Building our fence
My wife and I have wanted to either buy or build a fence around our house for a while. We weren't sure if we wanted pre-fab or to do it ourselves. We decided to do it ourselves. This post is a thread of what we chose and how we decided to build it.
Type of fence
Amanda, my wife, wanted a wood and wire fence. Something that would be simple enough to build and durable enough to last. She found a fence design she liked and started pricing out the material. The wood cost $1,500, the wire cost $200. We bought a gate kit for $75, 3 cans of stain for $180, and $30 - $50 for all the hardware(latches, screws).
The design consists of 4x4 posts with an inner frame of 4 2x4s approximately 7.5' wide and 3' high. The wire is nailed/stapled to the front frame and an identical back frame is screwed to the front. The frame is screwed to 2 posts. The wood is stained prior to adding the wire and back frame. The stain we used is a cedar color.
There were a total of 24 posts. 10 of those posts had to be cemented in the ground. We used a large auger to dig the post holes 24" deep. For the posts that needed cemented we used half an 80lbs bag of Quikrete for each of the 10 posts.
Gates
The fence connects to our carport where we decided to install a rolling gate. The gate itself was similar to our fence section, 4 2x4s making the outer frame. The difference was the inner frame, because the gate kit fit on 1 2x4 we decided to use thinner wood for the inner section covering the wire. The wheels are screwed onto the 2x4 and there are rolling brackets that keep the gate inline when rolled. We used a small locking latch to latch the gate in place.
The side gate is not on wheels and uses a latch that is lifted and pushed through a hole to keep it in place. This gate is using the normal fence inner and outer frame we were using on the fence sections, which makes it heavier than the rolling gate. We used heavy duty hinges to screw the gate to the post.
Finishing
We decided to get black post caps for the 4x4 posts. We're going to cute posts 2 inches from the frame and screw the black caps on the posts. It should look good once we're done. We may purchase a couple of the solar light caps around our gates.
Summary
We saved a decent amount of money doing this ourselves. While incredibly labor intensive, it turned out nice and is unique compared to other fences in our neighborhood. I have a couple takeaways, first, come up with a plan for the gates. We knew what we wanted but kinda left things flexible when we started construction on the gates themselves. Second, don't use a shovel or any hand tools to dig your holes. Find someone who has an auger or rent one. It makes things much less labor intensive. Using a friend's auger we got 24 holes dug 24" deep in about 2 hours. It would've taken us a week to get this done by hand.