Rebuilding the fence gates.

Almost exactly a year ago I built the double gates to the backyard. We park our cars out back so we have to drive through these gates everyday.


At the time I thought they were wide enough but I quickly learned that they weren't. My truck was especially tight.

Well now I'm buying a dually. I know that it will never fit through the gate. So yesterday I tore down the old gate and the small piece of fencing next to the house. This will give us over 2' of extra clearance.

The framing for the gates is relatively simple. I did however want to beef the gates up a little more this time so I installed 2 cross braces instead of one.



The small piece of 2x4 in the upper corner is for the upper hinge. Here are the new gates installed. The center boards are missing because I still need to tweak that area to get a perfect fit.

These gates are much more sturdy and solid than the last ones. The extra 2'+ should make driving through them much easier now.

Side yard fence gate

Not much work has been done on the house lately. We went on a camping trip to Northeast Alabama over the weekend. We really need to get the house finished already but my schedule keeps getting more and more busy.

One thing I did accomplish this past Sunday was to build the gate for the fence in the side yard. I still have to devise some way to lock it from the inside and outside. I'm thinking of using a deadbolt of some kind. The first two pictures are from the front, I have not yet removed the bush in front of the gate. The last picture is from the back yard.



The only other thing I accomplished was to hang our new mailbox we found in Alabama, it's a nice cast iron one.


Maybe later on in the week I'll have a post with some real work in it.

More work on the fence

Once again I've had to go back to work on the fence. You may remember last January when I finished the left side of the fence. I tied it in with the chicken wire fence at the back of the property. Then in February I had to add 5 fence panels because our Great Dane realized a chicken wire fence was no match for her. At that time I tied the fence in with the 6' chain link fence.

Well now we've had a few problems with our "lovely" neighbors behind us. Yes, I say that with the most sarcasm possible. The place is some type of shelter or facility. I've never had a problem with them and the dogs pretty much ignored them until someone started bringing kids over. They started antagonizing our dogs though the chain link fence. They would yell and lunge at them, poke sticks through the fence and even throw things at them. My girlfriend and I have both seen this from a window but by the time I get out there they are long gone.

Now of course the dogs wont put up with this type of abuse any more than I will, they've started barking at anything that moves back there. One day the woman that runs the facility has the nerve to yell at me to "get my dogs out of here" and that "I better control my dogs". First of all, my dogs are inside dogs, they are like family to us. They only get to go outside for short periods to play and do their business, and now this woman's going to tell me to control my dogs and get them out of here when they're the ones that antagonized them to begin with??? Second, my dogs are in MY YARD, not hers.

We went back and forth for a few minutes, she said she was going to call animal control, I said be my guest my animals have done nothing wrong. I told her that if I catch anyone provoking my dogs again I would call the police.

I decided to go ahead and finish off the back part of the fence not because I was worried about her or animal control, they can go to hell for all I care, I finished it because I was worried about the safety of our dogs. As nasty as that woman was, I would not put it past her to try to hurt the dogs in some way.

Anyways, now that I've had a chance to vent... here are some fence pictures.

First, here is a picture from last winter showing where I left off last February. On the right you can see the 6' chain link and the neighboring lot beyond:

The next two shots are yesterday after I put the new sections of fence up:



this last picture shows how much of a jungle the back yard has become again. We're going to try to get out there today and cut down the bamboo and clear the area.

side yard steps

I havent done much of anything on the house in the last few weeks. There have been too many other things that have taken my time. I'm hoping to be able to get back to work on the house in the next few days.

The only work accomplished is the steps in the side yard.


These were originally supposed to be brick but I ended up building these in the meantime. I'll be building the gate and installing it hopefully today.

Spring is finally here

It was a beautiful day outside yesterday so once again the guest bathroom floor will have to wait. We took a few pics of the yard. We have a looooong way to go with the landscaping but there are some nice things blooming.

The Wisteria is really starting to bloom, last fall I had to hack a bunch of it back to put the fence in.

Looks like we'll get some figs this year.

This is me in the Maple tree, there was a large dead branch that had fallen on the tree that needed to be removed.

Notice the Oak in the background of the second picture from the bottom. It doesnt look like it from the angle but even as high as I am I'm nowhere near the first branches of the Oak. That is one old, massive tree.

Automatic gate opener install

The automatic gate openers came yesterday, a day early. I went ahead and watched the install DVD just to be sure but everything was pretty straight forward. It was dark by the time I got it running so I'll be finishing the up the little things like cleaning up the wiring and installing the keypad today. Here's a few pictures of the system:



I still have to do some fine tuning. It's a pretty good system, the only thing I dont care for is the noise, it's a bit noisier than I expected. You cant hear it from inside the car though.

