Wants vs. Needs: Fence

Sorry for the quiet around these parts…it’s been rough lately.  Emotions have been running high about this project, but we are trying to regroup and rethink about what we can do to bring down the budget so that we can move towards construction.  We’re thinking about wants versus needs, and this will probably be the focus of many posts for awhile.

One of those things is our fence.  Yes, a fence is absolutely necessary because we have dogs, but the interesting thing about our lot is that it’s already got a fence…an old chain-length (hurricane) fence.  It’s ugly, but we’ve had the same type of fence at the old house all these years without any issues, so this is a function over fashion item.  To save money now, we are thinking that we might only put up a nice wooden fence the front sides of our property, because two sides are definitely cheaper than four (see below).  This means we need to get creative about the other two sides in the cheapest way possible.

We are considering planting Oleander along the back of our lot, because it creates a thick screen and provides pretty flowers from spring to late fall down here.  Oleander is readily available and fairly fast-growing, and I really like the white and red varieties.  It is toxic to humans and dogs, but our dogs don’t chew on plants, and it seems that you have to ingest quite a bit to be affected.  If Oleander doesn’t pan out, there’s always bamboo or some other fast-growing screen plant.  The deal with the back of our lot is that we can see the neighbor’s sheds and junk piles, but not their yard or home, so a bit of camouflaging would go a long way to beautify this area.

The other side of our lot is a different story.  The home next door is built close to the property line, and their kids play in the narrow yard, so we need a bit more privacy.  The good thing is that the studio container will run along the fence line, so that already gives a lot of privacy to the inner yard, but there’s still the 9’ exposed strip along the back of the studio.  Last night while watering our traveling tomato vines, my husband had the brilliant idea of building a trellis using boards and cement blocks along the chain-length fence.  We know we’ll have a vegetable garden, so why not build it in that little swath along the fence line, using one or two rows of cement blocks for the raised planters, and affixing the boards (2x4s or even reclaimed pallet planks) horizontally to form the trellis?  The boards could be attached to the fence by drilling holes on the ends and using S-hooks, wire, or even well-hidden zip ties.  Once the plants begin crawling up the hurricane fence, we won’t see the neighbors at all.  Here’s my goofy rendering of the idea:

I like the fact that the wooden horizontal line of the trellis would mimic our (hopefully) horizontal fence along the other two sides of the yard, and I love that we’re using something that already exists in a unique way.  I also wanted to try out the concrete block planters below and here, so it would blend in really nicely.

image from Digging (and this wall is insanely amazing…I don’t think I’d be able to go this far!)

Before committing to this idea, we need to make sure the vegetable garden area would get enough sun, and not be too shaded by the studio container.  I have a feeling that the container will shade the area for part, but not all, of the day, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing in our summers.  If the strip of land does end up being too shady, we could plant a fast-growing, shade-loving vine for a less functional, but still privatizing, alternative.

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

We met with our developer this week, and although there isn’t much news to report, she is confident that we are going to build this house sooner than later, so she’s assigned several tasks to keep us motivated.

Part of our homework from our developer this week was to take a serious look at fencing.  We’ll need a good fence for privacy and because of our dogs.  Wood is the obvious choice (although metal or glass-paneled fences are very cool), but there are lots of other choices to make.  We’ll need to settle on a basic height for the fence, the type of wood, and the positioning of the wooden slats.  This is how we’d like our fenceline to look (the brown dotted line is the fence):

Because our previous home was completely secluded from neighbors and because the new place is situated on a moderately busy street on a corner lot, I’d like a tall fence, probably six feet.  To save money, we could consider only four feet on the side of the lot that the studio container will run, as that structure provides plenty of privacy.  As another cost savings measure, we’ve also considered keeping the chain length fence that runs along the back of the property as our fence for now, but we’d have to plant bamboo, oleander, or something as a quick-growing screen to hide the ugly yard behind ours.

