AusBonsai

You have hooked onto a very good point Dog." All jokes have some truth that is why they are funny" It is very worth while checking out your local council for a booklet they should have with the general rules of building for the council area.
I built a cubby/garden sun room before reading finding that my cubby was 500mm bigger than the exception that needed no council approval. I would not have cared dropping it another 500mm I have since revamped and now under the height (I think )

Then after I read the book I found that the pergola I wanted to build to house my trees at the back fence needed to be 500mm off the fence
But then I realised a pergola was connected to the house and what I wanted to build was a gazebo and there was no restriction on distance from fence.
Just like in Bonsai it is worth your while knowing the rules before you break them

Great work Gerard!
Very sturdy and unimposing too. I really like your use of butterfly clips too

Regards,
Steven

P.S. Congratulations on your dry spell... now you've proven you can do it, get back on the wagon will ya!

Just an observation Gerard but if I were you I would go out and fetch some tea tree fence or bamboo screen to run along that metal fence. Those things are real killers on hot days, it is like a heating panel. I have seen so many climbers and shrubs all burnt back on the fence side or completely baked dead from the heat . I would have crappy CCA treated pine or rotting hardwood any day over the colorbond.

After seeing Gerard's great pergola I was "incentivized" and have spent the last 2 weekends revitalising a wasted space in my pool area.
A little bit of cash and lots of sweaty hours recovering an old steel pergola thats roof had rotted away years ago and presto. How cheap and simple is the cable and butterfly clips method?!....although I'm not as clever as Gerard to make mine retract.
The addition of a $20 3m triangle from B#@$!s to block some of the western sun and then the really hard work. Digging out all the old Lomandra around the perimeter, lining the old garden trench with plastic and filled it with river pebble, whew.
Perfect timing too for this weeks high 30 days.