New Project - Backyard!! + Fence

[MrSal]

With my latest project almost done - kitchen which you can follow here: http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/do-it-yourself-forum!/project-new-kitchen!-31858/  I am now thinking of tackling the backyard...

Starting with a fence!

Since I had a good experience with the Amish on the kitchen cabinet doors, I asked for a referral and was forwarded to a Mennonite or whatever the name is ...

He came, I told him what my vision was in terms of the fence and he took measurements.

He came back with a quote of 10k !!!!! for the fence ... Yes, our yard is kinda big, with about 55 feet by 55 feet but i would never thought it would be that much.

Here's the fence style i am looking for:

https://www.google.com/search?q=modern+horizontal+fence&espv=2&biw=1920&bih=955&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=9qKEVYPgA4GfgwSLg4OoDg&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAg

More on the darker tones I would say.

With that much, I thought maybe I could do the project myself along with my wife and the neighbour - since he wants to help the fence and build one for himself too and share costs.

What do you guys think?

Was the estimate high or was it cheap? This is central PA so i was kinda surprised!

The breakdown of his costs was around 3k for materials of prime quality everything pressure treated - posts and slabs.

Any tips regarding this project at all?

[Jax1023]

Seems somewhat expensive. I'm in Chester county pa, got a quote for 3100 for 138 feet of 4 ft cedar fence installed for 3100.

Try a company called AK fence in gap. We got wildly varying prices from fence companies.


Also, I read your kitchen thread and we've been looking into a kitchen facelift. Do you have a location or name of where you cabinet doors came from?

[MrSal]

Seems somewhat expensive. I'm in Chester county pa, got a quote for 3100 for 138 feet of 4 ft cedar fence installed for 3100.

Try a company called AK fence in gap. We got wildly varying prices from fence companies.


Also, I read your kitchen thread and we've been looking into a kitchen facelift. Do you have a location or name of where you cabinet doors came from?

Thanks.

Yeah our fence is 6 feet at 180 feet! We actually ended up deciding doing it ourselves - my desire since the beginning. We already have the utility lines identified and Monday a friend of ours will come with an auger of his and help us dig the holes and align the posts.

3100 for cedar already installed seems really cheap!!! 

My wife with all her rush and wanting the fence just done she pretty much took control of all the purchase of lumber etc... i doubt she looked any at prices whatso ever... but so far the lumber alone was 750 dollars. We still need to buy the posts, gravel and cement and stain. It will probably reach 2500 dollars with ourselves doing it!

Also, while I wait for the gravel and so on...

Im building these!!!!





They are just 2x4's and some decking screws and stain!

Total for 3 couches? 120 dollars!!

As for the kitchen cabinet doors... I really cant give you a phone number since the guy doesnt have any. His name is Stanley Martin, and his workshop is a big warehouse in the middle of Amish country south of Port Trevorton ... I can try and leave you with a map here of his location though

[Spork]

That is a cool looking fence concept..  I've not seen it before.

First off... are you sure you want pressure treated pine?  If you're dropping that kind of money on a fence, I'd go with cedar.  But that's probably personal preference.

What we did when we hired out a fence was basically drive the neighborhood.  Fence companies are really proud of putting a "built by Bob" sign up.  Every time we saw a fence we liked, we jotted down the name.  When we went to make a count of who made the nice fences around - - they were almost all the same company.

[MrSal]

Like I said... my wife rushed things and ordered it without me knowing.

She has a knack for trying to show she is capable of doing things herself :D She gets pissed because supposely im the one who never held a screwdriver and my first time did the kitchen spotlessly.

I agree that cedar should have been the type of wood... actually i dont even know what wood is it. I believe it was bought out from the Amish, i am not sure.

Anyhow Ill just let her learn from her mistakes because if its me pointing it out she flips :D Even the design of the fence she is trying to alter. She is more of a trying to rush things... then of course mistakes happen. I am more of planning ahead and perfectionist. I rather do it slow and right than wrong. Anyhow, the design of the fence wont be totally as I planned it for us since she is now making changes last minute... so i will just go along with it :) happy wife, happy life or something like that lol

Anyhow, I am planning on starting on buying a smaller house and remodel it myself as much as I can. Then I can do the designs I want... I have a vision for it that is pretty cool I may try it.

