We're going to need plenty of shade and while umbrellas in the deck will work I was thinking of constructing an arbor on the back side of the pool as well as behind the retaining/seating walls around our 2 main seating areas. I've included a picture of our layout and excavation just started today but I was thinking I might be able to break it up into 4-5 sections of 12' rafters and still be able to roughly follow the contours of the walls/beam. I'm wanting to avoid additional posts on the pool deck areas along the sides and that's obviously not an option along the back but I'm thinking I could still make the arbor extend about 3-4' by cantilevering on just single posts or could extend the depth to 5-6' if I did a set of posts about 3' apart if I wanted to go deeper. I'll provide a sketch of my thoughts tomorrow but was hoping to get some examples/thoughts from the folks here. I was hoping to have some concrete footers poured as part of the decking and then just use the Simpson deck ties to hold the uprights instead of having to bury the posts and set them in concrete, etc..
http://
http://
