Dang those T-nuts! “Installed at the factory for easier assembly,” the instruction sheet for my wooden arbour helpfully pointed out. Well, nuts to that! The little metal thingamajigs turned a two-hour Sunday afternoon project into a two-day acrobatic exercise in frustration. It went like this, in a nutshell: Forty-five minutes into assembling the garden arch — after checking every part against the parts-list as instructed — this dyed-in-the-wood DIYer discovered a monkey wrench.
The T-nuts that the bolts screw into to secure the leg frames were on the wrong side of the support rails. Undoing the bolts and removing the rails to turn them the right way caused the nuts to pull out of the wood. By subbing a few deck screws, I got the thing together, sort of.
But putting the seven-foot, two-sided structure upright and into position while balancing on a stepladder was like trying to wrestle a giraffe on stilts. Finally secured on metal stakes, the arbour now stands as the first completed project in my backyard oasis, planned since last summer when I downsized to my urban bungalow from a country home. With a lumpy lawn, overgrown gardens with no pollinator appeal, and haphazard patio stones that serve no purpose, the existing space is a disaster zone.
Already it’s reinforcing the Murphy’s Law of outdoor home improvements: backyard blunders lie in wait. The arbour was no exception, despite my high expectations when I unboxed the overseas import sold by Wayfair. “CONGRAT.
