PVC Fence

With a new yard, comes a new fence. This one was a bit more of an ordeal than our last one. First of all, we had a homeowners association to deal with this time around which, by the way, was about 99.9% of the challenge with this project. Seems, even though the covenants are perfectly clear that fences are permitted, certain individuals in the neighborhood are just plain opposed to fences. Funny thing about it is, some those who are opposed have fences of their own!

Anyway, after we spent two years getting through the homeowners association (threatening a lawsuit along the way), we decided to have the fence professionally installed. Not that we couldn't do it, but the installation cost was such an insignificant amount relative to the overall cost, we figured we'd pay somebody else to do the labor this time. This was a big deal for us broke homeowners!

With the fence installed, it's now time to start on our planting beds and hedges. Does the fun ever stop?

Big Casualty!

You should note, the pictures at right might be a bit graphic for squeamish folks when enlarged - you've been warned. And yes, that is "bits of me" on the router and guide. Told you it was nasty!

I've been hurt lots of times doing home improvement projects. This one, though, takes the cake (I hope)! I was building an arbor with 4x4 cedar posts and cedar lattice work. The posts needed a channel cut in them to hold the lattice sheets in place. A router was required to cut out those channels. About my third post in, the router slipped in my hand as I was picking it up and I inadvertently hit the power rocker-switch which, of course, turned the router on. Since I wasn't ready for it, the router then torqued out of my hand, spun around and fell to the ground.

I was fairly certain it did not hit my legs or feet on the way down but I was less certain about my hands. Upon closer inspection, it was immediately evident that the router "got me." Off to the emergency room we went. According to the wife, I was frighteningly calm. Until the pain, cold-sweats and nausea kicked in anyway. As it turns out, for a guy who took out a chunk of his hand with a 3/4" router bit set 3/4" deep, I was extraordinarily lucky that I did not hit any bones, tendons, muscles, ligaments, nerves, or arteries. Wouldn't a lucky guy have not gotten "bit" by the router at all, though?

Hot tub pergola

We love our hot tub. One of the really nice things about having your own hot tub is you can go au natural if you'd like. It's OK, you can admit it. Of course, with a 1/4 acre lot, privacy can be difficult to come by. So, we built this pergola to screen the hot tub from the neighbors. It really was a pretty quick project - just a couple of evenings during one week.


Some people have asked for some more detail on how I built the privacy frames. There wasn't really much magic to it - I just routed a channel in the cedar 2x4s to seat the lattice in - the picture below shows this pretty well.

Now the only "full moon" the neighbors see is the celestial body in the sky.

Hicks Yew Hedge

Quarter acre lot + backyard patio = privacy hedge

Trips to Home Improvement Centers: 6

We started this project after we'd relaxed on the patio for a couple of months. We slowly started putting mulch down around the patio and waited for the big fall sales at the nurseries.

We actually bought the yews in two phases. The first phase included the Scotch Pine while the second was just yews. The purchases were about 3 weeks apart. We figured that would give the neighbors time to ponder whether or not we had a particular dislike for them alone or if we were actually going to complete the hedge on the other side as well.

The hedge is comprised of eighteen 24" tall yews. It basically has two stretches, each 21' long. 60 linear feet of edging was required to keep the twenty-five 40-pound bags of mulch contained. Tool requirements were simple: a shovel and utility knife.