Slowly but surely, we are eliminating and replacing the last vestiges of the old fence in the backyard. Yay! The last two weekends, we worked on installing a new gate on the back edge of the fence. Ben designed and built the gate, and we had already installed the new posts, so all we had to do was cut down the old one and hang up our new one. Sounds easy, right?
Well, after we cut down the old gate (demolition is kind of
fun, actually!), we shimmied the new one into position only to see that it was
just a little bit too wide! Grr. The gate was already assembled, so to get it
to fit we had to run the circular saw down the entire length of the door.
Once that was done, it fit great. All that was left was to screw
in the hinges and it was ready to use! Christina and Katherine also exercised
their locksmith skills and transferred the old gate lock to the new door. This is the third lock they have installed in
the last couple of years, and it’s becoming second nature to them!
One great advantage to our new gate is that we reversed the hinge side of the door. Whereas before the door would swing into the backyard, this swings away, against the fence. Now it should be easier to bring larger items through the gate. Also, we will be able to install a latching mechanism on the fence so we can easily keep the gate held open when we are using it a lot.
Finally this gate has a very advanced feature that the old gate did not have…. HANDLES! Seriously, we don’t know why we didn’t just install handles onto the old gate. Now that we have them we don’t know how we lived without them for so long. Actually we do know how we did, but we are trying to forget. Anyways, so our first fence gate out of three has been installed. We may not get to them in the near future since they are not critical to the space (they are on the sides of the backyard, facing the front of the house), but at least they’ll be easier to do now that we’ve completed one!
Over the last two weeks, the backyard has really started coming together! We are finally starting to see some payoff for all of our hard work!
One major milestone is that we completed the masonry and soil prep work for the second planter. Ryan finished up the third course of bricks and gave them a good cleaning. After that, Ben sealed them against water, and then lined and insulated the inside of the planter.
We had a little bit of leftover soil from the first planter that we were able to fill the second planter with. Anxious to get the apple tree into a more roomy environment, we planted the tree first thing. We are going to get the remainder of the necessary soil this Tuesday, and then the plants will finally be able to go in! You can see some of the staging already – those are grape vines that will climb up a wire trellis that Ben is going to build. Across from the planter, you can see we also built a pot shelf out of the leftover pavers from the front yard. How wonderful to find a nice use for leftover materials!
The last big achievement to report is that we have just about finished the garage door. Yes, we know it was installed months ago, but we'd put it on the backburner to focus on the planters and fence. This week Ben and Ryan finally got around to painting and installing most of the wood trim around the edge of the door. Katherine and Christina also installed the door handle and lock – they are fast becoming old pros at this.
You can also see that we installed another fence panel – this one was very gratifying because it actually starts to cover up the view from the street. The last bit of the opening will be covered with a gate which we still have to build. Once we do that, our backyard will feel much more intimate and secure.
Once the second planter is all filled, we are really going to enjoy hanging out in the backyard! It's already so much nicer, we have a good time just hanging out, sitting on the planters, and grilling back there. Ah, summer is so great in Chicago!