I also went to Ikea and bought the oak butcherblock countertops yesterday. I cant wait to install them. Here's a picture of one:

Automatic Fence Openers

Work is slowly progressing on the house. I've finished mudding the master bathroom but I still have to do the final sanding then prime it.


Our driveway gates started sagging so I had to add some bracing to them. I knew I would have to eventually do this when I built them but at the time the priority was just getting them up so we would have a fenced in yard.


The two diagonal boards greatly increase the strength of the gates. We're going to be installing automatic gate openers on the gates soon. Having to get out and open and close the gates anytime you want to go somewhere has become a major pain. Another problem is that when I leave I cant lock the gate from the outside so sometimes the gates blow open from the wind.

We're looking at the Mighty Mule system for the openers. We'll be buying the FM502 kit two extra remote control openers, two push button openers(for inside the house), and a digital keypad. The keypad is nice because you can give family and friends their own PIN number for access. The system is low voltage which is a plus. We'll also be getting two of the push to open adapter brackets since our gates open out.

The system looks like it will be plenty strong, our gates are well below the weight and length limits of the kit. Has anyone had any experience with this brand of gate opener before? Or the website I linked to?

Fence is done... for now.

I completed the 5 fence panels today. That was just enough to tie in with the existing 6' chain-link fence. I'll finish the rest of the fence sometime in March hopefully.


I cant wait 'til spring when we can get out here and landscape the place, it looks like hell right now.

This next picture shows how little room I had when hanging the dogears. It was worth the trouble to get the fence as close to the existing one as possible.


I tied the new fence into the existing 6' fence with a few 2x4's and dogears as you can see in the pictures below. This is temporary and only to keep the "horse" from getting out.

Back to the fence...

I've had to go back to working on the fence for the past few days because our horse who just so happens to look like a dog has realized that the 4 foot chicken wire and barbwire fence at the back of the property is no obstacle for her.


I only have to build 5 sections to cover it but the new fence is less than a foot from the old one so it's real tight when putting up the dogears.

The large tree behind the fence is a pear tree, at least I think it is. It's mentioned as the property corner in the deed for the lot behind us for the last 100 years. The green leaves all over it is ivy.


I found a lot of pottery and china fragments in this corner when digging for the fence. I'm not sure if they are from the original kitchen from our house or if they are from the old kitchen from the Planters Inn. It seems a bit far back to have been our kitchen. I'm not sure where the kitchen for the old Planters Inn was but it could have been in this area, the old barn was.


I hope to finish this up today and get back to work on the upstairs hall.

Installation of the fence gates

We've been working on the fence for the last 2 days. Last night for the first time the dogs were able to run in the back yard!

Yesterday we finished the front right fence.






We covered the gate opening with plywood until we can get the gate built. The neighbor has allowed us to tie our fence into his house as the property line is about 1' from his house.

The top of the wall will be landscaped and I'm going to build a set of brick steps with some of our reclaimed brick. We're going to build 2 small gates instead of one big one in this opening. On the other side of this the bush that is in the way will be transplanted and we'll be building an arbor in between the bushes on either side.

We're also going to fence in the HVAC compressors.

The fence here will only be 3 1/2' high. You can see the hole in the foreground where the post will go. I'll build some type of small gate into it for access.

Today we worked on the main gates on the left side of the house.




We still need to finish the finials, install the handles, the bar that goes into the ground, and figure out some way to lock it from either side.

We were able to get a pretty seamless fit but I'm going to have to do a little reinforcing of the posts, the gates are pretty heavy. I'm going to use lag bolts to bolt the one post to the side of the house.

We're going to finish up a few things on the gates tomorrow morning then we're going to start in on the breakfast room floor... finally!!

More fence pics

Well we didnt get the fence finished today but we came close. We finished putting up the dog ears on the one section and we started the small section on the right side of the house.




Here is the small section on the right side of the house.

<-----Street Backyard------->

The fence is on top of a 4' old brick retaining wall. we've set the fence back a few feet from the wall to allow room for plants. There is going to be a 4' gate in this section of fence, you can see the opening for it right after the first fence section. To allow access to the gate we'll be removing one of the bushes, building a trellis between the bushes, and building a set of brick stairs at the wall.

Backyard fence update

We worked on the fence again yesterday in between the rain drops.





This section going down the left side of the house(from the front) is about 175' long. We're rushing to finish this section and the section that comes off the right side of the house. Once those are done we'll be able to let the dogs out instead of having to walk them all the time. We're hoping to get them done today.

The rest of the perimeter has chain-link and chicken-wire fences from the neighbors. I'll eventually be putting our fence up along those fences but that will have to wait. I really need to get back upstairs and finish the bedrooms so the floor guys can refinish the second floor.

Here's a nice panorama shot of about 3/4 of our backyard.