A gazebo at a summer cottage is a very useful and necessary thing: it decorates the landscape, you can relax in it, have dinner with your family or cook barbecue and barbecue. This backyard structure should be not only durable and comfortable, but also beautiful, for this you can use various decorative elements. Next, we will consider how to successfully make wooden lattices for a gazebo with your own hands.
Features and Benefits
A summerhouse can be built from various materials: wood, metal, brick or decorative stone. Regardless of this, decorative wooden lattices will always look harmonious on it. Usually they are inserted into non-blind free openings on the side walls, fixing in rectangular frames, but they may not fill the entire wall, made in the form of a fence or carved inserts under the roof.
The most common examples of such lattices for street buildings are in the form of inclined slats located cross-to-cross to each other. They are very easy to make, requiring a minimum of tools and cheap materials. But there are also more laborious projects with carved patterns, real works of art. Created from high-quality dried wood and securely fastened, such decorative elements can serve in a summer cottage for more than a dozen years, even in adverse weather conditions.
The advantages of homemade wooden gazebos are:
- ease of manufacture, low cost of material;
- aesthetic value - the appearance in front of a country house will immediately noticeably change for the better;
- there will always be shade and coolness inside the gazebo;
- versatility for any type of arbor design;
- since the walls are not deaf, there will always be an influx of fresh air inside;
- if food is prepared in the gazebo, a stove, barbecue or barbecue is installed, then the smoke will quickly disappear.
To create really reliable and durable decorative elements for the future gazebo, you need to choose the right source material.
Material selection
There are specific requirements for the material for creating such lattices. It should be beautiful, well protected from moisture, temperature extremes and sunlight. Since in most cases thin battens are used for the battens, strength is the determining factor.
Oak is good because it bends well with the required strength. The expressive structure with pleasant shades of this tree is known to everyone. Oak wood is easy to process, excellently polished and painted, and due to the high concentration of tannins in the composition, it is less susceptible to decay. Bog oak with a noble black color can look simply gorgeous on a summer cottage.
Beech is also strong, relatively easy to work and bend. The wood grain has a yellowish-red hue with well-defined annual rings. Parts from this tree are widely used for the manufacture of external structures, including decorative elements of arbors.
Ash slats can be yellowish brown or red with pleasant textures. This wood is dense and viscous, when it dries, it bends well and does not crack, does not warp. In addition, ash practically does not rot.
It is a good idea to choose birch parts for the manufacture of decorative lattices, due to the fact that this wood is very easy to cut, polished and drilled, and its strength indicators are excellent. In order for the material not to rot, it should definitely be treated with an antiseptic and covered with varnish or transparent paint. The most successful choice for decoration is a Karelian birch with a pleasant and expressive texture.
Aspen lathing will have a nice reddish tint. The advantage of this wood species is that it has practically no knots, this simplifies the processing process, and the sectional view will be more beautiful. This material dries quickly, is perfectly polished and painted.
You can also choose other types of wood with useful properties and beautiful texture: alder, linden, pine, cedar. When handled properly, they will all be strong and durable. Actually, it is not even so important what kind of breed is chosen, you can take any available, the main thing is to carefully and reliably carry out all the carpentry work. Reviews say that oak and beech are the most popular in the manufacture of gazebos.
Types of partitions
The most common type of decorative partitions of this type is a mesh of interwoven thin strips fixed to a wooden frame. There may be several options for making the main frame. It should fit exactly into the side opening; you can make it with your own hands from beams, for example, with a section of 20 by 40 mm.
In order for the rectangular structure to be rigid and durable, it is best to secure the sides with a tenon connection "in the overlay", "in a half-tree", "in the end" or "nest-thorn", you must choose depending on your capabilities and skill. Some make the frame from old furniture or door frames, the advantage is that there is already a ready-made tenon connection.
The lathing of the decorative opening inside the frame is made with thin strips of the same thickness. You can use components with a cross section of 5x10, 10x20 mm or others. They are nailed or screwed to the frame along its sides or at an inclined angle at the same distance crosswise. The easiest way is when one row of battens is superimposed on another, perpendicular to the first.
Another way to connect the elements on the crate is "in a secret" , when the slats do not overlap, but are, as it were, recessed into each other. For this, grooves are made at the joints in half the depth of the rail and in its thickness. The notches can be made by hand using a hacksaw or chisel.
This method is quite painstaking and significantly increases the assembly time of the gazebo, but as a result, you can get a solid-looking neat lattice, in addition, its strength increases.
