Oh how quickly the summer has come and gone! Well, it's not totally gone yet, and in some ways I feel like it never started because of all the rain and cloudy days, but that's really beyond the point. So with just a couple weeks left, it seems like the perfect time to do some final garden list checking and call this summer to a close.
As you can see, I've decided to resolve painting the table until next year, and only because I haven't fully decided what to do with it. Too many ideas, not enough decisions! Which left only one remaining item, the CANOPY!
Which originally made it to the list for two reasons, we wanted to use the table when it was too sunny and also when it's a bit rainy. But we also didn't want to always use it, which meant that it needed to collapse to one side, when we didn't want it. And though that sounds and looks like a simple thing, rigging it up so that it moves along the lines was a bit harder than I expected. Who knew you needed 4 ropes for something that looks like it only needs 3. Here's a look at my 4 rope solution.
The biggest issues came from rope #1 and #4. #1's biggest issue was that it couldn't just share the line with #2 because of the angle of connection and the size of the fabric. Which I don't think I said I got from ikea for $20 each.
The second issue was with rope #4, because the tension of the fabric meant that when it rained, the water poured down the back of the sectional. So I instead added some galvanized nails to the top of the fence to create tension points to hold the canopy back.
And then the simplest part was clipping the canopy onto rope #2 and hanging it over rope #3.
And voila! Done. And though it took lots of tries, it finally works the way we hoped, and it's perfect for hot summer days. Here's to hoping we have lots of those next year and that we get to use it even more!
The final piece is that I use a collection of ikea kitchen clips to keep the canopy pulled into tension and to hold it while it sleeps. And yes, I do mean the ones you have at home to clip on chips to keep them fresh! Who knew they could work wonders in the garden.
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