Need Help Finishing My Pergola

All you have to do is toe nail them down. There is also a bracket called hurricane ties that you can use if you live in a extremely windy area.

-- John in Cranbrook http://www.extremebirdhouse.com ....http://community.webshots.com/user/cranbrook2

Am guessing you are talking about this

http://www.rona.ca/contentMgr/img/assets/1054-2_STEP6.jpg

How do I go about this? Am a newbie to all this handy work, and as you can see from above, am not doing too bad :-) Explain in detail please

Notching them out is ok too but you might be better to notch the entire piece out because chances are the little piece in the center will split off anyway. I think 1 1/2” – 2” notch is lots to cut out in depth.

-- John in Cranbrook http://www.extremebirdhouse.com ....http://community.webshots.com/user/cranbrook2

Why is that John, taking the middle bit out? I guess the jigsaw is the tool for this eh

When you are notching something that small they usually split .
It,s much quicker to take the entire piece out plus you wont really see the center between the two pieces anyway.
The main reason for the notch is to keep the main frame from shifting or blowing out .
I would still put a few spacer blocks in between to keep the two pieces from bowing in if anything.

-- John in Cranbrook http://www.extremebirdhouse.com ....http://community.webshots.com/user/cranbrook2