Rustic Garden Obelisks

I made two garden obelisks over the weekend in our backyard while the kids played in the backyard with neighborhood friends and the rule was to stay away from Mama's miter saw. We had beautiful weather and it was such a pleasure to be outside.

Each obelisk required 4 - 8ft 2x2's, 3 - 8 ft 1x2's, a 4" square piece of 2x4 and screws.

The first one I wanted to be tall and more narrow, as it sits sandwiched between the blackberry bush and the forsythia in a small bed. I cut the tops and bottoms of the 2x2's at a 10 degree angle to make the legs form the pyramid shape. I attached the pieces to the top square and then put on the horizontal braces. For the side braces I just eye-balled it - 4 - 18" pieces, 4 - 15" pieces, 4 - 12" pieces, 4 - 9" pieces and 4 - 6" pieces and screwed them in where they fit. 

It's very sturdy with all the cross-braces. The theme of all our improvements this year is AQUA since it's my favorite color and looks good with the gray patio stone, the yellow siding and dark brown wood. So of course I painted this one aqua. With the spray paint I was able to give it a glaze that still shows the wood grain - I didn't want it to look like plastic. Later on I want to put a bird house on top of this one - I think it would look nice. 

The second obelisk I wanted it to be shorter and wider, for the back raised bed garden. I cut the 2x2's at a 15 degree angle and cut off about 18" of height. For the cross braces I did 4 instead of 5 sets, but they were wider - 4 - 24" pieces, 4 - 18" pieces, 4 - 12" pieces and 4 - 6" pieces.

I was going to stain this one brown or paint it white, but after spray painting the other one I just loved how it came out. I loved how bits of the wood still shown through but it still popped with a bright color. And spray painting is so darn easy. I had 1.5 cans of teal leftover from painting the play house so I ended up going teal.

I do love the bright pop of color in the garden. Now I kind of want to paint my tomato cages teal too.