THE SAGA OF THE CANOPY-PART 2

The cheap canopy for Ocean Sate Job Lot went up quite easily. With help from my 85 year old Father In Law, we had it up in about an hour. One thing bugged me though. What were the Velcro strips that were on the canopy for? This bugged me for sometime until later that night, in fact I was bed drifting off to sleep when it hit me. DUH!!! I had put the canopy on inside out. So no problem we'll just turn the canopy part around to the right side and be done. 15 minutes tops.

Wrong!! The canopy came off alright and in our (my father in laws and mine) wisdom we decided to "firm up" the sections of the joined piping with screws so that if a wind did come up the whole thing wouldn't fall apart. We figured maybe another 30 minutes to get the job done right.

Well, 2 1/2 hours later we were still struggling with it. Seems the frame kept coming apart. So we had to enlist my son, Ryan to help hold it together while we kept adding screws to firm it up. When we were done, the frame wouldn't "true up" at all. Looked like something was out of kilter and removing screws as I thought that is what screwed it up (literally). Still nothing.

Finally, I decided to put the canopy back on and let it go, we were all hot, tired and cranky. So we put the canopy back on which fits quite snug by the way and it looked okay except for a part of the roof that was sagging. Ryan pushed the part of the frame that was not true and it just popped into place.

So the secret is that the canopy is holding the whole structure together. So while the canopy is on right this time we can now add all the screws we want to "firm it up".

Lesson learned? Yep. Next canopy, and there will be another one as we do like what it achieves will be a "pop-up kind" with sturdy corners. Just gotta find the right size for the right price. But now I won't be afraid to spend a little more money as I now know what I want. So far the canopy has held up under some wind, though we haven't had any terrible storms yet. Summer is just starting.