One of my ideas would be a fence like this:



But the slabs being like a dark honey type and then the posts and the trim a darker color for example.

I like to play a lot with darks, whites, grays and blacks I think it gives an edgy and modern look.

[MrSal]

We got a lot done today!!

Removed the previous fence... dig the holes... stained all the posts (about 30 or so posts) stained about 40 wood boards...

We had to stop around 5 PM because supposedly there was a storm coming so we rushed to have everything covered and so forth ... yet not no storm is coming! I wish I could have stayed working until 8 pm or so...

[Spork]

I might see if you can sell the chain link fabric on craigslist... or at least give it away on freecycle.  That stuff is expensive.

[MrSal]

new developments!!











Posts are in! Now we just need to finish staining the boards, and screw them to the posts!

[MrSal]

and the fence is pretty much done already!!

some pics of the project...

4 tonnes of gravel...



first boards going up









And finally the final look so far of one of the corners - we are halfway putting the boards up!

[Silverwood]

For some reason I cant see the last set of pics

[MrSal]

For some reason I cant see the last set of pics

ok try now..












Some additional ones...

[worms]

Looks good...from your side! But it makes quite a statement on the old neighbourhood and I wonder what the neighbours think of it - is that their window in one of the pics, with the new fence right in front of it?

[Silverwood]

Wow. Looks great.  I'd love to do something similar at my house.   If I paid for it all I don't think my neighbors would care to much  but you never know.

[MrSal]

Looks good...from your side! But it makes quite a statement on the old neighbourhood and I wonder what the neighbours think of it - is that their window in one of the pics, with the new fence right in front of it?

Its my property line ... so yes I can have it there. Better this one than an ugly chain link fence that was there previously... and yes that's a window of the neighbour even though it's an addition i think. The borough had no problems whatsoever regarding it

I don't know her opinion on it... most neighbours so far have been congratulating us on the fence and how unique it looks and awesome it is that we were doing it ourselves. A few of them actually said they might even copy our design! ahah

The neighbour from the other side, we actually get along really well with him. So much so, that he is splitting costs on his side of the fence and we even are building a gate on wheels of the fence in order to be able to open the panels and join the backyards whenever we host parties!

[MrSal]

Done with the fence!!

Gates installed and also lower boards installed...









We had some gravel laying around so we thought of doing it like this... not only it makes it look cleaner and neat but also it helps in terms of drainage... the lower boards are not touching the ground at all.

If I could picture it a profile of the fence is something like this:

[CmFtns]

Beautiful job MrSal. I really like your projects in this section... very well documented.

[Matt_D]

Very nice! So what was your all-in cost at project end?

[MrSal]

Very nice! So what was your all-in cost at project end?

About 1750 dollars give or take and a couple weekends (about 3 full time weekends) worth of labour.

I think it looks pretty damn good :)

[Irishtache]

Nice job! I was reading this thread from the beginning and thought of posting a link to a fellow mustachian who built a similar sounding fence and posted about it another thread...but then I realised it was YOU! Ha!

[Dollarafterdollar]

Looks Great! I love the look of the fence and the landscaping around it. I love how you documented the project as well.

[MrSal]

So ... With the fence done we just need to start tackling the landscape . We decided to leave that for next year since we will be building a deck and therefore the grass and plans will be taken out of most of the yard.

We will want to have a deck + concrete pavement and a little bit of grass.

I just finished the couches though. Wife didnt like the tone of the couches, because it was too orange for her. I used the remaining stain from the fence and did a second layer on top of previous stain. It actually came out nice. I did very fast and sparse brushes on purpose therefore I could still see the warmer tones underneath and the darker tones from the top layer stain.

