Pergolas in St. Bernard, OH

St. Bernard (ZIP 45217) packs houses and alleys close together on small lots. Anything eight or nine feet tall in a back yard is seen well past the lot it stands on. That is worth a minute of thought at the drawing stage. We give it that minute.

What a pergola gives a small lot is an edge around the outdoor space. Sitting under a top, even an open one, feels different from sitting in the open yard. The shade lands where the chairs are through the afternoon. The posts mark out the room without closing it in, so a tight yard gains a place to be and loses no ground.

A pergola is usually the tallest thing a household ever builds outside, and it sits above the boundary line and not along it. From your own deck it reads as a ceiling. From next door it reads as a shape against the sky, and what somebody sees is mostly the posts and the beam ends. Four uprights and two horizontal lines, at whatever distance the boundary puts them.

The good news is that one design answers both views. An open top is mostly sky from any angle. Rafter ends cut to a deliberate shape read as finished work from both sides. Posts thick enough for the distance they cross look solid and never spindly. A closed top is the one that changes things, because it is a solid mass. We site that toward the house and away from the shared line. The decision costs nothing on the drawing and we make it with you.