Fence It In!

This weekend we spent a lot of time outside (A little too much perhaps, or too long without sunscreen, I got my fourth ever sunburn that hurts! It only hurts a little bit, but still never my intention. I prefer the tan and no sunburning, but ah well).

We now have a fence for our garden AND a fence to protect the backyard flower garden too!

After 4 trips to Home Depot, $300, and about 13 hours outside the building is complete!

We had to build a fence around the garden in order to actually be able to plant anything without the dogs digging it up or trampling it.

You may recall my original plan to build a fence about 3 feet out from the garden here. Well we were getting ready to do that and start moving the rocks so that we could dig holes for the posts (nothing purchased by this point), when Dylan suggested we just attach the posts to the garden. The hard part is that our yard is REALLY not level, so we essentially would have probably needed to put up a retaining wall to build the fence. But since we already have the level retaining wall for the garden, why not take advantage of that? I asked Dylan if we would  be alright to move around and plant enough stuff in the garden and he said he'd be more than fine.

Saturday morning we headed to Home Depot. We were getting stuff for the fence, plus stuff to enhance the soil in the garden, plus other gardening tools including a tiller and fencing to protect my irises. We had to use three different carts and ending up buying everything in two sets (everything else and then the lumber) so that we would be able to move around the store and out to the car. We had all of the wood (excluding the slats, which we didn't buy until Sunday) cut by Home Depot, and they didn't even charge us for cutting it, which was really nice of them!

Second trip: Lumber!

Gotta love the SUV to carry everything!

Saturday we got through the frame! We used brackets and melding posts or something to attach the posts to the retaining wall and then screwed on the 2x4s. We learned that it is important to keep the drill charged and that screwing into cedar isn't especially fun.

Looking cool in my hardware apron (Actually from when we did agility training with Freya!)

Fence as of the end of Saturday

Sunday I actually slept in until 9! We headed over to Home Depot to get the slats for the fence, nails for those and some more fencing for the flower garden.

Things we learned Sunday: That when it says 2x4, it's not actually 2 inches wide or 4 inches long, apparently that is the pre-cut size and then you lose a half inch by the time it is actually at the store to be purchased. So when we bought the slats, I didn't know this and it turns out they are only 3 1/2 inches wide. So we had to go back to Home Depot for the fourth time and get two more slats.

End result:

View from the deck.

Up front view.

Oooo Pretty fence!

Show you the brackets we used on the inside.

And a latch for the gate! To get the best coverage we cut the top off of one of the slats.

Ta da! Dylan and I can build fences! Total cost for this was about $200. Not too shabby. I am especially glad Dylan is a genius and pointed out we could just build on the garden walls instead of need to go a further couple steps and digs for posts, use cement, and add an extra 4 or so feet of costs. 

We also put together a fence for around the iris garden so the plants would stop getting smooshed.

We bought the wire fencing, then realized that wouldn't likely be enough with the dogs wrestling, so we found the green "posts" to help sturdy the fence a little bit. You can see help of the garden is empty, that is where my stupid marigolds were. They have been raked up and then tilled. Something else less evasive is will be going there once spring gets going some more.

I am so proud of my projects! We still have a lot to do, but it is getting there. Our neighbors will be re-doing the fence we share, so after that (which will be after Italy) we will remove the rocks and sod that side of the yard! We are hoping to use our tax refund for the deck, so we may end up like 90% of the way done with our yard these next couple months!