Fencing! No - not the sword type, the keep the kiddies safe and the neighbors away type!

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lizaanne

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From the financial thread -

Fencing!

What do you have, what do you like, what would you do differently if you had it to do again?

We are looking to put up a privacy fence in our back yard (my VERY ugly and tiny back yard):

The shed is totally gone, and we need privacy fencing along the side and back.

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/571/img0002xw7.jpg

~Liza
 
Funny - one woman’s tiny backyard is another’s dream. I wish I had a smaller backyard like yours. Mine is big and consumes much free time in maintenance. And I have endless critters.:eek:

I have small yard envy. :o

I would put up a privacy fence in a heartbeat.
 
jrabs said:
Funny - one woman’s tiny backyard is another’s dream. I wish I had a smaller backyard like yours. Mine is big and consumes much free time in maintenance. And I have endless critters.:eek:

I have small yard envy. :o

I would put up a privacy fence in a heartbeat.
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Well, isn’t that the truth!! I would love to have a bigger yard, and one with grass would actually be a wonderful thing! :rolleyes:

We had critters under the shed (neighbor does not clean up after his dog so it is critter buffet) so the shed had to go. No problems now that we got rid of their free hotel.

It really could be a very cute yard if we can just get some fencing up and start to do some landscaping.

The house and garage (seen in the photo) are now sided in vinyl in a light creamy color, not quite yellow. It looks SO nice now, we need to make the yard worthy of the rest of the house!

~Liza
 
lizaanne said:
Well, isn’t that the truth!! I would love to have a bigger yard, and one with grass would actually be a wonderful thing! :rolleyes:

We had critters under the shed (neighbor does not clean up after his dog so it is critter buffet) so the shed had to go. No problems now that we got rid of their free hotel.

It really could be a very cute yard if we can just get some fencing up and start to do some landscaping.

The house and garage (seen in the photo) are now sided in vinyl in a light creamy color, not quite yellow. It looks SO nice now, we need to make the yard worthy of the rest of the house!

~Liza
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Well, I think your yard is charming and I bet the house with your new siding is great.

But I do understand the need for privacy fencing when the neighbors are closer.
Pity about the shed too - I also have shed envy.😃
 
My preference would be for lattice type fencing, rather than solid wood boards. Privacy, but you can still peek through the lattice openings and see what’s going on outside without looking like Kilroy or Wilson (from “Home Improvement”). Plus, it looks lovely, either natural or painted to match the house, with morning glories growing on it!

And it promotes privacy without coming off looking like what my parents’ neighbors used to call a “spite fence” (their word for a 6-foot solid wood fence between properties… and with neighbors like that, you can see why my parents put the fence up in the first place!)
 
We have a wooden fence (with hidden steal posts) on one side of our house, a block wall on the other side, and behind us is a half block wall with wrought iron on top.

Both wooden fencing and the block wall offer privacy. I believe wood is less expensive. The wall is on the side our dog run is located. It obviously does a better job at keeping her from digging underneath.

The wooden fence is nice for allowing creeping plants to grow up. But I’d love to put in a fountain over there… and it just wouldn’t look right against wood.
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jrabs said:
Well, I think your yard is charming and I bet the house with your new siding is great.

But I do understand the need for privacy fencing when the neighbors are closer.
Pity about the shed too - I also have shed envy.😃
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I really did hate getting rid of the shed - it was built like we have massive hurricanes or something, it took three men to tear it down and haul it away. But it was not built on a proper foundation and there was no way to lift/move the massive thing to fix the problem, so it had to go. 😦

I would love to have a new shed, but I think I’ll get something to go behind the garage this time so we have more yard space. I would like to make the far corner into a Mary Garden with a statue.

~Liza
 
We have a typical wood privacy fence. We didn’t get to choose type or color because that was decided by the developer who built houses in this area. But one less choice that I have to make, the better, lol!
**
If I could choose and had enough money, I would totally go for PVC. No painting/staining, no maintenance, and no splinters for little fingers (and no place for creepy crawlies to hang out!) **
 
nothign about the fence but since you mentioned getting grass to grow, i see a tree trunk in the picture. Chances are you could/should prune about 1/2 the branchs out of that tree and let some light filter onto the grass. Thats exactly what the yard looks like under my mom’s huge spreading maple tree. The problem is it is extremely difficult for the avergae joe to do that kind of work and have the tree look good when you’re done. And it will look funny for a while since you are used to seeing the huge full tree top. Otherwise you can pretty much count on planting some shade loving grass that will come in for one year, then need to be re-seeded every year after that that you want to have nice grass.
 
