Steve and I were looking for an outdoor patio cover that was a little different, and that didn’t require major construction either. We found it in shade sails. Popular in Europe for quite awhile, they are catching on in the US quickly because of their ease of installation, ability to adjust them to each lighting situation, and let’s face it… they are just plain awesome.  If you want to use shade sails to cover your outdoor room, this is how to install them, and to get around the issues these types of coverings present.

Buy your shade sails to cover the area you intend. There are many brands, shapes and sizes. Be careful you don’t purchase ones made of cheap materials, unless you only expect them to last one season. We bought Cooleroo brand from Amazon. They have lasted us three seasons so far, without fading. They come with all the hardware to hang, though you can buy an extra hardware kit if you need it. You should have mounting brackets and turnbuckles, which tighten to adjust. We preferred to layer several triangle shaped sails, but if you prefer, they come in squares and rectangles too. If I didn’t have Steve to think through the triangle thing, I would have gone with a rectangle. Sounds simpler, but not as cool!

Installing the shade sails is as easy as making sure you have strong supports, such as the side of a building, or a post. Keep in mind, these shade sails require a lot of tension to get them to stretch tight enough so that they look right, and don’t flap around in the wind. Make sure you attach them to a stud on a building, a sturdy metal pole, or learn how to make a wooden post work, as we did. (More on that below!)

The first challenge we encountered is that our sturdy supports were not close enough together to directly attach the three sides of the triangle. We laid out the shade sails on the ground in the manner in which we wanted to hang them, then measured how much we would need to extend each end to reach a fastener. Then we mounted the brackets at each corresponding support with a drill and screws. We got some metal cable and crimps from home depot. The metal cable goes through one end of the crimp, loops through the buckle on the shade sail, then back through the other side of the crimp. See photo, below. Use a hammer to pound the crimp closed, and it locks it tight.

Measure the length to the turnbuckle for the opposite fastener, and create another loop at that end. It doesn’t have to be a perfect measurement because the turnbuckle tightens down. Make sure when you measure the length of your extension wire, the turnbuckle is adjusted at its most open position. That way, you have room to tighten it down. It will tighten more then you think. When you have extension wire made for all the ends that needs it, move to the next step.

 

Attach the turnbuckles to the mounting bracket, and loop the extension end of the wire onto the open end of the turnbuckle, tighten each turnbuckle until the sail is taut.

 

Now you want to really tighten the turnbuckles. We stuck a screwdriver throughout the open body of the turnbuckle, and used it to turn the buckle when it got tight, to tighten it even further. Tighten each end a little at a time, so that all the ends tighten evenly.

 

We mounted one of our mounting brackets lower on a pole, so that we could angle one of the sails against the afternoon sun.

 

This last photo, below,  gives you a picture of one of our issues with the wooden poles we used as supports. (Please ignore the ugly patio, these photos were right after I moved in!) We installed these poles ourselves for the purpose of mounting the shade sails. (We also hang bird feeders off them!) We used several bags of concrete and buried them two feet under, 4×4 pressure treated lumber. When we attached the extension wires and tightened them down, they still bent! That is what we mean when we say a lot of tension! Possibly that won’t be an issue for you, or you will decide the slight amount of bending of the pole doesn’t bother you, (Steve’s a perfectionist… and it’s a good thing, too, or we never would have pulled this off to look so great! Me? I would have planted a vine on it and called it done. Yes, I can be a little lazy.  :)) But if you decide to go with our brilliant plan, we found a fix. We used the same metal cable, and braced the pole by wiring it down to the base of a fence post that is also cemented in the ground, you can see a touch of the cable to the right side of the photo…. I know, sounds like a lot… But it turned out to be awesome! Any questions? In the end we found out that if you need to use poles to attach to, the best thing would be very sturdy 4 to 5 inch (diameter) metal poles.

 

Want to see more shade sails used to make amazing outdoor spaces? Be inspired!