Suddenly a New Fence DONE

I enjoy doing home projects myself, but clearly there is a big benefit of hiring out.  Speed!  I hired out because building a fence myself would span weekends and too much of my time.

Here is what I sketched the fence would look like conceptually…not a big deal, just a fence.

And today, in only one day and two guys who do this for a living…the finished fence!

The posts you see are pressure treated 4×4 dug 2 feet deep and cement poured around them for strength…The boards along the bottom are also pressure treated 2×12 because they contact the ground.  And the rest of the fence are ‘con common’ redwood:  common construction grade redwood.  This fence should last at least a decade or more.

And our new gate for entry to the backyard.  I opted for an arched door for some visual interest.  Over time, the redwood will take on a silvery-gray finish.  I’m thinking of looking into some staining options that may prolong the redwood look of the fence.

And as seen from the inside…our “new” back yard.  Doing this conversion gained us about 840 sq feet of back yard space…something that Elliot would need when he starts to get mobile.  The rose bushes may give way to a vegetable garden or a fruit tree or two.

I am quite pleased with the overall change in appearance and usefulness of the new space.  Now that we have some more room to work with in the back yard, we can start thinking about the more fun stuff:  landscaping, possibly a storage shed for all the garden equipment that is currently making half of our garage not that usable.

Not as rewarding to see this put together from the work of others, but nonetheless I’m very pleased with the result.

Suddenly a Bigger Back Yard

It’s been a couple of months since I blogged.  Wow!  Life has been busy with a 7 month old…how time flies!

We live on a corner lot with a large front yard and a cramped back yard.  We knew that we wanted a larger back yard for Elliot to play in so we bided our time to make better use of the front yard by converting some of the side yard (technically part of the front yard on a corner lot) to a back yard.  We would need to demolish the existing structure of the brick fence columns and build 6 ft tall wooden fence for privacy.  When we done, we will have gained about 840 sq ft of new back yard space!

This summer we finally got the ball rolling on it.  However it is too big of a job for me to do alone in a timely fashion (though I would love to do it myself), so building the fence will be hired out.  The demolition part I was able to do in half a day with a little help from my Little Brother Juan (who is not so little anymore, weighing in at 230 lbs. and just 17 years old!) 

The large bushes you see here are the Oleanders that I cut down to the stumps last summer–in one season they’ve grown to over 6 feet high!  We’ve also taken this out…(another side project to get rid of the stumps entirely.)

 

The demolition you see here took about 4.5 hrs. Pretty quick work with a firm grip, 4 lb. sledge hammers, and some power tools.

 

The 10 columns we demolished weighed about 2 tons (4000 lbs).  Interestingly enough, I spent over 2 hours on the internet and phone to contact recycle and salvage yards for bricks in the Bay Area and came up with a big fat nothing!  Everyone directed me to the dumps.

It would be a shame that this material would go to waste in a landfill so I advertised on www.freecycle.org to see if anyone wanted them for their projects.  At the very least someone could use the undamaged ones for finish work, and possibly use the broken ones for fill.  I had to spend 2 extra hours to take the mortar off the bricks as much as I can–more time than I would save in dumping fees, but it is not just a financial incentive for me.  This would help keep as much material out of the landfill as possible, while providing free material for reuse and reduced dumping fees for me.  We all benefit from this.

The pictures below show about 1.2 tons of bricks.  Whatever that can’t be reused will be taken to the dumps.

After only a few hours of posting on freecycle.org, I got 2 callers and one of them came to pick up the whole bricks, so I’m left with what he couldn’t use.  I’ll have to arrange for a pickup to haul the rest to the dumps this weekend.

Here is a sketch of how the new privacy fence would look. 

Stay tuned for the finished fence…hopefully before Labor Day.