One reason the construction drawings could be so simple is we knew that Jack Murphy would be building the trellis (he also built the two story deck). He can figure things out and doesn’t need a lot of hand holding. Again, he did a great job.

The blue shades were added later. See previous Garden Shades postings.

Photos of the finished trellis.

1st: Standing on the driveway, looking out to the street on the right, towards the house in the middle and looking back towards the two story deck on the left.

Our yard is small, and that makes things hard to photograph. There is no place to stand back and get an overall view of the trellis. The driveway is full of plants and the trellis is buried in green. I use composite photos a lot, because they give you the sense of being in, and surrounded by, the garden. This montage may be pushing the limits of this kind of photo, but I still think it conveys the feeling best.

2nd: Looking back at the left and center pieces of the trellis.

3rd: Looking towards the center and right pieces.

4th: Detail of the left end piece and the kitchen window. We painted the window frame the deep purple of the wisteria flowers

5th: detail of the center piece

The construction drawings for the trellis where pretty simple. I just needed to give the dimensions of the different pieces, and the rules (the construction details) for connecting them. The dimensions locating the trellis are given from an existing point, the upper left hand corner of the kitchen window.

All of the wood is 4×4 redwood.

Drawings:
Top: Plan (on top), front elevation (below) and side elevation (to the right). Each shows the same thing (the trellis in this case) from a different viewpoint.

Iso: A three dimensional drawing that shows how the pieces go together. This kind of drawing is especially helpful when pieces are at different angles.

Footing Detail of Center Piece: A short piece is used between the base (which can only take connections to elements pointing straight up) and the angled verticals.