14 DIY Attached Pergola Plans to Frame the Perfect Doorway Shade

An attached pergola is a different animal from its freestanding cousin. The structure ties into your house, which means the engineering, the waterproofing, and the risk profile all change. Done right, an attached pergola frames a doorway or patio with the permanence of architecture; done wrong, it leaks into your wall. I've built and inspected enough of these to separate the plans that work from the ones that look good on paper. Here are fourteen, organized by what they're for.

Family One: Classic Ledger-Board Plans (2 Plans)

Plan one: the standard 8×10 wall-mount. The workhorse design — two posts, a ledger board bolted to the house wall, support beams spanning between, rafters, slats. The plan's quality lives in the ledger detail: a 2×8 bolted to the house framing with 1/2-inch lag screws at 16-inch spacing, flashed with Z-flashing so water can't travel behind it. This plan suits the back door with a small patio, costs $300–$500 in cedar, and takes a confident weekend.

Plan two: the full-width patio cover. The scaled-up version — 12–16 feet wide, three posts instead of two, heavier beams (2×10) carrying a longer rafter span. This plan covers the full patio adjacent to the house and reads as a permanent extension of the architecture. $600–$1,200 in materials. The critical detail in any plan this size: the post footings must be genuinely independent of the patio slab, because a pergola supported by a floating slab will rack out of square within two winters.

Family Two: Doorway Entry Canopies (4 Plans)

Plan three: the single-door mini-pergola. A 4×4-foot frame over one door — two short posts or wall-mounted brackets, a small beam, four rafters. The purpose is visual framing: a trellis that announces the entrance and hosts a climbing rose. $150–$300 in cedar, a one-day build. The plan detail that matters: if the frame mounts to the wall rather than standing on posts, the brackets must land in the wall studs, found with a stud finder and confirmed by test drilling.

Plan four: the garage-door pergola. The design that flatters a flat garage front — a pergola beam across the garage door with three or four vertical posts and rafter tails, usually purely decorative and sized to the door opening. This plan is a carpentry project more than a structure: the pieces are light, the cuts are visible, and the finish quality carries the result. $200–$400.

Plan five: the front-porch eyebrow. A small curved or angled canopy over the entry door, between the classic portico and the full porch cover. The plan involves laminated curved rafters or angled-cut framing — more advanced joinery, but the effect is a genuine architectural upgrade on a plain entry. $300–$600. Choose this plan if your door lacks shelter and your building style tolerates a visible frame; it's the doorway pergola with the strongest curb-appeal return.

Plan six: the sliding-door cover. The wide, shallow canopy over a patio slider — posts set on the patio corners farthest from the house, ledger high on the wall, a shallow-sloped rafter grid. The plan must account for the door's swing and screen track: the rafters sit high enough (8 feet minimum) that the door clears, and the posts land where the door doesn't want to be. $400–$700.

Family Three: Patio-Cover Extension Designs (5 Plans)

Plan seven: the lean-to. The simplest attached roof — a single-slope frame from the wall out to a beam on two posts, rafters running the slope. With slats only, it's an open pergola; the same frame accepts polycarbonate panels for genuine rain cover. $350–$700. The engineering note that separates good lean-to plans from bad: the slope. A minimum 2-inch drop per foot of run, or the structure reads as crooked and sheds nothing.

Plan eight: the gable-roof pergola. The pitched version — a ridge beam parallel to the house, rafters rising from the wall ledger to the ridge, open slats on the slopes. The gable breaks the flat-roof monotony of most attached designs and fits gabled houses architecturally. $600–$1,100. This is intermediate framing — the ridge must be supported at both ends and the rafter cuts are compound.

Plan nine: the L-shaped corner wrap. The plan for patios that wrap a corner — two connected pergola sections, one along the house wall, one perpendicular, sharing a corner post. This is the most design-forward of the standard plans and the most demanding on layout: the corner must be genuinely square or the two sections fight each other visibly. $700–$1,400.

Plan ten: the narrow side-yard pergola. A long, slim structure down a side passage — a run of rafters between the house wall and a beam on a post line. The plan solves the house's most wasted space, turning a 6-foot corridor into a covered walk with shade planting. $300–$600. The detail that matters: side-yard footings sit close to the house foundation, so dig carefully and check for underground utilities before augering.

Plan eleven: the dining-deep cover. The full outdoor-room plan — 12×14 or larger, engineered for a dining table and lighting beneath, with the rafter spacing tightened for denser shade. This plan includes the electrical conduit runs through the posts, junction boxes in the beams, and the mounting points for lights. $800–$1,500 plus electrical. Choose this plan only if you're wiring at the same time; retrofitting electrical into a finished pergola costs triple.

Family Four: Hybrid Attached-Freestanding Frames (3 Plans)

Plan twelve: the post-and-a-half. The structure that stands on its own posts near the house but ties back with a single wall bracket for lateral stability — mostly freestanding, technically attached. This plan sidesteps the ledger flashing problem entirely while keeping the visual connection to the house. $400–$800. The honest appeal: if your wall cladding is brick, stucco, or EIFS, this is the plan that avoids drilling into it.

Plan thirteen: the twin-frame. Two freestanding pergola frames connected by rafters that span to the house wall without loading it — the wall connection carries no weight, only alignment. A clever plan for houses where the framing can't be found reliably (masonry construction, unclear stud layout). $500–$900.

Plan fourteen: the arbor-bridge. A plan for the doorway path — a series of smaller arbor frames running from the gate to the door, forming a covered walk with climbing plants. Neither one pergola nor several, but a sequence. The build is simple; the planting is the project. $250–$600 in structures, then the roses.