Apr 14 2008
New Fence
On a Saturday several weeks ago, I was working on a project in the garage. It was rather cold and windy outside. I heard a sound that I have only heard a few times before and I knew instantly what it was. It was just a matter of finding out where the tree fell. I knew that it had to be close because I heard it over the noise of a saw from inside a closed garage.
Sure enough, a large pine tree on the side of our yard had fallen into the neighbor’s yard. The tree was so tall that neighbors from the other cul-de-sac came over because they had seen it fall. Luckily the only damage that was done was to my fence. Had it fallen ten feet to the left it would have taken out a corner of the neighbor’s house.
The next week I had several tree removal companies visit the house to give me an estimate to remove the downed tree. I was shocked at the prices that were in the range of $500. While at work one day I learned that because of previous bad storms in the area, the County was picking up trees that were on the side of the street. The only problem was that the trees had to be at the curb by the next day. So, I took the rest of the day off work and went to Home Depot and rented a chainsaw.
This was my first experience with a chainsaw. I didn’t realize how fast a pine tree can go through a blade. I had cut up all of the limbs and about half of the tree when the chainsaw stopped cutting. I called my brother-in-law who came over after work and sharpened the blade. Together, we hauled the tree to the curb and I saved myself a lot of money. And Chris for his hard work was reward with a Home Depot gift card that averaged out to just over minimum wage payment for his help.
With the tree removed the next job was to replace the fence. I had been considering this as a potential home improvement project for several months so I wasn’t as upset about the broken fence as one might have thought. Again, after seeing the estimates to replace the fence, which were over $2,000, I decided to do the job myself. I did some research online and based upon the materials that were available I decided an 8′ fence with a 2′ lattice on top would serve the look that I was after.
I took a full day off work and started building. Zippy (my 1997 Jeep Wrangler) came in very handy during this project and was the work horse hauling the wood to the job site. I know that I looked strange driving down the road with 12′ 4″ x 4″ posts hanging out the back, but Zippy was up to the challenge and had no problems, even with the 4′ x 8′ lattice. I first removed the left side and cemented two new posts into the ground. I then removed the front boards and extended the posts up to the new height of the fence.
The next step was to screw all the boards onto the railings. Of course I had to make three trips to Home Depot because I was slightly limited as to how many would fit into Zippy. This occurred over several days but looked very good when finished. The new look was completely horizontal instead of following the natural terrain. The final step was to frame and install the lattice. I decided to use high privacy lattice which required a special trip to Lowe’s.
This was the most difficult step for several reasons. The first was because the entire install took place above 8′ tall. The pressure treated wood was extremely heavy and I was doing this alone. Thanks to the help of clamps and cutting the boards to just the right size, I was able to get the bottom pieces installed. I next cut the lattice and used the router to cut a groove along the top 2″ x 4″. I used plastic ties to keep the two pieces together as I lifted them into place. The first one took the longest and I slowly got the hang of it and the left side I was able to complete in an evening.