How to Make a Rustic Gazebo Out of Wood

A gazebo is a nice place to spend time in the summer. With the openings screened, a gazebo can allow you to enjoy the outdoors in peace even during bug season. A rustic gazebo can be built out of dimensioned lumber, but will be cheaper and will blend into the landscape better if made out of logs. For a rustic and durable look, straight six-inch diameter pine logs with the bark stripped off do well, and will darken and season over time.

Instructions

Lay out an octagon on the ground, with each side being four feet long. Dig a hole at each corner of the octagon. The holes should go down to bedrock or below the frostline.

Put sonotubes or homemade concrete forms into the holes and level them so they are perfectly vertical.

Lay a string with a line level on it across the tops of the forms and be sure that the tops are all at the same height.

Fill the forms with concrete. You can either mix the concrete yourself or call a ready-mix truck. The first is cheaper, the second is easier.

Sink a sill anchor into the center of each concrete pillar so that the sill anchor sticks out four or five inches.

Drill a hole the same diameter as the sill anchors into the end of each log.

Stand up one of the logs, slipping the sill anchor into the hole on the bottom, and brace the log in a vertical position by nailing a 2x4 into it and bracing the 2x4 into the ground.

Do the same for the other seven logs.

Lay a 2x6 across the tops of two adjacent vertical logs. You will need to cut the 2x6 so that it ends in the center of each log, along a line that is a radius from the corner to the center of the octagon, so that the end of this 2x6 will butt up against the end of the next 2x6 that spans the next two vertical logs. You can do this by stretching a string across the centers of two opposite vertical logs so that the string bisects the octagon. This string will lie along the line where the 2x6 needs to be cut.

Do the same thing with 2x6s all the way around, so that the result is eight vertical logs with an octagon of 2x6s holding the tops of the logs together.

Nail the 2x6s into the tops of the logs.

Nail 2x6s in a vertical position around the insides of the logs at the bottoms, just above the concrete pillars.

Install floor joists inside the 2x6s at the bottom of the posts. Separate the joists by 16 inches.

Cut the ends of joists at a 45 degree angle as needed so they fit against the sides of the octagon.

Lay the boards on the joists and nail them in. Most of the boards can be nailed in place and then cut off flush with the outside of the octagon, although a few of them will have to be cut to accommodate the posts.

Nail smaller logs at each corner of the octagon, at the tops of the post, so that they rise at an angle toward the center and meet at the center. These logs will be your rafters. Begin with two log-rafters at opposite points on the octagon. Installing them together will allow them to butt up against each other at the center so they will be supported, then the remaining log-rafters can be attached to them.

Nail furring strips across the log rafters two inches apart.

Nail the cedar shingles onto the furring strips.

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