Sunday, April 15, 2012

En Garde

Get it? En garde. Fencing. And this post is about our fence.

Good one. Right?

I'll give you a moment to collect yourself from that knee slapper.

So our fence is now officially finished. It's nothing fancy, but it's not going to fall over if you sneeze or even think about looking at it.

Before: Left side

You'll notice half the fence has rotted away.  Very classy looking.

After: Left side

Ta DA! Now we have a big almost 6ft wide gate on this side.  This gate is so big I can barely open and close it.  It's nice to have a wide gate.  You never know when you might need it. 

 Too bad half the giant lilies got trampled on.  If they come up next year,  I'll have to find a place to transplant them. 

Before: Right side

This side wasn't nearly as bad as the other one.  But the gate was just awful.  The door was too low to the ground, so in the winter the door would freeze itself into the mud.  It also had no latch.  And no handle.  The wood was so rotted that it would fall off after a few uses.  Last year I got tired of reattaching it so I just left it off.

After: Right side

The new gate opens the other way, I'm not sure why. Builder's choice I guess. Now it has a handle, and here's the cool part, the gates can only be locked and unlocked from the inside. Seems more secure this way to me.

I didn't take a picture of the back because the guys who put it up came over and had it down before I realized I should snap some pics.  You'll have to take my word that it was pretty rotten, visually and literally.  I mean one of our neighbor's tree's had grown into the fence.  That doesn't do much for the structural integrity of the fence.

It's nice to actually have privacy.  Before you could totally see the neighbors through the rotted gaps in the fence.

The fence is far from perfect, and a few people asked if we were going to paint it.  I like it the natural light color.  Sealing it only darkened it minimally.   I'm sure it will get darker with age, but I'm going to enjoy it the way it is for now.  The backyard seems so much brighter than it did before.  I guess getting rid of a huge grey run down mess will do that!

3 comments:

  1. We have a wooden fence that is on its last legs. We're replacing it this summer with chain link. I think wood looks so much homier, but with the chain link there's no maintenance, so we're going with it. Your new fence looks pretty!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Looks beautiful! We added some new fencing last spring! Don't you love how it spruces up the property! Have a wonderful week!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I wished chain link was an option for us. My husband nixed that idea. One of our neighbor's has a lab, cutest thing, but could hop a chain link fence like nobody's business. Three out of 4 of our neighbors we share property lines with have wood fences too. Hubby thought it would be ugly and might cause problems if we went with something other than wood.

    ReplyDelete

Please leave me a little comment. Comments are like candy. Tasty tasty validating candy!