Project Monday: Gate

I've decided to start highlighting some of my home projects (big & small) on my blog... Monday seemed like a good day since most of these things get done on weekends, right? So here is the first Project Monday: In which I make a wonky gate!


I mentioned previously that I was working on fencing in my backyard so the pups can roam free & stop tripping me. Well, after months (yes *months*) of working on this very simple u-post & welded wire fence, I'm in the home stretch. And this weekend was going to be it. I was going to finish the fence. This included the gate, a 4 foot section where I'd run out of fencing, & the patio area (which I'll talk about another day). Um... I got the gate done! Heh.

At first, I wasn't going to do a gate... this temporary* fence is only 3 feet high & I figured I could toss my reel mower over for yard work. But then I realized there might be other times & situations when I need to access the backyard, like the tons of dirt & stone I'll need delivered for my landscaping projects or for the gutter guy to come & fix my gutter waterfalls, etc. So I left this 4 foot section open until I could come up with a plan. I'm good at coming up with plans... not always very good at executing them. The first plan was to make the gate all wood. When I went to make that, I learned a couple of things:

1. Wood is not the size it's sold as being. This is, I guess, common knowledge. Example - A 1"x4" is actually about 1"x3.5". Say what? This was very frustrating lesson to learn after I'd sketched out a plan & bought wood & put half of my gate together. Only to find my measurements were all wrong & I didn't have enough wood.
2. Whatever kind of wood treated lumber is, it's HEAVY. I was using cedar for the front of the gate w/2"x4" treated lumber as the back. There's no way this gate would work on the "posts" I was planning.
   

So it was back to the drawing board... but at least I have a screen to hide my ugly A/C unit now, right? Plus side!

The gate design you see here is the gate I decided on... A cedar frame w/welded wire fencing sandwiched in the middle. The "posts" are also cedar. They're basically u-shaped covers around the u-posts that hold up the fencing. They are held on with hex bolts. Unfortunately, the original fence posts were not straight up & down and so the faux-posts are a little wonky. So wonky, in fact, that the gate doesn't line up right with one post. To fix this, I'll have to dig up the u-post & reset it & redo my post frame & blah blah blah... the gate works & I have other priorities. As long as I can latch it, it's good enough. For now. Whew, that was a long story about a gate.

*I want a "real" fence someday but it proved to be cost prohibitive this year w/the size of my yard. I used over 200 feet of welded wire fencing & that doesn't even count the patio area or where I'd like to extend the fence out on my side yard. This fence was easy enough that I could DIY it plus insanely cost effective at $3.00 a foot for ALL the supplies (that includes unexpected costs and many, many, many trips to Lowes/Depot). I'm saving my pennies for something prettier & permanent in the next 2-3 years. A wood fence will require posts set in concrete which will require labor costs plus an initial property survey... plus the fencing supplies themselves. When I estimated it out, it came out to 2-3K. Not in the budget, in other words.