How many sides does a gazebo have?

This is an interesting question. How many sides does a gazebo have? Is it 6? Is it 8? The answer is that it can have any number of sides. It depends on how it’s designed.

When I first met Dan Schellenberg when I purchased Archadeck of Austin, I was impressed at what a genuinely nice guy he is. I also noted that he was very analytical and very detail oriented. He’s the type of guy to sit back and let others go first. So I asked him if he came from a large family and indeed he came from a family of 7. As we sat over pizza, he mentioned that his father could cut any pizza into 7 equal slices after raising a family with 5 kids that all loved pizza.

When Dan showed me this gazebo project he just finished, I studied the number of sides and became very perplexed. I stood under the gazebo and looked up at the ceiling and counted the number of panels or sides.

Austin Gazebo with 7 sides

Indeed – 7! Did Dan’s father build this gazebo? How in the world did Dan come up with a 7-sided gazebo design? It’s simple. He paid extremely close attention to his customers envisioning how they would want to live in their new custom outdoor space.

The homeowners were a lovely couple. They were a little older and had grown children and a sprinking of grandchildren. Their door leading to the backyard had a small deck/patio. The new extended gazebo-covered deck would adjoin directly to that area.

Gazebo long side

Although that old area was too small to be a useful space, it presented a real problem for building the gazebo. Dan knew the homeowners would not want a gazebo post right in the middle of their walkway from the backdoor to their gazebo. So, he added a side to the gazebo and made it a long side.

Looking at the gazebo from the yard, you might never noticed the 7-sided design of the structure. But creating this long side allowed the family to walk freely from their home to the gazebo without having to see or walk around a post every time.

Gazebo in Austin TX

Here’s Dan talking about this project.