Fencing it in

The next step after we filled in the dirt patch was to build the fence.  We had set most of the poles a couple of weeks ago, but there were still two between the neighbor’s garage and the asphalt parking area, and one attached to the neighbor’s garage left to finish.  Alex put the two in the middle up using E-Z post bases.  The guys who had broken up the concrete had pre-drilled these into the concrete for us. Unfortunately, they melted some of the anchors making these bases really difficult to use. Not so easy 😜.  In order to make them work, Alex and Jamie ended up cementing them to the concrete and now they’re fairly strong.

Then we had to go through and ensure that each of the posts were plumb. My parents and brother stopped by during that time so my dad provided guidance on how to do this.

The next step was to use the builders level to create a level line across the whole fence and used that line to set horizontal 2x4s across the top and bottom of the fence.  These will be visible from the outside of the fence.

The next step was to nail all the fence boards in place, leaving a small gap between boards to ensure they have space to expand and contract.  We also used a product called the easy gate, which is intended to make building a gate pretty straightforward.  It wasn’t too bad, but I did get a bit frustrated since I had to make several adjustments along the way.

By the end of a long, hot Seafair Saturday, we had a fence!

We decided to install them following ground level so we still need to cut the straight line across the top and cut the 4x4s down to all be at the same height, but it was a pretty good day’s work!

-H