The Case of the Vanishing Contractors

When hiring contractors for a new patio and pergola requires detective skills…

Have any of y’all tried to hire a contractor in the past few years?

We’ve been in the new house for about 18 months now and have spent most of that time stalking on the hunt for contractors.

While our house is newer, especially when stacked up against the historic house we left behind, it needed a considerable amount of updating and repair. Inside and out.

My goal for last summer was to have a new patio put in and order the fab patio furniture I’d been eyeing on Ballard Design for quite some time. Then have a pergola built this summer.

We started making calls hoping to get quotes in January…then February…March… April turned to May and then June…y’all see where I’m going with this right?

It became a whole thing in my family. We must have called 537 contractors. Maybe 4 called back. Not a single one showed up to give us a price.

So I gave up. Ordered the furniture and rugs and we tried to make the best of it.

Tried to overlook the broken up concrete and mismatched pavers the previous owners were SUPPOSED to repair after they drug away the hot tub…

Sure it was pretty  to look at…

And if you kept your shoes on, the hunks and chunks and sharp edges didn’t really hurt your feet…at least not too much.

But it was smoking HOT out there all morning, afternoon, and evening long…

And this is coming from me… one of those annoying “wear two sweaters and a pair of winter boots” until June people.

Seriously. It was Mississippi in July hot.

But we knew we couldn’t do anything about a pergola until we had a new patio put in.

Finally, right after we sweated through our July4th party, one of the patio contractors we called in the spring finally appeared.

Even though the price seemed crazy high, he could start right away and finish in 4 days. Yes!

After 9 stressful weeks and the threat of a lawsuit… our patio was finally finished.

We had one great week out there before the snow started flying.

Fast forward to this spring and the hunt for a pergola contractor – same drill– different year —smarter me.

I stopped at strangers’ houses when I saw a pergola in their backyard that I liked to see who built it. Yapped and begged for referrals on Facebook. Made phone calls. Sent emails.

Clutching these two photos I found on Pinterest that make up my dream pergola design…I’ve been on a mission to find a pergola contractor before summer started.

Fingers crossed, friends, I think my detective skills have paid off!

We found a super fabulous contractor who does these types of projects on the side.

And at prices that don’t require you to sell a kidney on the black market to afford.

He can merge the rustic details and strong corner posts of the top photo (how cute are those curtain rods made of pipe and the hooks holding them??) with the angled edges of the bottom picture.

Now my mission has shifted to:

• Outdoor curtains and some kind durable but cute pipe to use for rods?
• Lighting — maybe a ceiling fan style lighting? Are those too ugly?
• String lights that don’t cost more than the pergola (how crazy are those prices?)

Any tips from those of you’ve who built a pergola before? Hoping for smoother sailing than when the patio went in…

Until next time,

Shelley