Red Cedar is gorgeous, as are exotic woods, but our budget may only allow for pressure treated lumber.  If we want, we can stain this to match it more closely with the house.  Generally pressure treated lumber is 25-50% cheaper than cedar per square foot of fencing.

The fun part of the fence is deciding how to place the slats.  The most affordable, basic fences are dog-eared vertical slats, and they work just fine.

image from Fence Workshop

However, to get a little unique, I’d like to go with horizontal slats.  There are even some decisions to be made here.  Do we want small, large, or a gradation or combination of slats?  And what about the distance between the slats?  That’s where the privacy comes in, so something like the first picture below is probably a little too exposed for me:

image from Houzz

image from Tom Tarrant

both images from Pinterest

image from Austin Texas Fence

Ooh, or what about a basket weave pattern?  The one below is unique and comparable in price to a basic horizontal fence, but I wonder if there are issues with warping?

image from Fence Workshop

Ultimately the fence decision, along with everything else, will depend on our budget.

False Hope

I’ve seen fake purses and watches, but fake hedges and vertical gardens?  For some reason, even though I’ve worked in craft stores and seen my fair share of fake florals, I never imagined that they could be used outside or be so realistic.

I came across a convincing boxwood a week or so ago at lunch with coworkers.  While eating out on the pretty patio of a local restaurant, I touched (because I always do) what I thought was a lush vine growing very obediently along the walls.  I was shocked to find the leaves instead made of plastic.

At first I was embarrassed that the restaurant chose to go fake instead of growing the real thing, but then I started thinking about the big advantages of faux: no maintenance and no waiting—the plant looks exactly how you want it to look immediately and always.  This may actually be a great idea for a new home with little landscaping or as another type of  privacy fence.

image from Domino Magazine (you know it’s back in stores, right??)

image from Artificial Hedge (you can buy or even rent hedges from them)

A Little Rusty

I’ve made fun of my husband for years for picking up old metal objects from the street, but it’s obvious that I’ve developed the same affinity for rusty things.  While we will take great care to make sure our future home won’t corrode, I love a good orange-red patina in the garden.  Below are fences, fire pits, fountains, and flower planters all made of Corten steel (just like shipping containers), and all really modern and beautiful.

image from Dwell magazine

image from Garden World

image from Las Vegas MRKT

images above from Pinterest

image from Artsy Life

Fence Window

Last weekend we visited our old friends in the new neighborhood, and we were lucky enough to meet more future neighbors while we were there.  In talking about moving, houses, neighborhoods, and dogs, the new neighbors mentioned a fence they had seen built especially for a Great Dane.  Apparently, the dog had a habit of jumping up and down along the fenceline to see what was happening outside, so the owner built a special window for the dog to look out at his eye- level.  The window was just a rectangular cutout framed to look nice.  What about the dog biting someone from the fence window?  That could be a concern, but no one should stick their hands inside your fence anyway.

We love this idea and we might try it out at the new house…the cutout on the fence could totally mimic the long horizontal windows on our house…ooooh…  Some examples of fence windows are below:

image from Mama Tango

image from Dog Window

image from Colorfly Studio

Gateway

We’ve been working through our spreadsheet of decisions for the house and I realized that we haven’t thought too much about our driveway gate.  If we’re going to fence the property line, we’ll have to gate the driveway to keep the dogs inside.  I’d love to go fancy and get a solar-powered gate that slides to the side, but if that doesn’t make the budget cut, we could plan to wire it up later, and push it open until that happens.

image from Sears

So, I started looking at traditional metal gates (like the one above).  Then I looked at steel gates because I like the rusty patina and the reference to our steel house (like below), but it hit me that neither of these would really mesh with the overall look of the property.

image from Access Control Sonoma

Therefore, I want the driveway gate to look like the wooden fence, just so everything blends, retains privacy, and doesn’t detract from the architecture of the home.

image from Best Pictures Of

 

image from Denver Fence

 

 

One cool feature that we could try to incorporate would be using the concrete and bottle structure for the fence posts (instead of the plain concrete ones in the image above) to mount the gate, which would tie in to the front courtyard of our house.