The partition may not be prefabricated from separate slats, but made of a solid sheet of plywood, chipboard, laminated board or board. To create a lattice, openwork patterns are cut out in them, as a result, a chic carved lattice can be obtained. The advantages of this method are strength, the absence of the need for assembly, the originality of the pattern, but the mass of the structure can be much greater than that of the assembled from the slats.
Self-production
If you want to make decorative elements for a gazebo out of wood with your own hands, then first you need to choose wood for the frame and slats, calculate the area of the openings and make drawings of future openwork gratings. From the picture, you can immediately calculate the number and length of the rails, as well as the required number of fasteners.
To assemble the structure, you may need the following tools and building materials:
- hacksaw;
- hammer;
- nails;
- tape measure and pencil;
- bars for the frame;
- slats for lathing;
- varnish on wood and a brush.
First, the frame for the lattice is assembled in accordance with the dimensions of the measured opening of the gazebo. You can fasten it in a joint with nails or a thorn joint; for strength, use wood glue. Then pieces of the required length are cut out of the rails, the joints are marked on the frame, the elements are nailed in turn. When the grill is ready, you need to carefully varnish it, let it dry and mount it in the opening with nails or screws.
You can varnish the slats before sheathing the frame with them , so hard-to-reach places will be processed, and the process itself is simplified. But then the dried coating can collapse at the points of attachment to the tree with nails, so after assembly it is worth painting these areas again.
Decorative techniques: ideas
Diagonal grilles, which are often found on wooden arbors, give an original and stylish look. Most often, an angle of inclination of 45 degrees is used, the slats intersect with each other at a right angle. Only the pitch of individual elements can differ. If it is frequent and does not exceed 10 - 15 cm, then a rather dense screen is created that perfectly protects from the sun, allowing you to hide the interior situation. A wider spacing of 15 - 25 cm slats can create an atmosphere of lightness and openness, then the interior of the gazebo practically merges with the surrounding landscape.
The direct arrangement of intersecting slats will look even more original ; you can combine them with inclined ones, for example, on adjacent walls. It is also very successful to use such structures to support climbing plants, then instead of walls there will be a real hedge near the gazebo. You can use several slats of different widths to create a non-standard complex pattern with different steps and openings, you just need to show your imagination properly.
Bonded battens for lathing, they are also called trellises, can be connected in different ways. The technology of connection and fastening on the frame will not differ much, but the choice of pattern is the most diverse, it is practically not organic in any way. The already mentioned lattice schemes with inclined slats are called "diamond", with straight ones - "square", trellises diverging from the bottom upwards - "mill", inclined with alternating directions - "chevron". There are other schemes, you can create your own design.
It should be borne in mind that wood gratings are appropriate not only on the walls, but also on the roof of the gazebo. If you make the top of the structure from massive bars intersecting at right angles, and also let climbing plants along them, then such a project will look fantastic. Such a "roof" will not protect from rain and the scorching sun, but it will add lightness to any architectural solution of the garden pavilion. Often such lattice roofs are made in pre-frames, which have become especially popular in recent years.
In order to ensure maximum openness in a personal gazebo, it is not necessary to make its lattices all over the wall. It is enough to make openwork fences with trellises, they can simultaneously serve as the backs of the internal benches, and put beautiful carved skates on the top under the roof.
Often caring owners in their suburban area make gazebos glazing. Their advantages are obvious, they perfectly protect from cold and rain, they can cook food and arrange family gatherings in any weather. A good example of glazed gazebos is the Finnish closed version with 6 or 8 walls and an internal stove. Interior decorative grilles can be glazed with ordinary mineral, organic, tempered glass or transparent polycarbonate.
The question often arises of painting the bearing elements of the arbors and its decorative grilles. Many owners, especially looking at the arrangement of modern courtyards, choose bright catchy colors for their suburban buildings. This is not entirely correct, since any wood itself has a pleasant natural color and does not need to be painted.
Another issue in its protection, so that the tree does not rot, does not swell and maintains its integrity, it is enough to treat its surface with transparent varnish or mastic.
Beautiful examples for inspiration
An elegant example of the simplest pattern with slanted slats. The appearance of the gazebo is immediately transformed.
Pregola with trellis with straight slats. The simplicity of manufacture nevertheless gives a stylish design.
A complex combination of several patterns on wooden lattices.
Various types of patterns on wooden lattices.
Stunning prefab slats and carved wood pergola design.
For a simple way of making a wood grate, see the next video.