Last week, a buddy of mine asked me if I could throw together an arbor by the weekend, in time for a video shoot for Penny Palabras. Having never made one before, I told him I could absolutely get it done.



It turns out that garden arbors aren't terribly complicated. It's just the lattice that makes it seem difficult, but you can get a 2'x8' sheet of cedar lattice for about $13 at Home Depot. Cut it to length and sandwich it between a few 2x4 studs and you're good to go.



Most of the cutting was done with the miter saw and the circular saw. However, I didn't have an easy way to cut out the spots where the 2x6 horizontal pieces would go, so I did it the old fashioned way: hammer and chisel. It turned out much easier than I thought it would, and the pieces went in quite flush.



Here's a close-up shot where the 2x4s and the 2x6s come together. Without much work, it already looks pretty amazing.



To create an extra dimension to the wood, I used a router bit that I picked up for a couple of bucks at a garage sale. It's nothing fancy, but it adds quite a bit to the wood.



This is before adding a cedar-colored oil coat to the arbor. It's pretty slick how quickly this thing went up.



And here is the finished product, with cedar-colored oil, and a few extra slats on top. I sent it off to the location where it'll be used in the videos.