A Backyard gazebo provides open-air shelter from hot sun or summer showers and is by itself a decorative landscape centerpiece. The classic octagonal gazebo in this project measures 9 feet across and has a cedar-decked floor perched about two feet above the ground. Its eight posts and floor deck are supported by poured concrete piers—your local building department will tell you how deep to make them.
To improve the look of the gazebo on the inside, the roof is framed with cedar lumber instead of pine or fir. The roof sheathing is made up of 1 × 6 tongue-and-groove cedar boards and creates an attractive paneled ceiling.
By the nature of its shape, constructing a gazebo involves many angled cuts—for these, it will help you enormously to buy or rent a compound miter saw, or better yet, a sliding compound miter saw, which will cut angles on larger pieces of lumber.