One day I woke up and thought "it'd be nice to
have a trellis decorating the front of our home" and so there I
went in search of the perfect plan, of course using this very helpful
Magazine
Index. It really is pretty handy, so give it a try!
Anyway, I decided to use the plans I found in the April 2002 issue of
Wood Magazine.
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 The
biggest challenge to this project was making sure that all of the dadoes
lined up, otherwise things wouldn't fit. To get a snug fit, I set up two
'stop blocks' with a sacrificial miter guide fence. Notice that one of
my 'stop blocks' is nothing more than 3 sheets of paper attached to the
fence. Doesn't seem like much but this exacting detail gave me the fit I
was looking for.
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 This
system worked great until it came time to cut the dadoes in the longest
cross members. Unfortunately I am not blessed with a 52" rip
capacity on my humble contractors saw, so I had to improvise, 'gang
dadoing' the pieces so that the dado location would be consistent. All
in all, it worked pretty well.
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 Next
up was assembly. Although a few of the cross members fit just a bit too
snugly at times, everything went together pretty well. Here is a picture
of the unfinished product complete with plastic lattice (easy to
maintain and I hate to paint :-). Everything else is made of cedar 2x4s
glued together with polyurethane glue; probably about $90 in materials
when all is said and done.
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 Next
up was painting, so here it is hanging from the ceiling after its first
coat of paint. Did I mention I hate painting? :-)
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 Things
got exciting next, as it's always a joy to see the finished fruits of
your labors. The fake ivy is a temporary addition until the clematis
planted underneath has a chance to grow up to the trellis.
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  These
final two pictures show how the trellis looks on the house.
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