How to Make a Bamboo Gazebo

Bamboo is one of the fastest-growing, hardiest plants in the world. There are 1,000 varieties, but all are canes, with hollow centers in the trunks. All bamboo wood is hard, but flexible. It once was the standard material for fly-fishing rods, which need to bend sharply and spring back easily. It is used for such varied things as flooring, fencing and kitchen cutting boards. It is naturally resistant to rot and most insect damage, which makes it ideal for outdoor structures such as decks and gazebos. A gazebo can be made entirely of bamboo or with some other wood elements.

Stakes
Tape measure
Post hole digger
Bamboo poles, 6 inches in diameter
Concrete
4-inch bamboo poles
Nails
Hammer
Waxed lashing cord
Concrete blocks
Small bamboo poles or strip flooring

Instructions

- 1
  Mark the locations for corner posts for your gazebo with stakes. Square the outline by measuring corner to corner with a tape measure and adjusting stakes until those measurements are identical. Dig holes at the corners with a post hole digger 12 to 18 inches deep.
- 2
  Set bamboo poles 6 inches in diameter in the holes; plumb them, ensuring they are level, and secure them with concrete poured in the holes slightly above ground level. Make poles 8 feet high on one side, 9 feet on the other, for a single slope roof, or set poles the same height for a pitched roof.
- 3
  Make two bamboo frames, one for a floor and one for a roof. Use poles about 4 inches in diameter, two to fit between the upright poles and two to overlap these at the ends. Fasten the poles at the corners with nails and a hammer and tie them with waxed lashing cord. Fasten the bottom floor frame to the outsides of the poles about a foot off the ground. Brace the corners with concrete blocks underneath.
- 4
  Fasten 4-inch diameter joists between two sides of the floor frame at 24-inch intervals. Cover the floor with smaller canes, about 2 inches in diameter, placed tightly together and nailed to the joists and outer frame. As an alternative, cover the floor with bamboo flooring strips, cut to form a more even floor. Nail these in place.
- 5
  Put the roof frame around the tops of the poles, using the difference in height to provide a roof slope. Secure it with nails and waxing cord. Add rafter poles across the slope of the roof, with bamboo about 2 inches in diameter, nailed and corded to the frame at 24-inch intervals. Frame a pitched roof with canes cut like rafters, one in the center of each wall to a peak and one from each corner to the center peak. Fasten these to a 6-inch cane at the center peak to hold the elements together.
- 6
  Make a roof covering of small bamboo canes lashed together with waxed cord. Lay it on the rafters and fasten it with nails and cord. Form this into a sheet on the ground, then put it on the roof and fasten it with nails and cord to the rafters.

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