Archive for the ‘exterior’ Category

Front Fence

Thursday, December 9th, 2010

After we rehabbed the side yard fence I started to consider what could be done about the ugly broken down fences in the front yard. Unfortunately, these are not salvageable and whatever design is chosen it needs to be sympathetic to the slatted redwood screen, provide privacy, be easily DIY’d and be cheap.

While perusing RO/LU’s landscaping projects I stumbled on a fence idea that I enjoyed very much. It appears that they used 6×6″ posts that are held in place by 3/4″ steel rods with a spacer between. The things I love about this?

-No ugly side.
-Steel doesn’t rot.
-Easy to build. (I think).

This idea sort of fits all my criteria and could be adapted for the 16′ run on the side of the house, as well as a division between the cat neighbor and us. Hooray. Problem solved? Right?

Um. NO.

So, 6×6″ redwood is not what I would call standard in any way. I called around and got a quote for $126 for ONE ten footer. YIKES. Seeing as I needed 22, that’s almost 3K in just wood for one section of fence. No thanks.

Here are my three fence design ideas. Floating in spaaaacccceeee.

6×6″ option. I love you. You will not happen, unless someone has a clever idea about where to get 6×6″ redwood for cheap.

4×4″ option. Hmmmm. I am not loving you. I think you are too busy and I like the beefy of the 6×6″. You need 32 4×4″ posts plus 1/2″ spacers. You will cost something like $300.

1×12″ option. You were my very first idea. I liked you, I just did not like that you had an ugly side.

You need five 4×4″ posts to keep you in place and then they are all naked for the world to see. I got some quotes on you and you will be about $300 in materials.

What do you guys think? Remember, from our backyard we will see this:

Plus you will be really close to the fence while lounging in the stock tank pool. Also, we need privacy for swim time.

And the front will be important since it dictates the little side fence and will be the backdrop for our minimal landscaping and we got to show off that sexy sail.

Modern fences. Why must you be so complicated?

FILED UNDER: exterior, fence, question, sketchup

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Fence Mending

Monday, November 22nd, 2010

Our side yard fence was physically falling apart, which meant that we were using metal rods to hold it upright and boards fell off every time the wind kicked up. A board would fall down, we’d screw it back up, the posts would slump over and we would prop them up, seriously, we put up with this crap for almost three years.

The cause of the deterioration was the rotted off bottoms of the support posts and the poorly chosen nails that secured the boards in place. Both issues equaled ghetto failing fence.

We couldn’t afford to replace the entire thing, so in order to keep things budget friendly, we reused almost all of the weathered fence boards and just replaced the support structure.

That meant that we had to carefully disassemble the fence and install new 4×4″ posts. We called Carpenter Craig to come help since he just finished a big mending fencing project at his new house and had the skills and tools to help.

Digging post holes by hand? BLOWS.

Of course we hand dug all the holes, centered our posts and then Quikreted them into place.

Then the horizontal supports went into place. We just followed the design of the rest of the fence, nothing to exciting design wise.

Removing all of the boards (and all the nails) also blew. We had to be really careful since we needed the wood to be reinstalled. Four nails a board + a couple hundred boards is a whole lot of tetanus to avoid. Filthy dirty tedious work.

After all the wood was prepped, we strung a string line from the existing fence top to keep everything even and cohesive. Totally rocket science. Then we started screwing up the fence boards with some deck screws. Totally tedious.

One of our curious neighbors came over to watch. He tends to come over and watch while we do projects…and drink our beer. Lend a hand dude!

Speaking of neighbors…

So, the cat hoarding guy who lives next door (who shares the fence with us) didn’t want to chip in $100 to help pay for half the materials. We already said we would do the labor, and he still hasn’t paid for some work The Boy did over at his house when the city threatened to fine him, so we didn’t have much hope. But still, its kind of the principle of the thing.

Anyway, while we were working on the fence, weird neighbor guy’s ex(?) wife ran through the back yard and jumped on a chair to climb through the back window into the house. It was so unexpected and strange that I think she was really surprised to see us standing there. That’s the chair on the left. On the right is the pack of feral kitties staring as we worked. I can’t even begin to explain how much cat poop is all over our yard. Ungodly amounts of cat crap.

So anyways, it gets super dark very early now, so we had to postpone putting up the rest of the boards till the next day…

…and on the next day it was all about screwing fence boards up. It took a long time and was not exciting.

But then it was done! Check out the after compared to the before. NO MORE METAL RODS. It stands up all by itself! It’s a fencing miracle.

I am amazed by how satisfying it is just to have an upright fence. Not even an awesome horizontal slat fence, just solid, upright and private fence.

