on the fence

One of the those items on our "must" list when house shopping was a house with a decent sized yard. This can be hard to come by in the area we were looking because of the close proximity of each house. However one of the most attractive aspects of the bungalow was not only the decently sized backyard, but the existing partial fence.

This meant we could add onto where the fence ended and completely enclose the backyard. This was an even bigger bonus because it then meant we would no longer have to walk Rufus out to the yard, chain him up, and then return ten minutes later to unchain him and walk him back into the house. Doing this three times a day especially in Ohio in the sub zero January winter was going to get old reaaaal quick. Did we sell you yet?

We decided to have Lowe's do the entire fence for us. It would have been a great project to tackle ourselves but being brand spankin' new home owners and having to build this fence between our property and our neighbors' was a rather daunting task that we felt much more comfortable leaving it to the professionals.

Fence posts running alongside our neighbor's driveway & house

Fence posts running across the sideyard to seperate the backyard from the side/front

That said, Lowe's spent the past few days setting, framing and completing our new fence. The challenge with this project was that we asked for them to match an older existing fence. Turns out the existing fence was cedar. We hear "older" cedar and "newer" cedar aren't the easiest things to match but the result wasn't too bad. The plan is to wait till later in the spring to re-stain the entire fence all the same color. But to our surprise the new and old fences actually blend pretty well.

Old Fence        &        New Fence

See? Not so bad actually. We had them keep the same height (about 6') between the houses and then drop it down to 4' across the side yard (see picture below). The reasoning for this was it still allows people walking/driving by to see into the backyard, while allowing us to look out or talk to our neighbors without making it feel way too closed off.

Pic taken standing on our deck looking at the gate/sideyard fence

We also had them add two doors; one in the middle of the 4' side yard fence (above) and one next to the garage. All and all we were pretty pleased with the work Lowe's did. It took an extra day than the original quote mainly because it took the installers awhile to match the exact same structure and pattern of the existing fence. However they cleaned the yard and driveway up every night and left on the final day without a trace.

We're ecstatic to be able to simply open the backdoor and let Rufus roam without having to usher him to and from his chain. It makes the morning and evening routine sooo much easier. Plus Rufus loves having the entire yard to explore rather being restrained to the same 20' circle.