What One Homeowner Built With a DIY Timber Pergola Kit — And What Happened the Night He Finished It
Some projects end when the last screw goes in.
John Clausing’s ended differently.
He’d ordered one of our DIY timber pergola kits, installed it himself over his outdoor bar, and when it was done — really done, with the outdoor TV mounted, the speakers wired, and the Christmas garland wrapped post to beam — he sent us a photo.
The photo showed a pergola. It also showed two barstools pulled up to a counter, poinsettias on either side, snowflake ornaments catching the light, and a Santa Claus movie playing on the screen behind it all. And in his note, almost as an afterthought, he mentioned that a bunch of neighbors had come over the night he finished it.
Just like that. Finished the install. Neighbors showed up. Night happened under the pergola.
The Kit John Ordered
John’s structure is built from our DIY timber pergola kit — the same heavy Douglas Fir timber we use across all our structures, pre-cut and pre-stained in our shop before it ships.
His kit is finished in Early American stain, one of our most popular colors. It’s a medium brown — warm without being dark, substantial without being heavy. It photographs beautifully in daylight and goes golden under string lights at night, which you can see in his photo.
The beam profile is Champion — our most intricate design, the one that makes the strongest visual statement when you look up from underneath. The curved, layered cut at the end of each beam gives the structure an architectural quality that sets it apart from the boxy, bracket-heavy kits you see at the big box stores.
What makes a DIY timber kit different from a standard pergola kit isn’t just the size of the lumber. It’s the preparation. The timbers arrive pre-cut to your dimensions, pre-drilled at every connection point, and pre-stained with two backrolled coats of exterior Sherwin-Williams stain applied in our shop — not sprayed on a pallet somewhere, but hand-applied to every surface before assembly.
That matters because once the structure is assembled, some of those surfaces aren’t reachable anymore. The undersides of beams. The faces of joints. The interior contact points. In a shop, every face of every timber gets coated. On-site, after the fact, you’re working around what’s already been built.
The result is a structure that arrives ready to build — not ready to finish.
What John Did With It
John didn’t just install a pergola. He designed an outdoor room.
The structure sits over a full outdoor kitchen and bar — stone counter, built-in grill, sink on the right side. Two wrought iron barstools with red cushions pull up to the counter directly. The pergola’s posts frame the space on all four corners, with the knee braces creating the classic timber-frame silhouette overhead.
He mounted a flat-screen TV to the back wall of the kitchen, visible from the barstools and from a seating area off to the right. He ran speakers. He decorated the whole thing for Christmas — garland wrapped around every post from ground to beam, snowflake ornaments hanging from the rafters, warm white lights strung through all of it.
The palm trees behind the structure are lit from below. The poinsettias are red against the stone. Santa Claus is on the screen.
This is what he wrote to us when he sent the photo:
“Here’s a picture of the finished install. I added an outdoor TV and speakers you can see in the back. A bunch of neighbors came over and enjoyed it with us last night. Great product, I am very happy with the result! Thanks again.”
— John Clausing
The understatement in that note is what gets us every time. A bunch of neighbors came over and enjoyed it with us last night. No fanfare. Just: I built a thing, and people came.
Why the DIY Pergola Kit Made This Possible
There’s a version of this project that goes differently.
It involves sourcing lumber from a home improvement store, cutting it to dimension, trying to figure out the joinery, staining everything on-site after assembly — and ending up with a structure that looks fine in photos but took three times as long and still has the beam ends you couldn’t reach after the fact.
A timber pergola kit short-circuits all of that. The engineering is already done. The cuts are already made. The stain is already applied. The hardware is already spec’d for the structure. What’s left is the actual building — the part most homeowners genuinely enjoy — without the part that requires a mill and a woodshop.
John installed his himself. That’s the point. Heavy timber, Champion profile, outdoor kitchen integration, Christmas-ready — assembled by the homeowner, because the kit was designed to be assembled by the homeowner.
The Outdoor Space That Gets Used
Here’s a thing we’ve noticed after building and shipping timber structures for years: the pergolas that become the gathering place aren’t always the biggest ones, or the most elaborately engineered, or the most expensive.
They’re the ones where someone thought about how people actually use the space.
John put a TV where people could watch it from the bar. He put barstools at counter height so conversation happens face-to-face, not shouted across a patio. He put the pergola over the outdoor kitchen so the cook is part of the party, not separated from it. And then he decorated it for the season, the way you decorate a room you actually live in.
The structure made it permanent. The design made it usable. The occasion made it a gathering.
That’s not an accident. That’s what happens when an outdoor space is actually designed for people — not designed for photos of empty furniture.
What to Know If You’re Considering a DIY pergola Kit
A few things worth understanding before you order:
The timber is heavier than you expect. An 8,000 Series kit in a Family size weighs over 4,500 pounds total. This is not furniture. You’ll want a helper (or two) for assembly, and you’ll want to think through how the freight delivery works at your property before the truck shows up.
The stain is done, but touch-up comes with the kit. Every kit ships with matching touch-up stain for any marks or scuffs that happen during installation. Plan to do a quick walk-around after you’re done and hit anything that needs it.
Footings are site-specific. The kit anchors to a concrete footing, but the footing itself depends on your soil, your local frost line, and your building code. This is the piece you source locally — usually a concrete contractor or a capable DIYer who knows their local requirements.
The beam profile is a bigger decision than it looks. When you’re holding a piece of paper looking at five profile options, they all look similar. Once the structure is up and you’re looking at it from 20 feet away, the profile is one of the most visible things about it. If you’re not sure, Champion is the most popular for a reason — it works with almost every architectural style and improves with age.
Plan your add-ons before you build, not after. John’s TV and speakers work because he thought about placement before the structure went up. Mounting a TV after the fact is possible; running wiring cleanly after the fact is harder. Know what you want underneath the pergola before you finalize the design.
Build the Bones. Make It Yours.
That’s the whole idea.
We do the precision work in our shop — the cutting, the fitting, the staining, the hardware engineering — so that when the kit arrives at your property, what you’re doing is building, not problem-solving.
What goes underneath it, what you hang from it, how you light it, when you use it — that part is yours.
John put a bar under his. Mounted a TV. Wrapped it in garland. Invited the neighbors.
Whatever you put under yours, it starts with the same heavy timber, cut to your dimensions, finished in the stain you choose, shipped ready to build.
If you’re ready to start designing, we’d be glad to help you figure out the right size, series, and profile for your space.
Browse DIY Pergola Kits | Call us at 801-331-6690
Western Timber Frame builds custom timber pergolas, pavilions, and outdoor structures from our shop in Payson, Utah. Every kit is pre-cut, pre-stained, and engineered for homeowner assembly.