Oh yeah, we gave ourselves the nice side since we paid for it all, did all the labor and were covered in cat shit for our troubles.

It only cost about $200 to do the full repair and took two days. Not bad, if I do say so.

Now the perfect and professional shade sail doesn’t look so out of place next to our crappy wonky fence. I’m not sure if I want to finish the weathered boards. We were discussing some sort of opaque stain, but I think I kind of like it all aged and beat up. Something to think about for sure.

Solid as a rock. Straight as an arrow. Something something total cliche.

FILED UNDER: after, before, DIY, exterior, fence

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Shade Sail, Part 2

Tuesday, November 16th, 2010

The second shade sail now flying high above the side yard is a different type of installation from the lace-on version installed near the fire pit. This version is what I would consider to be the more traditional style of a sail, at least in terms of design and the support structure.

Check out the SketchUp model of the sail below.

Very nice if I do say so. I updated it a bit to reflect some changes to the fence and bar area. I cannot wait to landscape…

The heavy duty brackets that attach to the cement brick of the house were custom fabricated at Shade Industries. Basically, they are steel plates that have been powder-coated white with a large steel eyelet that serves as the attachment point for the turnbuckle. The brackets need to be incredibly strong in order to hold the tension on the sail and withstand our nutty desert wind.

Patrick pre-drilled holes with a hard core hammer drill outfitted with a cement drill bit and then inserted big bolts to hold the mounting plates on the wall.

Here they are mounted and ready for installation. Of course I picked white so that the brackets would blend in with the exterior paint.

We dug out two 3′ deep by about 2′ wide holes that would be used to install the steel poles on the opposite side of the yard. Look at all the luscious grass – it has really been a wet fall, creating lots of weedy problems.

Digging holes sucks, but really anyone can do it. Installing the poles turned out to be surprisingly easy as well.

Patrick has an awesome method for mixing small batches of Quikrete. Use one big blue tarp, a bucket of water and two manly dudes to mix it up.

Take the tarp and shake it back and forth. Totally works and makes perfect cement really quickly. I’m much more excited to pour cement after we did this and found it to be super effective.

Then just dump your mixed Quikrete in the pole hole. Fill it up so that thing won’t ever move.

Instead of going perfectly plumb with the poles, you want to lean the poles back slightly to counteract the tension of the shade.

Once all the brackets and poles were installed, Patrick measured out the dimensions for the shade. Measuring on site, after all the mounting hardware is up, alleviates any nagging worries and assures that the shade will be a perfect custom fit.

About a week or so later, the shade was all sewed up and ready to be installed. It only took about an hour to put up and is a fairly simple process. There are four turnbuckles that hook on to a steel ring at each corner as well as steel cable that runs around the edge of the shade.

Start installing the shade by attaching one corner and then work your way around. Easy peasy.

Sad shade. Happy shade.

Once the shade is attached at all four corners the turnbuckles get evenly tightened and the steel edge cable is pulled taught. After it is completely stretched that thing is tighter than a drum. You really need to make sure your mounting areas are rock solid!

DONE.

This version is a little less laborious (in terms of installation) compared to the lace-on version, but the parts are much more custom and a tad more difficult to source. Installing four poles in the ground would be a fairly simple DIY project, just make sure they are heavy duty galvanized steel. You wouldn’t want them to collapse and bend in the middle after a big wind. I would probably source these type of heavy gauge poles at a local metal supply. We bought our hot rolled steel for the fire pit at a local industrial metal supply and found it to be a really  amazing place as well as very affordable – plus there is so much cool stuff to look at…I need to go back.

It turned out so perfectly and is a million times better than I ever hoped for. I LOVE IT. Love love love. Overflowing with love and appreciation and happiness. Patrick is the shade sail whisperer for sure.

Too bad the landscaping is less than lovely right now, but all in due time I guess. I feel like Patrick’s incredible shade sail handiwork is lessened by the ghetto grass and fence. Must amend that very soon, 2010 is coming to an end…

I’m also super embarrassed of the unfinished porch, in my defense it has been less than ideal painting weather. Really, this sail needs to be shown off from the front of the house to illustrate its super dramatic curvy sexiness. These new dark sails really take the exterior up a big notch, making me rethink the rest of the landscape design. I mean it really needs to be amazing to match how cool these turned out. The big swooping bad boy definitely causes me to stare every time I drive by. I drool and then immediately curse the fence, unfinished porch and lack of landscape.

If you have any questions about shade sails, have an idea you might like to discuss, or need a quote – go ahead and contact Patrick Howe directly via email or Shade Industries.

Thank you Patrick, you are the best!

FILED UNDER: after, DIY, exterior, fence, fire pit, landscape, shade sail, sketchup, tutorial

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