Cormaic's Garden - D-I-Y

Use these plans to build this archway for your garden.

Archway This is the basic archway. It's constructed from readily available components and the plans can be adapted to suit almost any situation.
For this example, the arch will have a span of 1.5m, which allows 300mm of space on either side of a 900mm wide path, plenty room to grow a honeysuckle or clematis.
All timber should be tanalised or pre-treated prior to construction. If you plan to use a stain or other finish, you could apply it before assembling the archway.

Timber components

The above diagram illustrates the timber components required, 4 posts, 4 roof spars and 2 braces. The angle-cut ends allow for a 30° pitch to the roof spars.
On the right is the trellising that will be used. You can buy trellis as a 1.8m x 1.8m panel, and, if you're lucky, you should be able to get all 4 required sections from the one panel. This depends on the spacing of the trelliswork. In this example, additional spars have been used to make good each section, and these are coloured diffrently on the diagram.
Trellis

	Make up the roof spars as shown opposite. Use 75mm brass or stainless steel screws to join the mitre-cut ends of the roof spars, check the dimension shown and then screw the cross-brace into position. You need to make up two of these sections, and then connect the two parts together with the 2 shorter sections of trellis. Use 25mm screws to fasten the trellis to the roof spars. Put to one side.
The next step is to fix the side trellis to the posts. Lay the posts flat and use 25mm screws to attach the trellis to two posts, as shown opposite, allowing 25mm between the top of the trellis and the lower end of the cut top end of the posts, to ensure that the roof section will sit snugly. Make up both side panels in this way.
	Next, the donkey work. Dig the post holes. use the drawing opposite to set out the holes, then dig the holes making sure they are big enough to allow 50-100mm of concrete all around the posts and are 450mm deep.
Make a pencil mark on the posts at what will be ground level, ie, 2 metres down from the top of the posts. Put a half-spade of concrete into the post holes, then offer the side panels into the holes, settling them down until the pencil mark is level with the ground. Check that the posts are plumb, and level with each other before concreting into position, making sure the top of the concrete is kept below ground level.
Finally, fix the roof built earlier to the top of the posts with screws or nails.

Back to Build-It Page

Page design and construction by cormaic web design - Last updated June 8th 2000

	This is the basic archway. It's constructed from readily available components and the plans can be adapted to suit almost any situation. For this example, the arch will have a span of 1.5m, which allows 300mm of space on either side of a 900mm wide path, plenty room to grow a honeysuckle or clematis. All timber should be tanalised or pre-treated prior to construction. If you plan to use a stain or other finish, you could apply it before assembling the archway.

The above diagram illustrates the timber components required, 4 posts, 4 roof spars and 2 braces. The angle-cut ends allow for a 30° pitch to the roof spars. On the right is the trellising that will be used. You can buy trellis as a 1.8m x 1.8m panel, and, if you're lucky, you should be able to get all 4 required sections from the one panel. This depends on the spacing of the trelliswork. In this example, additional spars have been used to make good each section, and these are coloured diffrently on the diagram.