AUGUST 23, 2025 – For the past two days I’ve been at the Red Cabin continuing work on the Pergola-on-a-Platform, a project I started last June. For a good month the project resided mostly in my head until it spilled onto one, two, then multiple pages of sketchbooks. For most of July I got down to the actual business of fabricating all the parts and pre-drilling dozens of holes to accommodate all the lag screws that my specs called for. At the top of August I prepared the building site—the highest elevation in the Björnholm tree garden, approximately 100 feet above the sparkling waters of Grindstone Lake. A case of ehrlichiosis stopped all progress for a week.
I recovered just in time for the long-anticipated week-long visit by our son Byron and his family. Ever the willing and able volunteer, Byron slipped away from childcare duties long enough to accompany me up to the construction zone. Together we managed to assemble the basic frame of the platform.
A head cold interrupted further progress until yesterday. Between scattered showers, I managed to cut and paint (two coats) five railings. In two work shifts today, I hauled miscellaneous tools and the five railings up to the building site and installed three of the five. Moreover, I attached the diagonal brace to the back of the platform and sized and fitted the two diagonal braces.
All of this took hours of futzing, including time-consuming corrections of maddening mistakes resulting from disregard for the adage, “haste makes waste” and its companion, “stupid is as stupid does.”
In one instance, as I set temporary clamps to hold a railing while I fastened it to the main posts, I thought of all the little workarounds I’d deployed while assembling the platform. They’d been unanticipated in the meticulous drafting stage of the project. In retrospect, my drawings were naïve. None of them took into account imperfections in my lumber stock or more pointedly, in my shortcomings as a “specialty carpenter.” As I pondered the discrepancies between my detailed scale drawings and the project as it’s materializing, I thought of the similarity that the process bears to music. Specifically, I considered the difference between a published score of say, the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, and my rendition of it in the cool light of day—even on my best day. Yet, if you don’t cut yourself some slack for landing shy of perfection, be it with woodworking tools or the bow and violin, you’ll have trouble accomplishing much of anything in life besides boiling a pot of water.
With the foregoing in mind, I granted myself some reasonable latitude but not carte blanche. In several cases I ordered myself to undertake a “do-over.” Perhaps I’d be the only person to see the flaws requiring corrective action, but if you start down the road of “No One Will Notice,” there’s no telling in what ditch you might eventually find yourself.
At the close of my workday, I was satisfied by how things are turning out. Once the side diagonal braces are attached and the decking is fastened, the platform will be as solid as a huge block of concrete. The next phase, then, will be the cake and ice-cream: the pergola, starting with the bright white posts that will be bolted to the “Småland red” platform posts. Once all the purlins are in place, I’ll backtrack and attach the railing spindles and last but hardly least, fashion the “grand staircase” giving access to the deck of the platform.
My expectation is that by the time of the ribbon-cutting ceremony—October (2025)—enough foliage will have dropped to afford a commanding view of the lake from . . . the Pergola-on-a-Platform.
Subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.
© 2025 by Eric Nilsson