TAS2000 said:
nothign about the fence but since you mentioned getting grass to grow, i see a tree trunk in the picture. Chances are you could/should prune about 1/2 the branchs out of that tree and let some light filter onto the grass. Thats exactly what the yard looks like under my mom’s huge spreading maple tree. The problem is it is extremely difficult for the avergae joe to do that kind of work and have the tree look good when you’re done. And it will look funny for a while since you are used to seeing the huge full tree top. Otherwise you can pretty much count on planting some shade loving grass that will come in for one year, then need to be re-seeded every year after that that you want to have nice grass.
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It’s doing much better now that the shed is gone - it was removed last Fall. The tree is not doing too well - the idiot who owned this home before us tied his dog to the tree and used a rubber tire around the tree when it was tiny, so now the tire is grown into the trunk to the point where it can not be removed. DH wants to remove it all together, but then it will be blazing sun back there.

This is a bit of what it looks like when the grass is green in the Summer (I love laundry on the line - it just says “home” to me) 🙂 :

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/2056/1010135imgvw4.jpg

~Liza
 
Your idea to put in a Mary garden sounds lovely. Is that chain link fence yours, or are they part of your neighbors’ fences? What do you think of the “perma-hedge” slats?

OK, now I also have a question of my own. We’re thinking of going with a 4’ galvanized chain link fence. We have a 1 acre yard and privacy isn’t really an issue. My only concern is–will I later regret not getting a taller fence? What are people’s thoughts on that?
 
CatholicSam said:
Your idea to put in a Mary garden sounds lovely. Is that chain link fence yours, or are they part of your neighbors’ fences? What do you think of the “perma-hedge” slats?
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That is a problem - ownership of the chain link. I will probably be placing the privacy fence slightly inside the chain link and by city code, six inches up so I can weed whack under it. I do not want to deal with the side neighbor - he has been horrible evil and threatening to me in the past. Also the reason why the “perma-hedge” would not work - the chain link is not tall enough, and his dog would just pee on it. 😦 (Oh, the housing market can not pick up fast enough, believe me)
OK, now I also have a question of my own. We’re thinking of going with a 4’ galvanized chain link fence. We have a 1 acre yard and privacy isn’t really an issue. My only concern is–will I later regret not getting a taller fence? What are people’s thoughts on that?
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What is the purpose of your fence in the first place? To keep little ones and animals contained? Keep others out?

Prior to living in this house (BD - before divorce), I lived in a GORGEOUS home on over an acre of land with a 50x60 foot spring fed pond in the back, backed by wild woods. It was beautiful. We did not have issues with privacy either, and all the properties were open to those on either side. We did, however, had a split rail fence around the pond with barn wire fencing around the inside. From a distance you can not see the barn wire, it just disappears, and all you see is the split rail, and it looks very nice, and a bit rustic, which fit in with being “out in the country”, as my family called it. 🙂

I’m not a fan of galvanized chain link fencing - I think it is very cold and industrial looking, especially if it’s silver. Now if this is really what suits your needs, a green finish might look better than the silver.

~Liza
 
Just my 2 cents, but I think a tall, solid fence is going to lend a very claustraphobic feel to the yard. Why not plant some tall, narrow evergreens along the existing chain link. You already have the barrier for kids/dog~and a nice wood fence close to the garage. The greenery will provide some privacy yet let light through without feeling like you’re inside a shoebox.
 
lizaanne said:
That is a problem - ownership of the chain link. I will probably be placing the privacy fence slightly inside the chain link and by city code, six inches up so I can weed whack under it. I do not want to deal with the side neighbor - he has been horrible evil and threatening to me in the past. Also the reason why the “perma-hedge” would not work - the chain link is not tall enough, and his dog would just pee on it. 😦 (Oh, the housing market can not pick up fast enough, believe me)

What is the purpose of your fence in the first place? To keep little ones and animals contained? Keep others out?