The cushions for the couches though, we figured were super expensive. The cheapest we were able to find was Lowes at 59 dollars per set of 2. Since we needed 6 sets and eventually 9 sets total we thought it was too pricey.

Even with the scheme i have going on where i can get around 30-40% discount on Lowes prices it was still expensive - 400+ bucks for cushions.

Well, while navigating Lowes, for some reason I started changing the default stores. I have one 3 miles away and then a few others around 28 miles away. I changed to those and behold!!

Their prices were at 28 dollars!!!! for the same item!!!! I quickly bought them online with store pickup ... I applied my conjunction of coupons, cashback and discounted giftcards for an additional 34% off ...

In the end each set cost 19.90 dollars for a total of 180 dollars for 9 sets of cushions (or a total of 18 cushions). Which is pretty good for a Allen+Roth brand ..

Here are a couple pictures with the couches and fence ...







Total cost for these couches (there is one missing still which will be a lounge for one of the couches)

180 $ in cushions + stain that was pretty much free (remains of other jobs) + 30 dollars in lumber!!

[Matt_D]

Nice job again!

Have you spelled out said Lowes scheme somewhere else? I have not yet read about it if so.

[Dan_at_Home]

nice job on your fence.  I also put in my own 6 ft tall privacy fence in the backyard.

The only thing I would caution you on that I learned in the process is be careful about how did you set your fence posts.  I put all my fence posts in concrete.  However, one mistake I made on the earliest fence posts was the shape of the hole dug into the ground to set the posts. 

If you make the hole in the shape of a V (wider at the top and narrow at the bottom) you can encounter a problem called frost heave, where over the winter the frost will grip the V shape of the concrete and push certain portions of your fence up into the air, i.e. 1/2 to 1 inch or a couple cm per year.  The problem is that over time your fence will no longer be perfectly level all the way across but instead look crooked with some portions higher than others.  In fact, if you drive around and look at old fences in your town or neighborhood, often you will see this problem with other people's fences in their yards.

There are several ways to prevent frost heave when you dig your holes to put in the posts, i.e. (1) your holes can be perfect cylindrical shaped size (i.e. a constant diameter all the way from top to bottom, setting them in concrete may be achieved also using cardboard cylindrical molds from the hardware store) or (2) your fence post holes can be smaller at the top and wider at the bottom or (3) the holes are deep enough to go below the frost line (note that in many areas to achieve this goes beyond your typical DIY project because to get below the frost line you may need the holes to be 1 meter or 3-4 ft deep which requires the use of a larger auger tool or other large equipment tool).  In my own fence, for DIY options I found options (1) or (2) to be the most practical.  Most professionals would install fences will use option (3) because they will access to the specialized equipment to dig those really deep holes.

[CCCA]

nice fence and love the couch.  can you provide more info on the couch cushions?  what are they called?

[MrSal]

nice job on your fence.  I also put in my own 6 ft tall privacy fence in the backyard.

The only thing I would caution you on that I learned in the process is be careful about how did you set your fence posts.  I put all my fence posts in concrete.  However, one mistake I made on the earliest fence posts was the shape of the hole dug into the ground to set the posts. 

If you make the hole in the shape of a V (wider at the top and narrow at the bottom) you can encounter a problem called frost heave, where over the winter the frost will grip the V shape of the concrete and push certain portions of your fence up into the air, i.e. 1/2 to 1 inch or a couple cm per year.  The problem is that over time your fence will no longer be perfectly level all the way across but instead look crooked with some portions higher than others.  In fact, if you drive around and look at old fences in your town or neighborhood, often you will see this problem with other people's fences in their yards.

There are several ways to prevent frost heave when you dig your holes to put in the posts, i.e. (1) your holes can be perfect cylindrical shaped size (i.e. a constant diameter all the way from top to bottom, setting them in concrete may be achieved also using cardboard cylindrical molds from the hardware store) or (2) your fence post holes can be smaller at the top and wider at the bottom or (3) the holes are deep enough to go below the frost line (note that in many areas to achieve this goes beyond your typical DIY project because to get below the frost line you may need the holes to be 1 meter or 3-4 ft deep which requires the use of a larger auger tool or other large equipment tool).  In my own fence, for DIY options I found options (1) or (2) to be the most practical.  Most professionals would install fences will use option (3) because they will access to the specialized equipment to dig those really deep holes.

