With the four uprights solidly secured, it was time for Peetie and his helper to figure out a clever way of getting the two front beams into position.
Because the patio is just over 6 metres long, it had been impossible to find a long enough single piece of meranti timber to use as the front beam. We thus got two lengths of just over 3 metres each.
But you can’t just mount a beam ontop of two upright pillars, without securing them to a third anchor point for stability. Luckily for us, we have a tree to act as said anchor. Unluckily for the tree, several strips of wood had to be screwed into two of its big limbs – ouch! sorry, tree! – in order to provide such stability.
Those strips of wood may look flimsy, but they worked really well.
On the other side, where there was no tree, a sack of cement, some big stones and a strong strip of wood anchored against the base proved sufficient.
Finding Frohsinn - Living Now 