What You’ll Learn

What a 12×20 8000 Series timber frame pergola kit includes — every component, pre-stained and pre-cut
Why Rich Sequoia is one of the most requested stain colors along the Wasatch Front
What install day actually looks like for a DIY pergola kit (it’s faster than most buyers expect)
How the 8000 Series differs from the 6000 Series — post size, rafter depth, visual weight
What a full wrap roof does and why it changes how the pergola reads from every direction

A DIY pergola kit install doesn’t have to mean a week of sawdust, rented tools, and second-guessing your measurements. This 12×20 Rich Sequoia 8000 Series timber frame pergola kit went up in Draper, Utah, on a level concrete pad — pre-cut, pre-stained, and assembled by the homeowner. What arrived on a truck left as a finished structure that looks the same from every side, thanks to a full wrap roof that eliminates the “unfinished back” problem most pergolas have.

Below is the full walkthrough: what was in the kit, what install day looked like, why Rich Sequoia is the stain color half the Wasatch Front seems to be ordering, and what the 8000 Series actually means for a homeowner who wants heavy timber presence without hiring a timber framing crew.

The Project — 12×20 Rich Sequoia in Draper, Utah

Draper sits at the south end of the Salt Lake Valley, backed up against the Wasatch Mountains. Hot summers, four full seasons, strong afternoon sun from the west, and the kind of dry-climate landscape palette — sandstone, sage, brown fencing, red-rock undertones — that makes warm-toned wood stains feel like they belong rather than compete.

The starting point here was a bare concrete pad in the backyard and a homeowner who wanted a focal structure that could anchor the outdoor living space. Not a furniture arrangement. Not a retractable awning. A permanent timber frame pergola that would read as architecture, not as an accessory.

Concrete foundation pad prepared for a 12x20 timber frame pergola kit installation in a backyard landscape — The prepared concrete foundation before installation of a custom 12×20 timber frame pergola kit.

The design conversation with Western Timber Frame landed on the 8000 Series at 12×20 — a footprint that fit the pad and the use pattern without over-building. The 10×18 post-to-post footprint with a 12×20 roof overhang gave enough shade coverage to make the space usable through a Utah summer while leaving room for furniture arrangement and foot traffic on all sides. The freestanding design meant no attachment to the house, no ledger board, no structural dependency on the home’s framing — just four posts on a level pad.

That last point matters more than it sounds. A freestanding pergola simplifies permitting, eliminates the risk of water intrusion at the house connection, and gives the homeowner flexibility to place the structure exactly where it works best for the yard. In Draper’s case, that was centered on the existing pad with orientation optimized for afternoon shade.

What’s in the Kit — 8000 Series Specs

The question buyers ask most often about a pergola kit is straightforward: what actually shows up?

For this 8000 Series kit, here’s the complete component list — everything pre-cut, pre-stained in Rich Sequoia, and ready for assembly:

Component	Spec	Details
Posts	8x8x9 Douglas Fir	4 posts, appearance-grade, free of heart
Beams	4×12 custom	Crescent Step end profile
Rafters	3×10 custom	Crescent Step end profile
Shade planks	2×6 custom	Full wrap roof layout
Knee braces	3×8 Cove style	8 total (2 per post)
Hardware	Knife plate, concealed	4 footing connections
Stain	Rich Sequoia	Factory-applied, included in kit
Electrical	TimberVolt Inferno ready	Routing inside posts
Roof size	12×20	Full wrap, cantilever overhang
Footprint	10×18	Post-to-post measurement
Overall height	10ft	Support beam height at 8 ft

A few details worth calling out, because they’re the ones that separate a timber frame kit from a big-box pergola:

Pre-stained finish is included in the kit price. The Rich Sequoia stain is factory-applied before shipping — Sherwin-Williams exterior stain, professionally sprayed in a controlled environment. There’s no separate stain bill, no field application, no drying-time delays during install, and no weather-window stress. The kit arrives looking exactly the way it will look standing in the backyard.

Pre-cut joinery means assembly, not carpentry. Every mortise and tenon joint is cut in the shop using CNC precision before the kit ships. The hard thinking — the engineering, the measurements, the joint geometry — happens before the truck leaves Payson, Utah. On-site, the homeowner is assembling engineered components, not measuring and cutting on a sawhorse.

