How to Make a Wooden Arbor

Determine where you want your arbor to go. Once you've located a good spot for it, create a 3 by 5-foot rectangle with chalk or stakes (depending on whether it's on cement or on the ground, respectively). The arbor's roof will end up being 4 by 6 feet, but you must allow for overhangs, so make the base 3 by 5 feet. For this tutorial, assume that the arbor is on a cement porch.

Place your anchor bases at the corners of your marked-out base. There should be four anchors, one in each corner. In the middle of the anchors, there should be a hole--mark that hole with chalk or a nail. Once the marks are all in place, remove the anchor bases and prepare your electric hammer drill and concrete drill bit.

Drill a hole into the concrete with your hammer drill. Make sure that you drill straight down. The drill bit should be the same width as your anchor bolts, which should have come with your anchor bases. Once all four holes are drilled, put the anchor bases in place. The holes in the bases should line up with the holes that you just drilled.

Screw the anchor bolts into the drilled holes, securing your anchor base to the concrete. Use a socket wrench to tighten and activate the bolts' locking mechanisms. They should be securely in place now--make sure that the anchor bases remain squared off with the pre-marked corner. If they turn while screwing the bolts in, the post that rests in it will be askew and look awkward.

Place the four 6-foot tall posts into the anchor bases. Once in place, secure them into the anchor base with screws. There should be four screws per base (depending on the brand of base). While screwing it in, make sure that the post remains level and perpendicular to the ground. Use your level and T-square to ensure this. Once the posts are in place, nail two wooden braces onto each post. The braces should be at an angle and push against the ground, securing the post in place. Do all of this for all four posts.

Ask your friend to help you lift your 6-foot beam into place. Place it perpendicular to the posts, resting on top of the two posts that make up one of the 5-foot sides of your arbor. Since the side is 5 feet long and the beam is 6 feet long, there will be a foot of overhang. Split the difference, leaving 6 inches of overhang on either side of the beam. Once finished, the two posts and the beam will look roughly like the symbol for pi. Do this for both 5-foot sides of the arbor. Leave the 3-foot opening between the two sides alone for now.

Use your drill to drill a 9-inch hole into the top of the beams. Place the hole directly over the posts so that you drill through the width of the beam and then into the center of the posts below them. Do this for each post on each beam. There should be four holes drilled at the end of this step.

Screw a 10-inch lag bolt (with washer) into each of the holes you just made. Use your socket wrench to tighten them as well as screw them into the last inch of post.

Hoist your rafters up to the top of the arbor. Since you have six rafters, you should space them approximately one foot apart on top of the beams. Lay them crosswise across the beams, so that one end of the rafter is on one of the beams and the other end is on the opposite beam. The rafters should connect the two sides of the arbor. Align each one into position using your T-square and level. There will also be a foot of overhang on each of the rafters--space them with 6 inches of rafter on each side of the beam, much like you did with the beams before.

Drill two holes into each of the rafters. Drill them to a depth of 6 inches and place them so that they drill straight down into the beams below them. When finished, you should have 12 holes drilled.

Add a 7-inch lag bolt and washer into each of the 12 holes that you drilled in the last step. Use a socket wrench to tighten them into place.

Remove all the braces that you nailed into place in step 5 and admire your finished arbor. To add character to the arbor, you can add laths (further smaller pieces of wood that cross all the rafters), or plant vines that hang down from above.