Garden Oasis 10 Ft. x 8 Ft. Deluxe Shaded Pergola Review

We tried to buy the Garden Oasis 10 Ft. x 8 Ft. Deluxe Shaded Pergola last year from Sears towards the end of the season.  We found one but, when we went to pick it up, the box was all ripped and it was hard to tell if all of the parts were inside.  Since the thing weighs 177 pounds we didn't want to take the chance of lugging it home and then having to get it back to the store.  We were told it was the last one in stock and calling other stores to find another one was fruitless. We were just out of luck.

We looked earlier in the season this year.  After comparing similar pergolas in several stores we decided that this was still the pergola we wanted.  It seems to have more style and we liked the fact that the sunscreen shade was adjustable.  We bought one online, had it delivered to our home and set about putting it together.

Two different young salesmen told us that they put their pergolas together by themselves.  I think they lied.  It took my husband and I a couple hours to put it together and we really needed another set of hands.  At one point I fell off of my little step-stool and the top brace came crashing down on my head.  From that point we enlisted an invisible set of hands by tying the one side of the frame in three places to brace it from falling over.  We used the allen wrench that came with the kit and found it to be adequate but slow.  My husband got out the cordless screwdriver but the battery was dead so we don't know if it would have been easier to use or not.

My only complaint:

I give this pergola four stars because the fabulous sun shade has a flaw in its design- there is no place for rainwater to drain [we had looked at one pergola that had a few grommet holes to allow for drainage and wind].  

Bottomline:

We love this pergola!  It is the perfect size for our needs.  The four columns have pre-drilled holes on the bottom that can be used to anchor the pergola into the ground with the provided anchors or to screw it into a wooden deck.  The only maintenance seems to be to use a light car wax on it for element protection.  Other than that, it seems to be maintenance free.  We are spending more time on the deck now and the hummingbirds have learned that we can be trusted. They buzz around us as though we are part of the landscape.  It doesn't get much better than that!