Redo! : Another take at our fence

After you build and design something you then realize that things could be better.  They could always be better, right?  Well in this case, it can definitely be made better. 

I realized how difficult it was to move from our front of the house to the private backyard with no entrance planned.  I knew this would be an issue, but since I didn't have the know how on creating a door, using hinges, or anything like this I just skipped the thought of a door. Who needs a door?  We have a back door to the yard but we access that from the other side of the house. Problem was, that since all the heavy gardening thus far has been in the back yard, everytime I brought a haul of dirt, compost or plants home it had to be thrown over the 8' tall fence. Not good on the back let me tell ya.


Back to the drawing board. This time I took a few weeks to think it out and sketch some ideas, then it came to me; a dry day anyway.  I took a stab at a rough sketch and then just jumped into it.

If you don't remember here is the first fence that we were left from the previous owners. Boring, and cut the possible yard in two.  Ick.

 And here was the revision in process and the final look completed this past spring.

This was when I still was trying to reuse the old wood, not such a cohesive look.

The way it looked this past spring.

Gotta love the planters!  

And all done.  Not bad.  Covered the old driveway at least.

So here is the new pass through.  At the point I took this picture, I actually only had reused the old wood from the fence and planters I had already constructed.  Not to shabby on reduce, reuse and recycle, eh?  Here I was beginning to contemplate the door.  God, how was I going to make a door on (1) uneven ground (2) with functioning hinges (3) a lock and (4) didn't look all Janklers (i.e, all ugly....thanks for expanding my vocabulary Casey!)

Somehow I did it. Without using too many trees, I made a door that if you notice is quite even at the top, and at the bottom, despite the concrete sloping southbound (to the left of the picture). Plus, all my plants that were in one planter are now nicely spread between two!  Life is so much better. Now, of course, this leads me to the next few projects this fall. Retaining wall in the back yard to extend our grassy play area as well as to allow a better planting space for our shade loving plants like Rhubarb and lettuce; building new planters in the back yard for next years killer Tomatoes; and of course the best project of them all....our nursery!  It has been a year in the making but finally we are on the adoption list and ready for a munchkin. We are spending tomorrow afternoon slapping some paint up and getting the room ready.  More about that later.  I will leave you with a picture of this past years Tomatoes! This is one load of many.  Next year will be the year of the Marinara and Salsa!