Our house came with a fully fenced backyard, which we are grateful for. We have two strong and easily excitable dogs, and all they want is to lick the faces of people and dogs passing by our house. They especially love small children, who are low to the ground that they can easily knock down and love unconditionally. Needless to say, a fence is a must.
Although functional, none of the four sides of our fence is aesthetically pleasing:
The front fences:
Side fence on the southern side:
Side fence on the northern side:
And this was how the backyard looked when we moved in:
We’ve been planning to address the fence situation since day one. One of the challenges is how to handle the different types of fencing we have. We could never find a perfect solution without burning a big hole in our pocket, and there was more urgent and structure fixes in line (roof! I am looking at you). Therefore, the fence project waited.
This summer, we pledged to get the fence upgraded. It is hard to spend money on replacing things that are still functional – we cannot help but feeling a little guilty whining about our first world problems. But we both want the fence to be upgraded. The dislike to the chain link kept bothering us, especially after we have put all the effort into landscaping the front yard. We knew in our heart that the key upgrade to our curb appeal is still going to be a brand new wooden fence.
And not just any wooden fence. It needs to be a statement fence. A fence calls attention to itself. Our house is rather unimpressive (aka ugly), so we really need a fab fence with modern feels to make the whole property look up-to-date.
To make this fab fence, we decided to take the following steps:
1. Replacing the front chain link with 6′ cedar fence
As you can see from the pictures, our current front fences are aligned with the back of the house. It resulted in two side yards that are largely useless. All we ever do with them is mowing.
To increase the usage of the side yards, we plan to build the new fence more forward to the street, indicated by the spray paint line in the picture below:
The exact location of the new front fence was an easy decision. Our neighbor on the North already has a wooden fence, so we will line up our front fences with theirs to make the street view look more uniform.
The new fence line sits about 2/3 towards the front of the house, approximately 18′ forward from the original chain link. It will not only provide us over 600 sqft of new “backyard” space, but also includes our HVAC unit and one basement bedroom window into the “backyard”.
The new fence line will meet the house just behind the other bedroom window. We could not move the fence to the front of the window due to the location of our gas meter. Luckily this window is tucked behind an evergreen and hard to see from the street, we feel pretty good about taking the views of easy targets off the street.
One the other side of the house, a more forwarded front fence will provide a landing pad for unsightly trash cans and clothing line. It can also be used as a parking spot for Slav’s trailer. We will be building a 10′ wide driving gate here.
2. Replacing the southern side fence – Another chain link
On the lot line between us and our neighbor to the South, we have another section of chain link. It joins with a panel of wooden fence at the very back, which connects to the back fence.
The back of our property significantly slopes down at the last 20 feet. The back fence is actually built on top of a 5′ tall retaining wall, but the chain link on the side follows the slope and runs downward. It ends in the yard of another neighbor, who shares this corner with us. This property just changed hands and the new owner has three really reactive and barky dogs. As a precaution, we blocked this corner with a sheet of plywood, because we are fancy like that.
This is the view from the back of the plywood. You can see neighbor’s house in distance.
To replace the chain link here, we will remove its entire length as well as the wooden panel above, and build a new 6′ privacy fence on this side. It is difficult to decide on the height because we are pretty close to our neighbor on this side, and their dog plays with our dogs along the fence. We need to find a way for the dogs to continue playing. Design challenge accepted.
3. De-chain link-ing the un-neighborly double fence
This next situation made us scratching our heads a bit: the front yard chain link wraps around the northern side of the yard and directly against another wooden fence, which I assume belongs to our neighbor to the North:
This chain link fence does not provide much function except being a very effective trash trap. See the elm trees coming in between the two fences? They were not planted intentionally. They came up like weeds and because of the chain link, there is no way of removing them.
The chain link also runs down into the yard of north side neighbor’s towards the back. And the way it joins neighbor’s fence? I have no words…
Why is the chain link even there? We dug into the permit history for both our property and neighbor’s. Apparently our chain link was built first. Then when comes to the time our neighbor to the North constructed their fence, it was put up against the chain link. It is not uncommon, but to me and Slav, who grew up in villages where neighbor’s were close, this type of situation is just so bizarre.
But hot mess no more. We will remove the chain link on this side and repair our neighbor’s fence at our expense. As soon as the chain link is gone, trash (Elm) trees, your days are numbered.
4. The back fence stays put
We are lucky to have at least some wooden fence in the back. It was built in the 80’s and still have some life in them. They are not pretty by any means, but there is a retaining wall right behind it and it is just better to let the sleeping dogs lie.
This is the back fence when we bought the house:
We trimmed the dead trees around it, power washed it, and refinished it. We also planted fruit trees and climbing roses in front of it. So it stays.
The overall scale…
Based on our current plan, we have 130 feet of 6′ cedar fence to construct and 200 feet of chain link to take down. This is gonna be our last outdoor project for 2018. And we are rushing to finish it before the ground freezes. This post has gone longer than I planned, so I will leave the actual design of our fence to the next post. There is no shortage of challenges with building a fence for the first time. And we are welcome any advice/suggestions you might have. Also, if you are in the Greater Denver Area and know anyone who could use 200 feet of chain link, let us know!
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