Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Last post of April

Update #1:  I wrote a post about the details here and now the link is fixed.
Update #2: the gate fell off the post, so I need to buy one more piece of wood to fix it.

Technically this didn't get transferred from my notepad file to this blog until today but I'll back publish so that April has one more entry.   More entries to follow but I wanted to let you know that in anticipate of the yard work that might start this weekend, I decided to repair this crappy old fence gate.

There isn't much need for a gate here but as the previous owner had one,  I figured maybe there is a reason.  I did what amounts to research i.e. I Googled the terms fence and gate and watched a couple of YouTube videos. 

Original Gate
Surprisingly, I couldn't find much in the way of comprehensive This is How You do It and Why.  It required piecing together information from different sources to learn, for instance, why you put a diagonal board inside the gate frame (to alleviate the weight of the gate from the supporting fence post).  And that you should angle the board so that it is next to one of the hinges you use to hang the gate (same reason). 

Again I didn't research the Fuck out of It, so maybe there is a Bob Villa or Tim the Toolman resource out there that would have told me everything I ever wanted to know about gates but was afraid to ask.  My line of reasoning went as follows:


  • the existing gate is one dirty look away from falling apart anyway, so i couldn't make it worse even if I simply removed the gate;
  • it's a small enough space that I don't have to follow all the rules of measuring and weight distribution to make it work;
  • previous owner left me plenty of spare 2x4s and other pieces of scrap wood so I'm only out the hardware for the hinges and the dog-ear fence pickets...approximately $13;
  • you can learn a lot from your mistakes if you are willing to own up to them and apply what you learned to future projects. 
 So the gate isn't perfect but it does the job.  I might stain or paint it later this summer, or more likely, let the Little Monkeys do it with the leftover paint Previous Owner left behind.
New Gate



























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