Gazebo? Not for long!

What would you do if you loved being outside in the summer but it was too hot unless you had some shade? And every time you tried to have a backyard picnic the bees came to join you until the kids ran back into the house? Yes, we love being outside in our backyard in the summer but we didn’t get to as much as we would have liked because of the aforementioned problems. So we went to Home Depot the other day and found this:

"That's perfect!" we thought. The netting went around the entire structure and zipped closed to keep out the bugs but still let in light. It would provide lots of shade in the summer, and would be a place all of us would love to hang out together! On Saturday we spent almost 3 hours putting it together, in the freezing wind, and we were so excited about enjoying it this summer!

...Until the wind storm yesterday... It wasn't hurricane force wind, it was just a slightly windy day, and apparently we hadn't anchored the gazebo very well yet. When I got home from picking up the kids from school we found it on its side in the backyard. Derek got home just in time for us to rush off to Julia's last soccer game, and when we got back the gazebo had blown even further, and most of the rods holding it together were bent or broken.

DO NOT buy this particular gazebo!! It was only after the whole thing had broken that I found mostly negative reviews for it on the Home Depot website. What a waste of money and time, and a major disappoinment for all of us as well!

UPDATE!!! Home Depot let us return the gazebo, so we at least got our money back, YAY!

And on a Home Depot note, if you rent tools from them make sure you get the damage waiver (it's 10% more or something like that). We rented a tiller from them on Saturday and while Derek was using it the front wheel broke off!! We were so worried about it, Derek returned the tiller to them and asked what their policy was for something that had gotten damaged. The repair to the tiller would have been hundreds of dollars, but we had gotten the damage waiver luckily, so it cost us only $4! Another YAY! What a blessing!