Keep Off the Grass

Our contractors reminded us last week that although we see grass on our lot today, it won’t be there after they are done building the house.  I’ve written before about not wanting grass all over the yard, but the contractors made me realize that it might be a lot easier to start from scratch (or dirt) and build our entire landscape around it.

Of course we want grass for the dogs in the backyard.  To maximize the grassy area in the back and to give us a bit more privacy, it would be nice to bump our fence to the front property line, like below:

This led me to thinking about some of my favorite mid-century houses we looked at last year while trying to buy; many of them had a courtyard feel in the front.  With the orientation of our house on our lot, we could totally achieve a really inviting, unusual look for the front using decomposed granite, concrete, native plants, and our fence (which, for reality sake, is probably going to be horizontal-slatted cedar around the property, with an accent at the front constructed from either concrete and bottles or gabions filled with bottles).

I paired some of my favorite photos previously posted on this blog along with the design I’ve been toying with, and came up with this:

I’m really, really excited about the look.  I think it can be worked into our budget.  And, worst case scenario, if we can’t afford it immediately, we can work most of the elements in and save up for the rest for the near future.

Multi-Usefulness

If that isn’t a word, it should be.  Yesterday’s post about translucent walls made me think about other uses for these panels, as some types are as cheap as using wood in construction.  All of the panels (polycarbonate, resin, plexiglass, etc) are strong and durable, and many are suitable for the outdoors (although I’ve read that some white or clear panels can yellow in the sun, but others are treated to guard against discoloration).  Of course they can be used for shade, like the front porch images below:

image from So So Why

image from Apartment Therapy

The materials can also be used for fence panels, either framed with metal, wood, or a combination of both (like the last image below with the cool gate).  This is a really modern look, and something to be considered for our house, as we’re looking for privacy with a fence, but not wanting to completely hide the home, and we could obviously control the level of translucency/opaqueness with the panels we choose.

images above from Pinterest

image from Jeremy Levine

On the Fence

A long time ago, I wrote about gabions, and, strangely, that’s the most popular post on this blog.  I wrote the post because I had been noticing more and more of these types of walls around, and I was starting to understand and like them.  I like the rough industrial feel of the wire, especially when it rusts, like below:

image from Studio Blog (a great post about gabions)

Apparently, I’m not the only one liking them these days…the other night at dinner, my husband announced that he and our friend are working on an idea of a gabion fence for our property that uses bottles in the cages, something like this:

image from Idex Studio

We had originally talked about a concrete-and-bottle fence, but the labor and expense of that fence made them consider the gabions, which are essentially chicken wire boxes (or you can make them or buy pre-made).  You can literally put anything into a wire box and call it a gabion.  Check it out:

image from TreeHugger

If this new idea comes to fruition, it’ll be combined with a horizontal wood fence (with plenty of room between the slats so you can see the house, but still maintain privacy).  Maybe something like this one:

image from Atomic Ranch

Fenced In

While thinking of setbacks, we need to think of fencing.  We’d like a fence that doesn’t hide the house, allows for some privacy, and keeps our pups safe.

I like the fence below, and I think I might like the house too, but I really can’t see it…that’s a problem.

image from Dwell

Instead, enclosing only part of the yard might work better (of course this will depend on our setback issue, because I don’t want to give up 25 feet unfenced…we’re working on this issue right now).  A lot of newer properties have the fences almost attached to the sides of the homes, which lets you better see the architecture (like below).

 image from Art Secure House

image from Arch Inspire

Another idea is to use some sort of material that would enable some viewing of the home, but still maintain some privacy.  The fences in the images below are made  with wider openings between the planks; I like the first one that uses concrete as well–we could totally combine our bottle fence idea with this.

image from Pinterest

image from Pathetic Boy