fencing for privacy
since the engagement in nov 06, much has happened, part of which has kept me away from this website. suffice it to say, with the upcoming wedding in august 07, and the number of expected guests staying at the house rising, i have put in a lot of time and work into sprucing the place up, with ample help from my fiance, c.
back tracking a little just to catch up with the progress of said work, let's start in february 07 when c decided to buy a gas grill with the home depot giftcards that he got for xmas. since then it has been a delight and i cannot imagine life without a grill in the mountain west summers any more. but with the purchase of the grill, initially, came the concern of being out in the tiny backyard with a half-fence on the northeastern side of the house that's right by a high-traffic road. so first step was to increase privacy so that we could actually be in the backyard, out of sight of prying eyes.
in march, quite unexpectedly, a student from the college's hortculture department approached me with an intent to use my yard for her final year project (i had put my name on the list of interested homeowners in the hope that someday some bright, hardworking student would alight from the skies and deliver me from my landscaping travails) so i put her to the task. at the time, i did not want to spend money on new fencing, so i asked her to be creative with the design and in an hgtv sort of way, think of a low-cost alternative. the usual discussion about arbovitaes ensued but i did not want to wait several years to watch those ugly plants grow into a screen. i pitched the idea of reed screens to her. she incorporated them into her design. i even went and bought three 6 by 15 feet pieces that we would install with rebar, but luckily, good sense kicked in soon after: one winter/spring is all it would take for the $130 investment to disintegrate in this weather. i began to make phone calls to fencing companies.
casey was the third guy to call and his bid came in the lowest but more importantly, he is the only one who showed interest and sounded polite, in a very old-fashioned way, on the phone. i gave him the job. he wanted 70% down before he began work and although unsettling, i could see why. he did not run away with the check. and now, i have a beautiful new fence that allows us to grill and have nice, quiet dinners on teh back patio whenever we want. $670 well-spent (fence length 44 ft.). i had budgeted $500 for the job but at the time, was not aware that removing old fence to install new one is more expensive in some ways, because you have to dig up the stakes and the concrete bases which you have to take to the landfill to dispose of at a fee (which in my particular case was $125!). had some special issues to deal with since my house is on a corner lot. had to call zoning dept to find out about something known as the 'clear vision triangle' regulation, which stipulates that a privacy fence cannot be more than 4 ft tall upto 40 ft from nearest intersection.
fence before
(the hideous arbovitae in the left corner is no more (photo: august 05)
fence after
(photo taken on 25 may 07 when we inaugurated the 5-piece patio set, bought for $79 from homedepot)
the new fence got a fresh coat of stain. the previous owner had left me 3 cans of stain (true cedar, oilbased, 'woodtech') and a sprayer which c put to good use. he is no expert in homeownership either but at least i didnot have to lug the heavy sprayer around with me and get oily stain all over my hands and clothes. we ran out of stain and to finish the south side of the house, had to buy one extra can from home depot. it sucked. it progressively thickened on us and sprayed unevenly through out, finally running out before we had covered one third the length of the back fence. never again. if we re-stain, we will leave no stone unturned to find woodtech brand - it went on like a charm.
back tracking a little just to catch up with the progress of said work, let's start in february 07 when c decided to buy a gas grill with the home depot giftcards that he got for xmas. since then it has been a delight and i cannot imagine life without a grill in the mountain west summers any more. but with the purchase of the grill, initially, came the concern of being out in the tiny backyard with a half-fence on the northeastern side of the house that's right by a high-traffic road. so first step was to increase privacy so that we could actually be in the backyard, out of sight of prying eyes.
in march, quite unexpectedly, a student from the college's hortculture department approached me with an intent to use my yard for her final year project (i had put my name on the list of interested homeowners in the hope that someday some bright, hardworking student would alight from the skies and deliver me from my landscaping travails) so i put her to the task. at the time, i did not want to spend money on new fencing, so i asked her to be creative with the design and in an hgtv sort of way, think of a low-cost alternative. the usual discussion about arbovitaes ensued but i did not want to wait several years to watch those ugly plants grow into a screen. i pitched the idea of reed screens to her. she incorporated them into her design. i even went and bought three 6 by 15 feet pieces that we would install with rebar, but luckily, good sense kicked in soon after: one winter/spring is all it would take for the $130 investment to disintegrate in this weather. i began to make phone calls to fencing companies.
casey was the third guy to call and his bid came in the lowest but more importantly, he is the only one who showed interest and sounded polite, in a very old-fashioned way, on the phone. i gave him the job. he wanted 70% down before he began work and although unsettling, i could see why. he did not run away with the check. and now, i have a beautiful new fence that allows us to grill and have nice, quiet dinners on teh back patio whenever we want. $670 well-spent (fence length 44 ft.). i had budgeted $500 for the job but at the time, was not aware that removing old fence to install new one is more expensive in some ways, because you have to dig up the stakes and the concrete bases which you have to take to the landfill to dispose of at a fee (which in my particular case was $125!). had some special issues to deal with since my house is on a corner lot. had to call zoning dept to find out about something known as the 'clear vision triangle' regulation, which stipulates that a privacy fence cannot be more than 4 ft tall upto 40 ft from nearest intersection.
(the hideous arbovitae in the left corner is no more (photo: august 05)
(photo taken on 25 may 07 when we inaugurated the 5-piece patio set, bought for $79 from homedepot)
the new fence got a fresh coat of stain. the previous owner had left me 3 cans of stain (true cedar, oilbased, 'woodtech') and a sprayer which c put to good use. he is no expert in homeownership either but at least i didnot have to lug the heavy sprayer around with me and get oily stain all over my hands and clothes. we ran out of stain and to finish the south side of the house, had to buy one extra can from home depot. it sucked. it progressively thickened on us and sprayed unevenly through out, finally running out before we had covered one third the length of the back fence. never again. if we re-stain, we will leave no stone unturned to find woodtech brand - it went on like a charm.