Oh no... I didnt say I made my holes like a V ... the V part is under the boards that I used to put some gravel.

The holes were actually dug with an auger and they are like 4-5 feet deep!! If you see in the pictures there is a huge big auger that we got a really good deal on so we went for it.

[MrSal]

nice fence and love the couch.  can you provide more info on the couch cushions?  what are they called?

Just the standard outdoor deep seat cushions

[MrSal]

Nice job again!

Have you spelled out said Lowes scheme somewhere else? I have not yet read about it if so.

Yup....just the normal buying the gift cards at a discount usually at 10% or more... if in craigslist sometimes get at 20-30% discount.

Then I use the movers coupon - another 10%.  Credit card cashback ... another 2.5% ... and then I use the online portals that usually I get 4% as well (sometimes they up it to 8% or 10 miles per dollar)

If you are really up to it you can also make them price match.

All in all you can easily get 30-50% at Lowes even of stuff that is already on sale.

[MrSal]

update!!

just bought this umbrella after researching the market for like 2 months and awaiting a promotion!

This one was for sale at 260 dollars at Sears and ended up using the Discover deals for a total out of pocket 156 dollars!!!!

[Matt_D]

MrSal, those last images aren't loading for me.

[MrSal]

sorry about that somethings seems wrong... i tried to correct it now. It should be visible now

[Matt_D]

That's one hefty-looking stand... did it come with it??

[MrSal]

yup all included.

[MrSal]

So... two things!

I complained to the company of the umbrella that the umbrella had some marks and also one of the stones was cracked.

They sent out a replacement....so now I have 2 umbrellas for the price of 1 !! these are 400+ USD umbrellas that I got 2 for the full price of around 200 dollars!

The company said to keep the other one as courtesy and it would be too expensive to ship it back to them - the whole things probably weighs 200+ lbs!

Anyhow, today, we had a lot of gravel left over and a couple wood posts... so, we tackled the outside of yard and not liking what we saw with our trash cans, I did something that is very typical in Portugal for trash cans - although I am missing the sides here, not sure if I will build them.

It sure made a difference and it looks much better outside already

[ShoulderThingThatGoesUp]

What would the sides look like were you to do them? I'm curious as our trash can situation is suboptimal right now.

[MrSal]

they usually are like horizontal slabs on the side, kinda like the fence but in a U shape where the front is open - so you can take the trash out and in ... just gives it a fancier architecture to something that looks bad already.

But as of now I think I will let it just like this ... it is wide enough to hold 3 trash cans, we already have 3, two of them were out because its trash night today..

i think it made it look a little cleaner than what it was before.

[MrSal]

Maybe its silly to have done this but i think it looks better!

And better doing this than to haul away the gravel and dirt somewhere... it was freakin heavy and we didnt want to haul it away by ourselves so we built this

[cgofish]

MrSal,  that fence and yard look amazing.  Are the horizontal boards pressure treated pine?   I'm looking at building something similar and I'm concerned the pine will warp and of course cedar is twice the price.

Thx!

[MrSal]

MrSal,  that fence and yard look amazing.  Are the horizontal boards pressure treated pine?   I'm looking at building something similar and I'm concerned the pine will warp and of course cedar is twice the price.

Thx!

Thaqnk you.

Yes Pressure treated everything. Used Lowes for the most part... shop around and use their coupons and see if HD prices are lower... if lower even by 0.01 dollars use the price match + 10% guarantee.

[Tony_G]

Very nice fence and couches, they look very sturdy, keep up the good work!

[MrSal]

The fence during winter time was really pretty!

Loved the contrast between the super white snow and the fence :D

[getupkid]

Would love to build a fence like this in our backyard. Posting to follow!