The story of Brian and his pole- DIY romantic deck lights!

Sometimes I have what I like to call a stroke of genius.  Brian likes to call them hare-brained ideas, but whatever.  Sometimes he goes along with them, and sometimes not.  I got lucky this time!

We've had this great deck that Brian built a couple years ago, but I've always wanted a way to hang lights above it.  And of course I had the romantic ideal of those paper lanterns in my head.  Which you can find everywhere nowadays, but we had nowhere to hang them.  So I started scheming.  I figured that with a tall pole, some hooks and some aviation wire that my light dream could become a reality.  I told Brian all about it. It went something like this.

Me: Let's screw a tall pole into one of the deck posts, string up some sort of cable and attach it to 2 corners of the house!  And then we can hang lights from it!!
Brian: What?  No.
Me:  Yes!  We can do it!  Let's try!
Brian: Uh, no.
Me:  Yes!  Please?  Let's do it!
Brian: Oh, fine.  But you have stand near me and hand me the tools.
Me: What??  NOOOOooooooo!!!

True story.  I have an aversion to being the helpful-tool-hander because of many a home project spent being a helpful-tool-hander for my father as a child.  So long story short, I got my way!  One long pole bought (the kind that you use as a rod in the closet), some aviation cable, a few eye bolts, some big screws, and some fittings.  Often other tools are bought for projects, but luckily this one was basic enough that it was cheap and fast!  It took us one hour to put it up.

First Brian screwed in one of the eye bolts into one corner of the house.

And then used these handy little levels and some twine to make sure the other eyebolt was at the same level at the other corner of the house.

See?  Nice and level.  It's apparently important.  A third eyebolt was put into the top of the pole.  Now we grab the pole and screw it into the deck post.  Just like I said.  And although Brian was a Debbie Doubtful, it worked out just fine!

Note the clamps holding the pole in place.  Note my husband's nice biceps.  Sorry, I got distracted.  Uh, where was I?  Oh, yes the pole.  And of course there's a level made for this, too.  I didn't know so many levels existed until I married Brian.

Then we made sure to use washers and wing nuts to make sure the pole was secure. 

Brian bolted the pole in three places down the deck post.  This pole aint moving, folks!  Then we got out the aviation cable.

We threaded the cable through the pole's eyebolt and secured the ends to the house's eyebolts with these clamps.

Please excuse my pink pudgy paw. 

Brian really clamped these down so that we could hang lots of weight on the cable without it bowing too much.  Then we clipped up really pretty lantern lights.  But we can hang up candle holders if we're feeling bold.  Or really whatever we think might be pretty hanging over our heads.  I'm in love with how it turned out.  It's romantic, pretty, and festive, all rolled into one.  Brian and I would be out playing music and dancing underneath them every night if we didn't have small children that cause us to collapse around 8:30 pm in exhaustion.

Don't you think it's pretty?  Loads of special thanks to Brian and his pole.

*linking to Shabby Chic Cottage