I constructed this 10×10 sun shelter for less than one third the price of a store purchased structure, and had a blast designing and building it! I feel this shelter is higher quality than store bought and the top material is easy to remove before the winter snows in western Montana.
I started with 10’ 4×4’s and 12’ 1×8’s. The structure is 8′ high and 12′ tip-to-tip on two sides. Two coats of stain will help preserve the structure from the elements.
I fashioned metal caps for the top of the 4×4’s and installed adjusters from an old clothes dryer to the bottom of the posts. The adjusters also keep the structure off the courtyard pavers so that water cannot wick up the posts.
I painted 10’ ¾” electrical conduit to hold the center of the sun shade material up. I drilled holes in the inner 1×8’s and inserted the conduit during the assembly process. This simple mounting technique eliminated complex mounting hardware.
The sun shade material and trick mounting clips were purchased from Greenhouse Megastore. The material I used was 12’ wide (without any seams) and will block 80% of the sun. Greenhouse Megastore will cut the material length you require. I purchased 13 running feet to get over the minimum order, thus saving on the cut charge. I cut the material to approximately 10×10 for my project. The clips are held in place at 8 points on the structure and 8 more clips were used to help stretch the material. The material does stretch nicely making a mighty fine cover.
This was a fun, simple project that almost anyone can build and enjoy for years.
Please contact me if you have any questions or comments.
Still photography was taken with a Samsung Galaxy S5 smart phone and an Apple iPad Air2. Video was taken with a DJI OSMO camera. I used Microsoft Move Maker to assemble the stills and finished the project with Adobe Premier Pro.
Music used: “Meditation Impromptu 02” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License