Pergolas & Shade
Handis pergolas and shade is the outdoor-carpentry trade for everything that turns a bare deck or patio into a usable summer room — Western Red Cedar pergolas (attached to the house or freestanding), powder-coated aluminum louvered pergolas with adjustable blades, covered patio covers with metal-panel or polycarbonate roofs, hexagonal and octagonal cedar gazebos, cedar privacy screens and lattice, and shade-sail post-and-mounting systems — from $800 for a shade-sail anchor set to $30,000 for a large motorized aluminum louvered pergola. The PNW summer is short, the sun angle is high from June through August, and the wet deck the rest of the year asks for a roof that drains. Five sub-services below cover the budget shade fix, the cedar pergola most Seattle yards ask for, the louvered system that lets you tilt the blades shut when October rain returns, the full covered patio cover that turns the deck into a 9-month room, and the privacy screens that handle the neighbor's window. Handis self-performs every cut, post-set, beam-raise, and rafter install. Structural permits on attached and covered structures get pulled and coordinated by Handis. Any line-voltage lighting or ceiling fan on a pergola routes to a licensed Washington L&I electrician.
Services
What Handis Pergolas & Shade Covers
Pergolas and shade is the outdoor-carpentry trade for shade structures on residential decks, patios, and yards — five sub-services covering the full PNW range from a single afternoon shade-sail anchor set through a 16-by-20 motorized aluminum louvered pergola. Pricing starts at $800 for shade-sail post-and-mounting on an existing deck or patio and runs to $30,000 for a fully featured aluminum louvered pergola with motorized blades and integrated low-voltage LED. Handis self-performs the carpentry, the post-set in concrete footings, the beam-raise, the rafter install, the louver-frame assembly, and the finish detailing. Structural permits on attached and covered structures get pulled and coordinated by Handis; any line-voltage lighting or fan circuit routes to a licensed Washington L&I electrician. Each sub-service has its own page below with the build scope, the price floor, and the permit handoff.
Pergola
Open-roof shade frame — Western Red Cedar timber or powder-coated aluminum louvered, attached to the house or freestanding on concrete footings. The default Seattle backyard upgrade. Cedar reads warm, weathers silver, and runs $5,000 to $14,000 for the 8-by-10 through 12-by-16 sizes most yards ask for. Aluminum louvered runs $12,000 to $30,000 with the advantage that the blades tilt closed in October rain and open in July sun. Both attach to the house (when there is a wall line that takes the ledger) or stand free on four to six concrete-set posts. From $5,000.
Pergola — cedar and aluminum louvered, attached or freestanding
Covered Deck / Patio Cover
Fully covered roof structure over an existing deck or concrete patio — wood-framed rafters with a metal panel (standing-seam or corrugated) or twin-wall polycarbonate roof, optional integrated gutter and downspout tie-in. Turns a 4-month summer deck into a 9-month outdoor room because the rain is off you and the wind is broken. From $8,000 for a basic 10-by-12 polycarbonate cover to $25,000 for a 20-by-24 metal-roof cover with gutter and proper drainage. Building permit pulled by Handis on every covered structure attaching to the house.
Covered Deck / Patio Cover — full roof, metal panel or polycarbonate, permit pulled
Gazebo
Standalone roofed structure with a hexagonal, octagonal, or rectangular plan — cedar kit assembly (10-by-10 hexagonal, 12-by-12 octagonal) or a custom-built rectangular framed roof. Distinct from a pergola in that the roof is solid (cedar shake, metal panel, or asphalt shingle) and the structure usually sits as a destination point in the yard rather than against the house. From $6,000 for a 10-by-10 hexagonal cedar kit to $20,000 for a 16-by-16 custom-built octagonal with cedar shake roof. Set on concrete footings; permit required on the larger custom builds.
Gazebo — hexagonal, octagonal, or rectangular, kit or custom
Privacy Screens & Lattice
Cedar slat panels, horizontal-board screens, and traditional lattice for property-line privacy, deck-corner screening, hot-tub enclosures, and trash-can screens. Sizes from a 6-foot-by-8-foot single panel through a 24-foot run along a deck or property line. Slat spacing tunable for the amount of privacy and airflow needed (3/4-inch slats with 3/4-inch gaps for airflow-priority; 1-by-6 boards with 1/4-inch gaps for visual-block-priority). From $1,200 for a 6-by-8 cedar lattice panel set on existing posts to $4,000 for a full 24-foot horizontal-board screen on new 4x4 cedar posts in concrete footings.