Prior to living in this house (BD - before divorce), I lived in a GORGEOUS home on over an acre of land with a 50x60 foot spring fed pond in the back, backed by wild woods. It was beautiful. We did not have issues with privacy either, and all the properties were open to those on either side. We did, however, had a split rail fence around the pond with barn wire fencing around the inside. From a distance you can not see the barn wire, it just disappears, and all you see is the split rail, and it looks very nice, and a bit rustic, which fit in with being “out in the country”, as my family called it. 🙂

I’m not a fan of galvanized chain link fencing - I think it is very cold and industrial looking, especially if it’s silver. Now if this is really what suits your needs, a green finish might look better than the silver.

~Liza
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Oh my, I’m sorry you have to put up with a horrible neighbor! Yes, your existing fence is a little short for privacy. Now that I’ve seen the other side of your yard, by the garage, I think it would look nice to have a wooden fence like that on the other side and back.

Lowes has this variety: lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=202817-152-202817&lpage=none at $31 for an 8’ long section. So if you need 4 panels for the back and 6 for the side, that would be $310, plus a little extra for the posts I’m assuming.

As for my fence, I’m looking primarily for something to keep the kids in 😃 We also sometimes get people’s dogs getting loose and coming to investigate our yard. So it’s also to keep the dogs out. It would probably be a little section in the back yard, about 1/4 or 1/5 of our whole property. We’re probably looking at around 150 feet of fence and two walk gates. Neighbors on one side have a 4’ galvanized chain link fence, but it’s not all the way up to our property. On the other side there is no fence. There’s no one in the back. Across the street one neighbor has a lattice fence around their pool, and the other one has a 6’ galvanized fence with a small wood section facing the road.

Our situation is that we’re actually trying to sell our house, but right now we’re fairly convinced that God has other plans for us 😉 We’re going to give it until the end of the summer (we think… right now…) before taking it off the market. But in the meantime we want a safe place for the kids to play! So I hesitate to get something more expensive. But then again, the bigger privacy fences are so pretty 🙂
 
Island_Oak said:
Just my 2 cents, but I think a tall, solid fence is going to lend a very claustraphobic feel to the yard. Why not plant some tall, narrow evergreens along the existing chain link. You already have the barrier for kids/dog~and a nice wood fence close to the garage. The greenery will provide some privacy yet let light through without feeling like you’re inside a shoebox.
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Well - I have actually considered doing something more “natural”, but I don’t have the time to wait for something to grow, or the money to buy more mature trees. We really hope we won’t be here too much longer - as soon as we can sell, we will. But the market has us stuck where we are for now. 😦
CatholicSam said:
Lowes has this variety: lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=202817-152-202817&lpage=none at $31 for an 8’ long section. So if you need 4 panels for the back and 6 for the side, that would be $310, plus a little extra for the posts I’m assuming.
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Oooo!! I love that price! That is close to the one I’ve considered, the one my Mom has has wider planks and sort of a spade shape at the top of each plank.
As for my fence, I’m looking primarily for something to keep the kids in 😃 We also sometimes get people’s dogs getting loose and coming to investigate our yard. So it’s also to keep the dogs out.
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This is what split rail looks like:

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/6477/fencewj5.jpg

And barn wire looks like this:

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/5577/barnwirenf3.jpg

So when you put the barn wire inside the split rail, you can’t even see it, visually, it just disappears from a distance, and all you see is the wood of the split rail. This would make a pretty surround that you can still see through to see the kiddies, and look nice in your yard too. And I don’t believe it is very expensive to do either, it’s not a tremendous amount of wood.

~Liza
 
Contrary to conventional wisdom, I do not believe good fences make for good neighbors. Paint the shed, make it pretty and inviting. Plant flowers that bloom all summer long. Have your kids put a lemonade stand out there.
 
Antegin said:
Contrary to conventional wisdom, I do not believe good fences make for good neighbors. Paint the shed, make it pretty and inviting. Plant flowers that bloom all summer long. Have your kids put a lemonade stand out there.
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I no longer have the shed, I can’t have children, and my neighbor has threatened to hurt me.

This fence will be most welcome.

But thank you anyway.

~Liza
 
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