Concealed knife plate hardware. The structural connections use Western Timber Frame’s patented Dovetail Difference system — knife plates that slide into precision-cut slots, creating joints with 500% greater load capacity than traditional galvanized hangers. The hardware disappears inside the joint. No visible brackets, no bolt heads, no galvanized metal clashing with the stain. Independent engineering confirmed the load-carrying advantage; it’s covered under US Patent No. 9,797,149 B2.

Full wrap roof. The shade planks cantilever past the rafter tails on all four sides. Most pergolas have a clear “front” and a less-finished back or side where the rafter tails are exposed. The full wrap layout eliminates that — the structure reads as complete from every direction. If the pergola sits in the middle of a yard rather than against a wall (as this Draper install does), that matters. You’re never looking at the back of it.

Crescent Step beam and rafter profiles. The decorative end cuts on the beams and rafters give the 8000 Series a finished, intentional look at the roofline. It’s a detail that reads as craftsmanship from the ground — the kind of thing that separates a timber frame structure from a lumber-yard build.

From Residential to Commercial

in a wide range of sizes to perfectly fit your space

We’ve built timber frame structures from intimate backyard pergolas to full-scale university pavilions. Tell us what you’re building — we’ll show you what’s possible.

Start Your Design

or call (877) 870-8755

Why Rich Sequoia — What Buyers Are Actually Choosing

Rich Sequoia is a warm reddish-brown with mahogany undertones. Bold enough to make a statement against a neutral house exterior, but warm enough to feel inviting rather than aggressive. It reads as rich and established from day one — no waiting years for the wood to age into character.

On the Wasatch Front specifically, Rich Sequoia has become one of the most requested stain colors, and the reason is simpler than color theory: it echoes the landscape. The red-rock undertones in the stain pick up the same warmth as Utah’s sandstone cliffs, dry-climate fencing, and desert sage palette. A Rich Sequoia pergola in Draper looks like it was designed for that specific backyard in a way that a gray or cool-toned stain wouldn’t.

The practical side of choosing a stain color is worth understanding too:

Factory application vs. field staining. WTF kits ship pre-stained. The color you choose is the color that arrives. No hiring a painter, no renting a sprayer, no praying for three dry days in a row before you can seal the wood. For a DIY install, this removes an entire phase of the project.

Re-staining cadence. Plan on refreshing the stain every 3-5 years depending on sun exposure, altitude, and climate. In Draper’s climate — intense UV, low humidity, four seasons — expect closer to every 3 years for south- and west-facing surfaces. The cost runs roughly $300-600 depending on pergola size, and it’s a day of work with a pump sprayer. That’s the real maintenance picture: not zero, but not the burden some buyers imagine.

How Rich Sequoia compares. If you’re choosing between warm-tone stain options: Rich Cordoba runs slightly darker with more chocolate depth. Dark Walnut shifts cooler with less red. Rich Sequoia sits in the middle of the warm spectrum — the most versatile of the three for pairing with common Utah exterior palettes. WTF’s stain gallery shows all available colors on real timber under natural light, which is worth spending time with before committing.

Install Day — What It Actually Looks Like

12x20 timber frame pergola kit with rich sequoia stain installed over a raised concrete patio in a backyard setting

Here’s where most buyers’ mental model is wrong. They picture a multi-day construction project with a rented concrete mixer and a stack of lumber. The reality for a DIY pergola kit install is closer to a day — sometimes an afternoon for experienced crews, sometimes a full weekend for first-timers working carefully.

The reason is the pre-cut joinery. Every joint, every notch, every connection point is engineered and cut before the kit ships. The homeowner isn’t building a pergola from raw materials. They’re assembling a structure from components that were designed to fit together — like a piece of furniture at a much larger scale.

For this Draper install, the sequence was:

Before. A level concrete pad, open backyard, no structure. The pad was already poured and cured — if you’re planning a similar project, getting the pad level and square is the one piece of site prep that matters most. Everything else follows from that foundation.

During. Posts set on the footing hardware, beams lifted and connected via knife plates, rafters laid across the beams, knee braces installed, shade planks spaced across the rafters. WTF includes an assembly guide with photos, and phone support is available if anything’s unclear on site.

After. A finished 12×20 timber frame pergola in Rich Sequoia, full wrap roof, visible from every angle without a weak side. The before-and-after transformation — from bare pad to this — is the kind of thing that’s hard to believe took a day until you understand that the kit did most of the work before it arrived.

