Finding Gazebo Designs

Series Summary

Gazebos are a great place to relax and enjoy the nature around you while still being sheltered from rain, sunlight or snow. Dating back to 18th century England, gazebos are meant to be built so that one can enjoy the surrounding view, and so are frequently found on hills and in parks and gardens. Often people add gazebos to their yards as part of decorative landscaping, and then find that their gazebo has become a part of many family gatherings, from Forth of July picnics to Memorial Day BBQ's.

In this free video series, our expert will show you how you can build your own gazebo. You will get easy to follow step-by-step instructions on how to design an octagonal gazebo, how to find the right building materials and how to actually put together a gazebo. This is a great project for amateur builders and do-it-yourselfers, and will add beauty and value to your yard or property. If you have some carpentry experience and are seeking a larger project to work on, let our expert show you how to build a beautiful gazebo.

Video Transcript

"Hi! My name is Charlie Folkman with Expert Village and today we are building a gazebo. One of the best ways to gather ideas about building your gazebo is the Internet. There are numerous resources including pictures and designs and places to buy your materials. If you don't have access to the Internet, your local library is a great source for ideas. Also, lumber yards and hardware stores usually have someone on hand that you can consult with. One of the first things to consider when designing your gazebo is its environment. Is it going to be hot, cold, wet or windy? All of these things need to be considered in the material and design type. Now that you have a good idea about what you want your gazebo to look like, it's time to get on paper. I find that the larger you draw the easier it is. Be sure to draw it to scale. This will help you get your angles right, right from get go. The next step is a birds eye view of the dimensions of the floor and we are going to draw this on draft paper. We want an octagon shape. Octagon is a stop sign. The easiest way to get the octagon shape is to draw a square. On this draft, each one of these lines is an inch which will represent 1 foot. We want our octagon or gazebo to be 6 ft. x 6 ft., so we will draw it out 6 feet. Now the easiest way from this point to get our octagon, is to find the center of each line on the square which will be here, here, here and here and then we are going to want to go 1 foot in either direction. Then what we are going to want to do is connect these points. The points we are going to want to connect is from here to here, there to there, there to there and this gives us our octagon shape. "