Unpopular opinion: that fancy pergola kit was a $1,200 mistake

I thought a pre-cut kit would save me a weekend, but the cedar was warped and the hardware was junk. Ended up taking three times longer to fix it than if I'd just built from scratch. Anyone else get burned by a 'convenient' structure kit?

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3 Comments

the_richard5mo ago

My neighbor bought a $900 gazebo kit from the same big box store and had the exact same warped wood problem. Did you try to return it or just eat the cost and fix it yourself? That's the real kicker, dealing with customer service after you've already cut pieces.

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emma_hart5mo ago

My cousin in Ohio had that exact issue, @the_richard.

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lee_ward545mo ago

Nine hundred bucks for a kit and the wood was warped right out of the box... that's just crazy. They really expect you to just accept that kind of quality for that kind of money. Cutting the pieces first makes it a total nightmare to get any help from the store too. You're basically stuck trying to fix their mistake yourself. It's enough to make a person never want to buy a kit like that again.

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