The tools required are deliberately basic: a drill, a level, a ladder, a tape measure, and a few friends willing to help lift beams. No specialty timber-framing tools, no experience with mortise and tenon joinery. The joinery is pre-cut. The hardware is pre-slotted. The stain is pre-applied. What’s left is assembly.

The speed surprise is real, and it’s worth naming: most installs go up faster than buyers expect. The gap between what people assume (days, maybe a week of weekends) and what actually happens (an afternoon to a day for most kits) is itself one of the strongest confidence-building details in the WTF story. Pre-cut joinery is the reason. The shop does the prq1ecision work so the homeowner doesn’t have to.

8000 Series vs. 6000 Series — Which Kit Fits Your Project?

The 8000 Series and 6000 Series both deliver the same engineering quality, the same pre-cut joinery, the same concealed hardware, and the same 80%+ shade coverage. The difference is timber size — and that difference is mostly visual.

Feature	6000 Series	8000 Series
Post size	6×6	8×8
Rafter depth	Lighter profile	3×10 (heavier profile)
Visual weight	Refined, lighter presence	Substantial, commanding presence
Best for	Smaller footprints, lighter architectural style	Larger footprints (12×16+), dominant backyard feature
Shade coverage	80%+	80%+
Pre-stained	Yes (included)	Yes (included)
Pre-cut joinery	Yes	Yes
Concealed hardware	Yes (Dovetail Difference®)	Yes (Dovetail Difference®)

The 8000 Series makes sense when the pergola is the main event — a large footprint structure that anchors the backyard and commands visual attention. The 8×8 posts and heavier beams read as serious architecture, not lawn furniture. For this Draper project, the 12×20 footprint and the homeowner’s goal of a dominant backyard focal point made the 8000 the right call.

The 6000 Series makes sense when you want the same engineering and the same shade performance in a lighter visual package — smaller footprints, tighter spaces, or architectural contexts where a refined profile fits better than a heavy one. Neither series is an upgrade or a downgrade. They’re different tools for different yards.

The design conversation with WTF is where this decision gets made. The team walks through your space, your use pattern, your aesthetic preferences, and your budget — and the recommendation is the series and size that fits, not the one that’s biggest. That’s the point of the design process: right-sizing to what you’ll actually use, not selling square footage you won’t.

FAQs — Rich Sequoia DIY Pergola Kit Install

Yes. Every kit ships with factory-applied Sherwin-Williams exterior stain in your chosen color. Rich Sequoia, Rich Cordoba, Dark Walnut, and other options are applied in a controlled shop environment before shipping. There’s no field staining required — the kit arrives ready to install with the finish already on.

Requirements vary by municipality. Draper, like most Utah cities, typically requires a building permit for structures over a certain size. WTF provides stamped engineering drawings with kits that require them, which simplifies the permit process. Check with your local building department before breaking ground — WTF’s team can help you understand what your jurisdiction requires.

Basic hand tools, a drill, a level, a ladder, a tape measure, and enough people to lift the beams safely. No specialty timber-framing tools, no table saw, no wood chisel set. The pre-cut joinery eliminates the carpentry — you’re assembling, not building from scratch.

The 8000 Series with TimberVolt Inferno has electrical routing built into the posts during fabrication. An electrician can connect to the pre-routed pathways without surface-mounting conduit or drilling into finished timber. If your kit includes TimberVolt, plan your electrical layout during the design phase — it’s dramatically simpler (and less expensive) than retrofitting later.

The 10×18 footprint is the post-to-post measurement — the area inside the four posts. The 12×20 roof size includes the beam and rafter overhang beyond the posts. The usable shaded area is closer to the roof size, since the shade planks and the full wrap design extend coverage past the post footprint on all four sides.

Plan on every 3-5 years depending on climate and sun exposure. South- and west-facing surfaces in Utah’s high-altitude sun may need attention closer to the 3-year mark. The re-stain process takes about a day with a pump sprayer and costs roughly $300-600 depending on size. It’s real maintenance — but it’s also the only regular maintenance a timber frame pergola requires.

WTF includes phone support during install with every kit. If a joint isn’t seating, if a beam feels off, if the assembly guide isn’t clear on a specific step — call. The team in Payson has walked thousands of homeowners through install questions, and most issues resolve in a few minutes on the phone.