Gazebo News #2

Another gazebo goes down in a world of laws and regulations. What is it about this structure that has forced it to the center of a heated debate in Boston? You can read the other story for yourself at this link. Let me catch you up to speed. One man wrote an article demonizing the state for tearing down a gazebo that some private land owners put up, and this man in the link above says "no, had to go, they were breaking the law." Now friends I can see both sides of this story. I mean, on the one hand, it does seem like a little bit of an overkill and not that big of a deal. On the other hand, like stated in the aforementioned article, you can't pick and choose who gets to obey the law. That leads to simple chaos. I just find it astonishing that so many gazebos get caught up in the crossfire of landowners and laws. I think the gazebo just might be on its way to being the bad boy of the lawn furniture world. No longer will folks, say oh what a nice place they have especially with that gazebo. They will be saying "lock the doors, they've got a gazebo in their yard." Maybe we should ditch the gardens and hot tubs for things like metal sculptures and moats. I've been looking around on the internet for some wicked looking tough guy gazebos but I have yet to find any. Maybe I'm just going to have to build one. One where a man can say "I'm going over to Jim's to hang out at the gazebo." and feel proud. I don't know about you, but with all the bad press they receive, I think it's time they got the image to go with it. Maybe a metal gazebo crafted from old tank parts would be a good place to start. If any of you out their reading this have a Man's gazebo please get in touch with me. We've got to take our backyards back men, lets start with the gazebo. Ok, I just needed to get that off my chest. Don't get me wrong, you can be manly and handle flowers, just make sure you've got a couple of venus fly traps in the mix too. Now get out their and do a Heman overhaul on that gazebo.

Buying a Gazebo

Buying a gazebo should not be something done on a whim. You drive by a neighbors house and see a gazebo in the yard, or you go to a family members house and they've set up a garden gazebo, so then you think "yea, wonder where I can buy a gazebo." Now you hop online (a big mistake for some people b/c they dont' shop around lol) and type in "gazebos". Boom, up comes a ton of pages. You click the first one that pops up, see a couple of pictures and think, sweet, you dish out the credit card info kick back, and wait.

There are several things wrong with this approach. Number one, most important. You forgot one Moma taught you, how to shop around. You never ever, I repeat never, buy something that is mass produced without comparing it.. You need to compare at the very minimum five places. Especially with something that is going to cost you well beyond $100.

Now, what other mistake did you make? You took the human aspect out of it. When people sell things online, that is it, either you push a button or you don't. Now, when you go into a place then the old barter skill comes into play. I watched a show on the news one time. This lady saved like $400 dollars over her shopping day (must be nice to spend that much one day shopping) simply by asking for discounts. The retailer wants to make as much profit as possible from their gazebo, but they might let $100-$200 go off the price tag if they think it will convince you to buy. What would you rather have? The possibility of $1400, or $1200 in hand? Exactly. All of that is thrown right out the window with online shopping. While I do like the convenience you pay for that convenience in the long run.

So now that we have decided to go to our local shop (or you can go online, just be careful)what do we need? We need a game plan. There are all kinds of gazebos. You have different materials, different price ranges, assembled, kits. Our best bet is to ask a sales associate for help, or come back here for more in-depth articles in the future covering each aspect of the different types of gazebos.

Oh yea, the reason I said be careful online. I went to a beach one time. Wow things looked great on the website of the place I would be staying. Want to know what happened when I got there? So many mosquitoes I had to get another place to stay. One of the people with me got bit like nine times just carrying luggage from the car inside. You may come across a website that has nice pictures of gazebos, but then all you get in the mail is a box of crap wood and junk fasteners. Do yourself a favor, take the time to educate yourself before rushing in to buy a gazebo. Especially if you go all out on a fancy carved wood gazebo or something.