Summer has officially arrived here in Escondido, California, but summer has DEFINITELY arrived in Paso Robles, California. For my in-laws, it was high time to get some more shade in their backyard and after 15 years of NOT having enough shade they said “ENOUGH!!!” The only problem is, they didn’t know what style they wanted their backyard shade structure to be. He knows what he wants, but drawing up the design or coming up with a plan isn’t really his strong suit (sorry Pop, it’s true, haha!) So when I asked how he wanted to build it, he drew up something and handed it to me, and this is the code I had to crack….

I only had a few days off from work, so I was going to need to figure out how to turn their dream backyard shade structure into a reality pretty quickly.

If you want to skip all the text and just watch the video, here it is!

I joke about them not knowing what they want, but something they were certain about wanting to incorporate was some of the “Outdoor Accents” products from Simpson Strong-Tie. If you aren’t familiar with these products they’re pretty nice and beefy and look great with several styles of homes. We used 6×6 posts for this backyard pergola, so we needed to get the correct Outdoor Accent post bases and also some Simpson “Titen” concrete anchor screws (links down at the bottom!). As an additional accent, we also used some of the matching T-straps, L-straps and inside 90-degree corner brackets. Since all these decorative elements are attached with screws, Simpson has a particular type of screw to use with their hex-head washers. The hex-head washers act kind of like your typical washers BUT they’re super fat, thick and pretty heavy for their size, and they’re shaped so they look like a bolt head. Pretty slick design.

The end result turned out pretty nice and you could tell right away it was making a difference in the. Now with all that shade their lives and happier and stress-free, lol! The final size of this shade structure is about 30 feet long, about 9 feet tall and almost 10 feet out and we managed to get it built in about 5 days. I’m sure this patio cover could be built in less time, but “some” people aren’t very early risers, haha, and I was taking some extra time to shoot video footage for my YouTube channel (shooting video always makes a project take longer). I’m glad I took the time to do the video stuff though, the edit came out so good and I hope you’ll give it a watch.

If you’re interested in building something like this for yourself, you can get the lumber at just about any lumber supplier. All the Simpson products can usually be found at Home Depot or Lowes if that’s what you have nearby. My father-in-law picked up all his at a local place in Templeton, CA called Weyrick Lumber Company. He bought his parts individually and you can buy it online individually, or you can buy multi-packs (maybe that saves you a little money?)

Links to some products I use in this build/video are listed below. They’re Amazon links, so I may earn a small commission from any purchases made as a result of you using these links…I appreciate all your clicks and purchases!!

Simpson Outdoor Accents Base: https://amzn.to/3pyoOoN
Simpson Titen Concrete Anchor Screws: https://amzn.to/46TSAVV
Simpson Outdoor Accent Screws: https://amzn.to/3NNIJbc
Simpson Outdoor Accent Hex Head Washers: https://amzn.to/3O5ZOi5
Simpson T Strap: https://amzn.to/448WWGJ
Simpson L Strap: https://amzn.to/44mTPLp
Simpson Corner Brackets: https://amzn.to/3pEGuim

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