Privacy Screens & Lattice — cedar slats, horizontal-board, lattice
Shade Sail Posts & Mounting
The post-and-mounting infrastructure for a shade sail (triangular or rectangular sun-shade fabric) on a residential deck, patio, or yard. We set the cedar or aluminum posts in concrete footings, install marine-grade eye-bolts and turnbuckles, and rig the corner anchors so the homeowner can hang and re-tension the sail seasonally. Shade-sail fabric is bring-your-own — we install the structural rigging. Three- and four-anchor configurations supported. From $800 for a 1-to-3 anchor mounting set on existing posts or eaves to $2,500 for a four-post 6x6 cedar post system in concrete.
Shade Sail Posts & Mounting — anchors, posts, marine-grade hardware
Pergolas & Shade Pricing
Final pricing depends on size, material (cedar vs aluminum louvered), attachment (attached to the house vs freestanding), roof type on covered structures, and the structural permit scope. Each child page lists detailed pricing for that sub-service. Permit fees on attached and covered structures pass through transparently as a named line item. Any line-voltage lighting or fan circuit is invoiced separately by the licensed electrician. Request a free estimate for an accurate quote.
Tell us what you want shaded — the deck, the patio, the hot tub, the property line — and the rough footprint, and we will quote it with the permit and any electrician scope called out separately.
Why Seattle Homeowners Book Handis for Pergolas & Shade
Most Seattle backyards ask for one of two things — a cedar pergola that reads as honest natural wood weathering silver into the rain, or an aluminum louvered system that closes its blades when October arrives and opens them again in June. Both are good answers; they solve different problems. A pergola is open-roof shade infrastructure; you sit under it for the dappled light and the wind break and the visual ceiling, and you accept that rain falls through. A louvered pergola adds the controlled-roof element — the blades pitch shut and shed water through an integrated gutter, then open back up when the sun returns. A covered patio cover is the full step up — a solid roof, a 9-month outdoor room, and a permit pulled because the structure is bearing roof load. Handis runs all three honestly and tells you on the first call which one your yard, your deck, and your budget actually want.
Western Red Cedar on every wood pergola, not pressure-treated pine
We build wood pergolas in Western Red Cedar — heartwood when we can source it, structural-grade clear when we cannot. Cedar is naturally rot-resistant and insect-resistant from the cedar oils in the heartwood, weathers silver instead of greying-then-blackening like pressure-treated pine, and holds its dimensional stability in the PNW wet-dry cycle better than fir or spruce. We do not substitute pressure-treated pine on the visible structure because the green-yellow chemical look does not match what Seattle homeowners want when they say they want a cedar pergola — pressure-treated still goes on hidden ledger blocking against the house and the buried post-base hardware, but the visible 6x6 posts and 4x8 beams are cedar on every job.
Concrete footings sized to PNW wind and frost
Every pergola post on a freestanding structure sits on a concrete footing that is sized to the wind-load and the local freeze-line. Seattle and the Puget Sound area are below the frost line for footing depth (the IRC R403 frost-line minimum is 24 inches in most of King and Snohomish counties, deeper in mountain-adjacent zones), and the wind-load is governed by the IRC + WAC 51-51 amendments. We dig footings with a power auger to 24 to 30 inches depending on the structure size, set the post base in fresh concrete with a Simpson ABA or ABU post-base anchor, and let the concrete cure 48 hours before the post goes up. Footings do not save labor — they save the structure from leaning in the first nor'easter that crosses.
Structural permits on attached and covered structures — Handis pulls and coordinates
Attached pergolas (ledger-bolted to the house), covered patio covers (any solid roof), and most gazebos over 200 square feet require a building permit from the city or county jurisdiction (Seattle, King County, Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland, Sammamish, Mercer Island all have similar but not identical permit thresholds). Handis pulls the permit as the responsible builder, manages the engineer-of-record sign-off when the jurisdiction requires it for the wind-load and snow-load calcs, schedules the inspections, and stays on site for the final occupancy sign-off. The permit fee passes through as a named line item on the quote; we do not mark it up. Freestanding pergolas under 200 square feet often do not require a permit; we confirm the threshold for your specific jurisdiction on the booking call.
