How Easy Is It To Install Costco's Gazebo Kit (& Is It Worth It)?

When you want a gazebo for your backyard, you typically can select among pre-built units, custom builds, and kits that you assemble yourself. It's usually cheaper to DIY a backyard gazebo, although gazebo kit prices can be highly competitive. The custom-built option from a professional is the most expensive.

Building a gazebo yourself is a big job, requiring you to work with large pieces of wood and to take precise measurements. If you think you'll struggle with making the required cuts and with buying the right supplies and the correct number of them, you may want to consider purchasing a kit. It should come with all the parts and fasteners you need to do the work, but it usually will not have any flooring. Regardless of whether you're building the gazebo from scratch or using a kit, you'll probably have to pour a concrete pad or put down a gravel pad to make a sturdy, level base.

If you want to consider a kit, Home Depot and Lowe's have good deals on gazebo kits. However, if you're a member of the Costco membership warehouse, you know you can receive great deals on home products you buy at Costco. The warehouse retailer has DIY assembly gazebo kits that typically cost from $1,000 to $5,000. Are Costco gazebo kits easy to assemble, and should you do the work yourself? While the gazebo may be worth it, the assembly isn't easy.

One of Costco's most popular gazebo kits is the Yardistry 12-by-12-foot model, which costs $1,899.99. This price includes curbside delivery, but it does not include assembly. Should you try assembling this gazebo kit yourself? Most of Costco's gazebo kits have a similar assembly process, so we'll describe the assembly for this product, giving you a feel for the work required on any model you pick. Before starting, we should mention that the product will arrive at your home in three boxes that weigh almost 500 pounds collectively. If you cannot handle moving this kind of weight, consider hiring a pro.

After creating a level pad for the build, you can begin working on the wood frame. The main support posts are 7-by-7-inch posts and are almost 8 feet in length. Several other beams are 6 feet in length. It can be very difficult for one person to carry and move these posts and beams into place. To fasten and connect these posts and beams, you'll be working with screws and bolts ranging from about an inch long to 10 inches long. It takes a lot of force to drive screws and bolts of this length.

The aluminum roof is challenging to assemble, too. It has sharp edges, and you could cut yourself. The material will show dents and scratches if you drop it during assembly. Over-tightening the screws on the aluminum could cause it to crush down. The roof is heavy and the panels may be hard to control in the wind. 

Customer reviews on the Costco website give the Yardistry model a favorable ranking of 4.6 stars out of 5. Many reviewers cited the ease of assembly, but several others said the job was challenging. One reviewer suggested having three people available to help, especially when lifting the heavy roof panels into place. Another reviewer counted 900 screws and bolts in the kit, calling the assembly "extremely difficult." A 73-year-old reviewer said assembly "is not for the faint of heart."

Ultimately, after sampling dozens of reviews that mentioned the assembly, we would recommend not doing the work alone. You need to be organized and willing to read the directions to have success. It likely will take several hours to complete. We'd compare it to assembling a piece of DIY furniture on a significantly larger scale.

If you don't know how to create a concrete or gravel pad that's completely level, hire a pro. One Costco reviewer mentioned that having a perfectly level pad is a necessity to keep the unit square during assembly. You will need a step ladder and basic tools like a power drill and a ratchet with sockets or a wrench set. If you don't already own these tools and if you'll probably never use them again, you might hire a pro instead of spending money on the tools. For people who feel intimidated by large DIY projects, hiring a pro to assemble the gazebo kit is probably smart. Expect to pay $700 to $1,400 for a pro's help.