As many people have seen on our FB page,
Instagram, and Snapchat (@cbrookemullens); we have built another fence at The Castle.
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| Snap of the new fence... keep reading for more pictures! |
The last Mending the Fence post was a fence at our previous house
(now rental). Last summer we spent a few days painstakingly getting our backyard ready to build
this fence. We downed a large pine tree, got rid of a ton of ivy, slightly
regraded the yard, and also took out as many irises as we could. The
battle of the irises is not over yet as we still get 1 or 2 popping through
the grass.
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| Large pine tree downed |
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Ivy removed, irises, removed, and regrading of the yard before fence installation
Bonus: #teddymullens |
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| Demo of the yard |
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| Demo complete |
As a couple, we have built several other fences (seem like every house we buy always needs a new fence), but as we plan for this house (The Castle) to be our house for the long haul, we wanted to make this fence special and striking. Luckily, we only had to enclose 2 sides of the backyard since our neighbors already had fences around the other two sides.
Day 1 of the Castle’s fence: Installing
the posts
As with every fence we build, we first started to lay our string
lines and mark where the post holes would go. We went from the corner
post of our back neighbor’s fence to the corner of our yard, and from the edge
of our garage to the corner.
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| String lines established for the fence outline |
Quick
Tip: to make sure you have a right angle between the 2 string lines
use the 3-4-5 rule. Mark 3 feet from the line intersection on one string,
4 feet from the line intersection on the other string, and adjust the lines
until it is 5 feet diagonally between the marks. Perfect 90 degree angle every time!!
Math
time: Now that we had our corner marked out, we measured the distance
accurately from each line of fencing to calculate out post spacing. Between each post we wanted to have approximately 6 feet spacing. We took our
overall length and divided it by 6 and that got us the number of bays (bays = spots
between posts we need). For instance, for 32 feet of fence, 32
divided by 6 equals 5.3333 so we needed 5 bays. Now to knew the center of each
post, we took our 32 foot and divided by 5 (number of whole bays), which tells
us each post is 6’-4.8” feet center of post to center of post. In this
instance, I would make each post 6’ 5” until the corner post and that last bay
would be slightly smaller. This wouldn’t be noticeable overall.
Now that we had the fence locations all marked out (by use of
strings), we had to mark the ground where the posts were going and start digging.
Luckily, we own a post hole digger and auger (we pretty much own every tool out possible)! So, we made relatively quick work of most of the post holes. However,
some of the post locations aligned perfectly with where old posts were (from an old chain
link fence), so that involved digging out old concrete in one case, and using a
sledge hammer to bust out old concrete in another case. This was the end
of our DAY ONE!
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| Old concrete chain link fence posts being removed |
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Leveling of posts
Bonus: #teddymullens |
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| Fence posts held in place with concrete and braces |
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| End of Day 1 accomplished! |
Day 2 of the Castle’s fence:
Installing the rails
With all the posts set and perfectly plumb, we began to put in our
rails for the fence. The fence design we chose involved attaching the
rails to the sides of each post instead of the norm of attaching the rails to the face of
the post. To do this, one could use a
concealed flange joist hanger, but we did not want the look of that. So, we used our trusty Kreg Pocket Jig and the Kreg blue coated screws.
We first put 2 pocket screws on each side of the rail, then we put a Deckmate screw at an angle on the top and bottom of the rail as well. The rail was
installed flush with the back side of the post (the side facing our
backyard).
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| Using the Kreg to make perfect pocket screw holes |
Also, in addition to the top rail, an additional 2x4 top rail was
put across the top to put a “cap” on the fence, to add to the aesthetics of it.
We continued this for 3 rails on each bay. We made the sidewalk side
fence rails perfectly level to each so you would see a clean line when walking
your dog, the driveway side of the fence we stair-stepped the top rail.
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| Top rail installed flush to the back of the yard with flush decorative top rail "cap" |
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| Our foreman hard at work #teddymullens |
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Flat top rail along sidewalk all at the same height;
Flat top rail along driveway stair-stepped with grading |
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| End of Day 2 accomplished! All rails installed |
Day 3 of the Castle’s fence:
Installing the pickets and gate
Next, we split up our tasks.
Brooke worked on the pickets of the fence, while I worked on the gate
frame and post caps. Luckily we each have our own "his" and "hers" Dewalt impact drivers!
Brooke’s
job: The pickets. Due
to the design we picked for our fence, each picket had to be cut individually
(custom to the MAX). Also, since we did a layered picket design, more
cuts were required than normal. The way we chose our layer design was to
start with a whole picket at one edge of the bay and space the next picket 3
½”(a standard 2x4 width) apart. The whole first layer of pickets was
spaced that way. If there was a gap between the picket and the second
post of a bay, a piece needed to be made for a level screwing surface for the
second layer. Each picket was attached with Deckmate screws.
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| First layer of pickets being installed |
The second layer of pickets started with a 1” overlap of the
first whole picket, then the standard 3 ½” spacing. For the last picket
in the bay, we would use our rigid table saw if a full picket would not fit to rip down a picket lengthwise. Again
each picket had to be cut to height individually so this was a slow-ish
process, luckily we had our Dewalt 12” miter saw and stand to help make it be built quicker.
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| Second layer of pickets being installed |
Matt’s
job: The gate. For the gate frame we attached a 2x4 to the
garage for the latching side then measured the exact distance between
the post and the 2x4. I subtracted an inch off this distance to make sure
the hinge and latch had the proper clearance to close. To build
the frame, I made sure the rails of the frame were spaced the same as the fence
rails. I made sure the verticals were the length from the bottom of the
lower rail to the top of the top rail. I assembled all of these pieces by
using the Kreg pocket jig again. After I had that assembled, I put a piece of wood under the
partial frame and traced the cuts for the cross member of the frame for the
upper and lower portions. These diagonal members are important as they
prevent the gate from sagging. Again these were attached to the frame
with the Kreg pocket jig.
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Frame laid out before braces were cut
Bonus: #teddymullens sleeping in, yes, sawdust |
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| Frame ready to be hung |
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Frame hung
Bonus: #teddymullens thinking 'what is this contraption' |
Then we had to attach the frame for the gate to the rest of the
fence using gate hinges and a latch. Then the “cap” was added to the top of the
gate frame and the pickets as well. With the gate closed, it is hard to
tell there is even a gate there.
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| Completed gate (can barely tell it's a gate!) |
Day 4 of the Castle’s fence:
Installing post caps and arches
Post
caps. Next came the post caps. Each post
was cut to 3” above the highest top rail. Then, a post cap was installed
- relatively simple task. We did have to
add a 4x4 entender piece back to the end post to make the end post the same height as the
other corner height. Then to hide our mistake we added some trim to the
post.
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| Before trim added to the post to conceal our mistake |
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| After trim added to the post to conceal our mistake |
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| Brooke wasn't quite tall enough to reach by herself |
Arches.
The last thing that
needed to be done was the arches in each bay. First a template piece was
cut using our Dewalt jigsaw.
After the template was made, we used our Dewalt router with a guide bushing to “trace” the template so that every arc in each bay would look the
same. For the gate, we just used the jigsaw to cut the arch.
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| Template piece being cut out with the jigsaw |
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| Guide bushing on router |
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| Router used with template to cut the next arch |
The last thing to be done is, always, enjoy our hard work!
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| Finished fence! |
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| Finished fence from backyard! |
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| Finished fence from the street! |
-Mullens Out
...read more “Mending the Fence: The Upgraded Version”