Aluminum louvered systems from Struxure, Renson, Equinox, or equivalent
Powder-coated aluminum louvered pergolas come from the established manufacturer line — Struxure, Renson, Equinox, and the higher-end Solara are the lines we install most often in Seattle. Manufacturer warranty stays in force because we are a trained dealer-installer; we do not freelance the install on a manufacturer warranty. Motorized louvers run on low-voltage motors integrated by Handis; any line-voltage feed for the motor controller routes to a licensed Washington L&I electrician on the same job.
Low-voltage lighting by Handis, line-voltage by a licensed electrician
Integrated LED strip in pergola rafters and under-deck lighting at the post bases is low-voltage (12V or 24V) and stays in Handis scope — we install the transformer, run the LV wiring through the cedar posts and rafters with marine-grade staples and gel-fill connectors, and trim the controller into a convenient covered location. Any line-voltage (120V) circuit — ceiling fan, outdoor receptacle, the line-voltage feed for the LV transformer if it does not exist — routes to a licensed Washington L&I electrician as a coordinated subcontract. We name the electrician on the quote so you see the scope and the cost separately.
Insured, background-checked, one-year project warranty on carpentry
Handis carries general liability and workers' compensation; every technician has cleared a background screening before the first job. One-year project warranty covers our carpentry — post-set, beam-raise, rafter install, hardware torque, louver-frame assembly, and finish detailing. Manufacturer warranty on aluminum louvered systems runs 10 to 20 years (varies by line) and is preserved through proper trained-installer protocol. Cedar weathers silver in 12 to 18 months in PNW exposure — that is by design, not a warranty issue, and we explain the weathering trajectory on the booking call.
Estimate
Tell us what you want shaded (deck, patio, yard, hot tub, property-line corner), the rough footprint (a 10-by-12 measurement off the deck or a sketch of where the posts could land), the material preference (Western Red Cedar pergola, aluminum louvered, full covered patio cover with a roof, gazebo, privacy screen, shade-sail post system), whether the structure attaches to the house or stands free, and the budget range. We name the permit scope and any licensed-electrician scope on the estimate so you see the full project cost up front.
What Our Customers Say
Recent pergola and shade reviews from verified Seattle-area customers.
12x14 freestanding cedar pergola over our flagstone patio in Magnolia. Handis dug the four footings with a power auger, set 6x6 cedar posts on Simpson ABU anchors, raised the 4x8 beams with a post jack on a Saturday, and had the rafters trimmed and the chamfer routed on the tails by end of Sunday. Reads exactly like the inspiration photos we showed them. Two summers in and the cedar is right at that silver-grey we wanted.
Aluminum louvered pergola attached to our second floor deck off the master bedroom in Bellevue. The blades open in summer, close in October when the rain returns. Handis ran the structural permit through Bellevue, coordinated the Struxure dealer-install for the louver motor, and the electrician sub trimmed the line-voltage feed. Three days of work, one inspection visit, no surprises.
Covered patio cover over our concrete patio in Kirkland — 14x16 metal-panel roof with integrated gutter tied to the existing downspout. Turned what was a wet-9-months-of-the-year concrete slab into a usable outdoor room we use through October. Handis pulled the Kirkland permit, the inspector signed off on the ledger-to-house attachment, and the rain has not landed on our heads since.
Cedar privacy screen along the property line in our Ballard backyard — neighbor remodeled and the new second-story window looked straight into our hot tub. Handis set new 4x4 cedar posts in concrete, ran a 16-foot horizontal-board screen at 8 feet tall, slats spaced for visual block with airflow. Two days, neat as a furniture build. Hot tub is private again.
Four-post 6x6 cedar shade-sail system over our paver patio in Issaquah. Handis set the four posts in concrete footings, ran the marine-grade eye-bolts and turnbuckles, and rigged the rectangular sail we had already bought. Sail goes up the first weekend of June, comes down the first weekend of October, and the posts read clean as a furniture piece in the off-season.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about Handis pergolas and shade — pricing, permits, materials, the cedar-vs-aluminum decision, lead times, and licensed electrician handoff on lighting circuits.