Friday, May 29, 2015

Going Oriental

Was time to replace the fence and gate between our home and the patio house next door. The old cedar fencing was cracking and rotting after only six years of Houston humidity.

But what to replace it with?

Walking around a Lowes Home Improvement Center one day, spotted rolls of stained bamboo fencing. Bamboo resists humidity, is strong and allows air to pass through. But what design for the fence and gate. Picking up on the bamboo theme, decided to build an oriental style fence gate.
So here we go...

The old fence and gate has to go... Every house in this sub-division has the same identical fence and gate, so let's try something different... more attractive, secure and functional.

Goodbye soft cedar!


Building and staining the top cap to go above the new gate. Seeing the runs in the stain, have to admit that I am not very good at this. Did I mention that I found the stain on the discount rack at Lowes. Someone ordered it, and then didn't like it. So it went on the discounted paint rack. It'll work for me.

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Removing the old cedar but keeping the existing posts and horizontal braces as they were still rot free and solid. Being frugal here.



Going crazy with my new nail gun after having to replace the old nail gun in the middle of putting up the bamboo. This fence is costing more than originally planned, especially if I have to keep replacing tools.


My beautiful better half holding the bamboo in place for nailing.


To hang the new gate, which is heavy, called upon my neighbor Gary for help.  The gate was built on a table in the garage, now to hang it. 

The center disk is a cast iron plant stand with the castors removed. The gate itself is a single piece of 3/4" treated plywood made to look like individual boards.  Since red is a lucky color in Asian cultures, painted the center disk of the door a bright red. 


All put together and ready for a final staining of the trim pieces. The trim pieces are inexpensive cedar fencing cut to length. The new nail gun made for fast work in putting everything up.


The final product. Hopefully the bamboo will last longer than the original fence. 



The final result above is an huge improvement over the original fence below.


Another home improvement project done and off my honey-do list. A short list means I can soon get on the road. But right now, it's Miller Time!

8 comments:

  1. Good looking fence! I am guessing no HOA requirement to make it match the old fence eh?

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    1. Oh yes, many HOA requirements! So many others have replaced their fences with something different that It's hard for the HOA to put the toothpaste back in the tube once it's out.

      Every home built here had four trees in their front yards. Now most are cutting down the two nearest the curb. It was a bad landscaping idea to plant oak trees in a 4 foot wide strip between a curb and a sidewalk. We replaced our two curbside trees with crepe myrtles because the center medians in the subdivision all have crepe myrtles. The HOA rules still say you have to have four trees in your front yard, though few do.

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  2. Replies
    1. Thanks 10LE, have safe trip home. Now that you have been to the southernmost point in the USA, what's next?

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    2. Yellowstone!!! Next bucket list trip :)

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    3. YELLOWSTONE.... why I remember back in the day it was called JELLYSTONE.

      Wait a minute, that was the Flintstones.

      Never mind!


      Replaced the final gate photo with a newer one.

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