Fence installed

This weekend I made more progress on the potager. I installed appox. 38' section of fence that borders the south property line. Next up is to finish the fence trim and begin building raised vegetable beds. Hopefully I'll get at least a few of the beds in before the rain season starts. That'll help me get started with the 2011 growing season as early as possible.

From 2010 Landscape

One gate down

Completed the new garden gate to compliment the section of fence I finished a couple of weeks ago. Went with the same vertical slat style as the rest of our fence, but with a little embellishment on the top to help distinguish between what is fence and what is a gate.

From The Making of a Craftsman Home

Overall, a very simple design. I used a frame and panel design using lap joints to hold the frame together. I cheated on the skinny short slats that appear to protrude through the cross member :-) In fact, they do not. I considered cutting mortises, but then decided I'd like to get the project done in a day. Who will know besides for me and all the readers of this blog? Next step is to find attractive hinges and to mount. I've been looking at the extensive hinge selection at Van Dykes.

Happy to have this gate done. I have about 5 more to build in total, and I'm not sure when I'll get them all done. The design of this one was quite simple, so at least I'll know how to do it when the time comes.

Front Fence

Sometime during the month of October we mostly finished the craftsman style fence along the front of our property. This fence has been in the plans for awhile, and we actually nailed the panels together for the project last winter. Since then, the panels had been sitting in the wood shop taking up valuable space so we decided it was time to put it all together.

The fence is complimentary to the fence we built last year that runs alongside our property line. We decided to go with a vertical panel arranged in a wide-skinny-skinny fashion to compliment the siding on our house. We went with a shorter four feet front fence since we wanted it to add structural value, but not be overbearing. In other words, we're trying to avoid the compound effect.

So why the fence? In our area, it is normal to let your dogs run wild. Most of the dogs end up in our yard (since we don't have a large dog to chase them off) and leave behind not-so-nice prizes. So, we decided to build a privacy fence to keep out the dogs, and to add some architectural appeal to the front of our property. As you can see from the pictures, the front of our property is lined with two grand evergreen trees which hide the house and it's detail from the street. The fence adds some needed architectural detail, and exudes our craftsman home theme.

From The Making of a Craftsman Home

The fence features an opening for a walk through gate, and a gate across the driveway. I have yet to build them, but hopefully I'll have time to get to that project this winter. Eventually, the plan is to build a brick sidewalk that runs across the front yard and connects the front door with the walk-through gate. Will be a nice addition when it's all done.

We left the posts tall, and are trying to determine if we want to add a horizontal trellis across the front, or other structural details. I have all winter to stare out the window and contemplate the direction to take this project.

From The Making of a Craftsman Home

It was Summer last Week

With the teasing introduction to summer we've had here, our interior projects have slowed in favor of exterior projects.





We have started to dig a pond just off the deck, and are using the fill dirt to build up the area our waterfall will cascade down from. We used concrete chunks to build up a retaining wall against our North property fence. Once the mound of dirt is finished, the concrete wall will not be visible. Our new pond is much bigger than our old pond in Seattle, which was constructed out of an old water bed frame that we found. Our new pond will reach a maximum depth of 3 feet, and is approximately 20 feet long and 12 feet wide. Once it's all done, it will be decorated in with large rocks, plants and landscaping.

Boe whipped out 54 feet of the fence on Memorial day he's been planning for awhile. There are a couple of items remaining to complete the fence. He's going to add two cross horizontal pieces of trim boards onto the front of the fence to give it a more finished look. Then, he has to install the horizontal cross sections between the lentils at the top. And finally, he's going to trim in the trellis sections between the fence panels, which are made out of steel rock-sorting grates that I picked up from Second Use. All in all, we're very pleased with the outcome of the fence. Once it's finished off with landscaping and vines, it'll be a real masterpiece.