to any backyard garden. This latticed arbor helps nurture your climbing plants by giving them room to grow high where there’s plenty of sunlight and oxygen for the intake. Continue reading “DIY: How to Build an Outdoor Accents® Arbor”

DIY: How to Build a Garden Bench

Enjoy the outdoors from your garden with this large and comfortable bench. This is the perfect upgrade to your backyard — a fantastic do-it-yourself project that comes with step-by-step instructions to make it a summer breeze to build yourself.  Continue reading “DIY: How to Build a Garden Bench”

DIY: How to Build a Mobile Cooler

With the weather warming up, you’re probably looking forward to enjoying some sun  with a cold drink in hand. Our build-it-yourself mobile cooler allows you to host outdoor gatherings in style and will keep your refreshments chilled for hours so your guests can help themselves without continued trips to the house. Stay cool and party on.  Continue reading “DIY: How to Build a Mobile Cooler”

DIY: How to Build an Outdoor Potting Bench

Excited to start some gardening projects, but don’t have a dedicated space for repotting all your plants? Look no further than this outdoor potting bench plan. This plan can help you easily build a sturdy potting bench that’s perfect for all your gardening projects. It’s a great place to house your gardening equipment and offers a large surface area to pot your plants.    Continue reading “DIY: How to Build an Outdoor Potting Bench”

DIY: How to Build a Raised Garden Bed

Cultivate your inner green thumb and create a symphony of tastes and colors in your backyard. This raised garden bed is the perfect place to nurture fruits, vegetables or your favorite flowers. Even better, this raised structure allows you to optimize your plants’ growth by choosing your preferred soil and controlling its moisture levels. Build one or more of these stylish raised garden beds to add to the beauty and productivity of your outdoor space.   Continue reading “DIY: How to Build a Raised Garden Bed”

DIY: How to Build a Picnic Table Using Screws

Looking to enhance your outdoor space? Make the most of meals and get-togethers in your yard by adding a picnic bench — a great, low-cost project that will give you extra seating and table space for barbecues, dinners and parties.   Continue reading “DIY: How to Build a Picnic Table Using Screws”

DIY: How to Spray-Paint Metal Connectors

While many people like the look of galvanized metal connectors on their DIY projects as we have shown with the Simpson Strong-Tie® Rigid Tie® RTC connectors on our DIY standing desk and heavy-duty workbench others prefer a painted look. 

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How Pergola Planner Software™ Helped Turn My Parents’ Patio into an Oasis

This past summer, my parents and I were talking about some of the latest home improvement projects that they had going on, and the topic of providing more shade for their backyard patio came up. For the last couple of years, they’d been looking into different ideas of what to do with this space, including sketching out on notebook paper layouts and particulars that would be nice to have. They’d tried portable patio umbrellas and various other ways to shade this area and had come to a decision that it was time to add a permanent structure that would serve as both a backyard shelter and an aesthetic complement to their home.

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DIY: Nominal Lumber Size Versus Actual Lumber Size

Every so often a homeowner tackling a new project will reach out to ask why their lumber doesn’t fit the connector. We sympathize. Lumber size can be confusing, especially when someone is first getting started with DIY woodworking. Nearly every single time this question comes up, it comes down to “nominal” dimensions of the purchased lumber. 

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2020: The Year You Did It Yourselves 

It’s no surprise that with so many of us stuck at home for most of 2020, there’s been an increased interest in DIY projects. Homeowners have been using the time to build everything from desks to alternative dwelling units. That interest is reflected in where we see visitors going on our websiteWe’ve seen a significant increase in the number of people downloading free project plans and an especially high interest in free pergola plans 

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