Harrison 6-ft. Cedar Garden Bridge

A Beautiful Addition to our Landscape

We bought this charming (6ft) bridge to cross our dry stream bed in our front yard...and for practice before building a 12' bridge (from scratch) across our koi pond. We're ...Read complete review

We bought this charming (6ft) bridge to cross our dry stream bed in our front yard...and for practice before building a 12' bridge (from scratch) across our koi pond. We're extremely happy with the results.

I love assembling things, so that wasn't a problem, however, this is not a project for the beginning carpenter to try blind. OTOH, with a little patience, a builder's square, a drill and a good old rubber mallet, you s/b good to go, with the following caveats. (You folks who know what you're doing will laugh at my terminology. I'm self-taught, OK? :D)

1) as many have pointed out, the predrilled holes to attach the center upright into the arched supports probably won't align. No real problem: just use your trusty drill to widen them a bit to match the holes in the metal brace.

2) also pointed out: the rail sections are "sided." One insert is straight for the center rail, the other at an angle for the end rails. I
didn't need to whittle anything, but a bit of bar soap rubbed onto the inserts and a rubber mallet helped a lot.

3) if the center rail support doesn't align with the predrilled holes in the arch...Just tap the arch connection with your rubber mallet to increase or decrease the amount of arch as needed. It's got a fair amount of play until the planks are on.

4) I painted mine prior to assembly with a couple good coats. Don't know how much this affected the spacing on the planks, but they JUST fit. I was lucky. I happened to put the connecting planks (the ones that go between the rail supports) in exactly the right spot. (Sheer luck, I assure you.) Another tap of the rubber mallet and the final plank slipped right in. If I was assembling it knowing what I know now, I'd initially put only three of the five screws into those cross supports, just in case I had to move them.

5) If you want a nice smooth edge to the bridge planks, make certain the base arches are square before putting on the planks and check after attaching every couple of planks to make certain it hasn't warped on you. Otherwise, you'll either wander off the support arches or you'll have to fudge the alignment of the plank ends. If the arches move out of square, just grab the rail on the short side and give a nice little whack with the rubber mallet to the end of the support arch on the long side.

As you can see from the pix, ours is a work in progress. The bridge isn't leveled or naturalized yet, and the rocks are just piles in the general vicinity of their eventually landing spots, but we're very pleased with how it's coming together with our water feature and our wonderful swing which we also got from Hayneedle!

Bottom line, if two old ladies can do it (60 and 70) anyone can!