After making them a pair of copper chimney caps for their house a year before this project was to rebuild their old gazebo and cover it with 20oz copper for Emil and Norma Bardana in Lake Oswego, Oregon.  They wanted it rebuilt in my Tuscany arch style with a fancy lighted cupola, sot of like I had done for our clients Cait and Charley Jabusch:

I had taken this photo of their beautiful garden area back when I bid the chimney caps. I suggested they would do well to have me make them a small copper roof cap for their gazebo to hold their weathervane.

I was surprised to hear a year later they wanted the whole gazebo covered with copper and make them a cupola as well. We discussed different sizes and I made them a scaled diagram to show what is would look like. They again placed a lot of trust in me to meet or exceed their expectations with this project.

This was the coolest Tuscany arch style copper project I've worked on to date. They had first contacted me 6/12/09 and then again on 6/20/10 to discuss this second major project they were now ready for, so we swiftly worked out the details of this project on site with a personal visit to their lovely garden space again. I came out to their house to check the measurements so I could provide them with a serious quote to do this.

Given the width of over 11' I came up with the recommendation of a 4' wide and 2' high cupola with a 5' wide roof over that for a 6" eave out past the arches. Knowing they were not looking for a cupola so big a person can sit up inside it, like the Jabusch gazebo, this was substantial enough, but should not seem too large.

I wound up adding 3" to the width of the cupola roof and about 6" to the width of the lower roof. The cupola roof line is designed to match the roof line of the main gazebo roof: 6/12 pitch, so this will look more like what the architect might have designed for this gazebo, had he designed a cupola for it. The client approved this design and were very pleased with the results. We discussed aesthetic options like adding the arched detail to the gazebo below the roof, which also adds a good deal of stability to the gazebo, so it is less wobbly up there.

Here's the before photos showing the roofing removal.

These close-up shots show how rotten these cedar shakes were and no longer sealing the roof.

There were lots of water stains on the roof trusses indicating how badly that roof had been leaking.

I find it very funny how most carpenters will struggle with how to join all these trusses together in the center like this, instead of just making a simple hollow core like I recommend on this web site. It does not have to be nearly this large. Just big enough to get a drill inside to attach those stringers with deck screws.

I stripped all the rotten cedar shakes off the roof leaving only this step-sheeting.

Here's the plywood getting attached with 2.5" deck screws after I had cut out the center of the roof joists to install this support ring for a 36" open gap in the middle. Each piece of plywood had to be carefully measured and cut to fit, since this gazebo was so irregular on each side.

This does not change the roof angle at all. To make this support ring I was able to just use the parts I had cut out of the 2x12 boards for the lower arch supports with the grain going horizontally for the best possible strength. I used 48 - 3" deck screws to attach this support ring into the ends of the 16 roof joists.