Tuesday, August 11, 2009

A green project

We all recognize this. A cool retreat from the summer heat right on our own patio. You can purchase various shapes, sizes, and colors for your patio cover. You can buy free standing, four post, spartan or luxurious canopies. The sky is the limit.

I live in a town home with a decent size patio and I want something to keep the hot sun off my head when I sit outside to read. My first instinct to was to drive on over to Wal-Mart, or Lowe's or Home Depot and pick me up a ready to assemble collection of newly created canvas, aluminum poles and various nuts and bolts. But then the idea of making my own canopy, one that would incorporate reused items took hold and I ran with it.

Here are some of my ideas:
1). Follow freecycle.org. The site is great for finding things that are still usable, but free

2). Make the frame from PVC pipes, anchoring it to the ground by securing the PVC in a used 5 gal pail filled with rocks/soil

3). Make the main part of the frame with tree branches. No, I'm not thinking about ripping into the oak tree in the planter. I have a friend that has a wood burning hot water heating system and he gathers loads of tree limbs. Secure the limbs in the same 5 gal pails with rocks and soil, using the buckets as planters as well.

4) An old painters drop cloth, canvas cover or used sail would be great to cover the canopy,

This is as far as I've gotten on the planning stage. I'm still working out the design, but I am excited and eager to get this project started.

If you have any ideas or suggestions....or materials:D, let me know.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This a such an out of the box idea. Thanks for suggestion. We had our brand new fold up tent get turned inside out with a burst of wind earlier this year, and I couldn't part with the canopy as it was still in excellent condition (unlike the twisted, bent and broken metal pieces). I will for sure take you up on the PVC pipe stucture idea and be able to continue our shade in Sunn-HOT Orlando, FL.

thanks again...

Eric said...

I've also been toying with the idea of using old 5 gal buckets filled with dirt, water or something glued together and then wrapped with...(I haven't figured this part out yet) to resemble greek columns. The roof then would have more possibilities, an actual wood roof, which I would use old closet shelves, or the same pvc pipe/canvas cover. I'm still working on the idea