BBP Part 5 Finally A Fence

Don't miss
BBP Part 1 Arbor Vitae And Rocks
BBP Part 2 Straightening The Wall
BBP Part 3 Goliath And His Friends
BBP Part 4 Sod And More

In the little side yard where the we dug the trench, the grade used to slope towards the house. That's never a good thing. Water needs to run away from houses, not towards it! So during the the whole trench, drain, concrete pad and sprinkler timing, somewhere in there I dug out wells around the vents and placed the metal well things in there so Travis could attach them and the fill dirt and top soil could go in there too at the proper grade. So here's what it looks like all ready for sod.


Travis finished laying our bit of sod out and then we knew we would add a little more top soil just to make sure it was all level and seed over it.


Just to give an idea of where we're at with fixing the grade and what it used to be, here's a shot from where we stood Aug 26th.


And this is part of a picture I took back in May. Down at the far end we probably gained 10 feet of level yard. It's amazing what a difference it makes in your perception of the yard. That fall away area really made the yard seem a lot smaller.


So Thursday August 26th Travis started finishing the east corner. See how the privacy fence stops short and there's a chunk of black chain link? Travis originally talked about tying our black chain link in there somehow but I said, wait a minute, that won't work with raising the grade on our yard, plus if we want it to look right we ought to finish out the privacy fence and tie our chain link to that. So that's what we did. Here Travis has already put the post in and is starting on a vertical stacking retaining wall since our yard was now going to be higher than theirs.


Here we are on Saturday August 28th after most of the work on the little retaining wall and the framing for the fence. And thank you for the hammer Emmett.


Here's the wall. We also added a couple sprinkler heads over here since obviously the system wasn't set up to water the empty box.


Time to add planks. That little section of fence that was on the end had been built with a pretty good slope down, which would have looked completely dumb to either follow that slope with the added section or to level out our section after that slope. So I made Travis take the nails out of the planks and lift the whole mess than nail the planks back down. So now there's strips of unweathered wood showing on the planks. Oh well, it's all going to get stained next year anyway.


Friday September 3rd, here's the fence and retaining walls all finished and fill and top soil put in.


Time to lay the new sod we bought for the side yard and the formerly empty box.


Hey Mr. E.


No, you cannot come out here. You're not dressed, you don't even have pants on and your sandals are not only un-strapped, they're also on the wrong feet. March your rear back inside.


After laying sod in the side yard, Travis decided he wanted to get the chain link poles up before doing the sod down there. We're only allowed to do black chain link because apparently that's a city of Salem ordinance along waterways. Whatever.


level, level, level


Coming right along.


Hey Mr. A


Time to pick up all the garbage!


Finishing the day out with laying more sod


By Monday September 6th (Labor Day) The sod had been laid and the additional top soil to finish leveling the yard had been spread. Time to finish the fence!




Two rolls were needed to span the gap.


When Travis first sewed the to rolls together, we realized they were two different sizes! Sure enough, they had two different upc codes on the tags. Thanks Home Depot for stacking two different sizes all together. Of course the one Travis took back to exchange turned out to be the one they no longer had and he had to come home and get the other roll. Aggravating waste of time.


Mr. A, your face is filthy. What is that on you?


Making me happy by grinding posts down that were a touch too high and making the top rail not level.


Avery liked working the fence come-along.


Here, at the end of a labor full Labor Day, the sod was laid, the top soil was ready for seed as soon as the fence was finished and it we were so close. He did finish that evening but it was dark by the time all the finishing pieces were done.