Please Fence Me In

Our neighbor's house is a nice house. By "nice" I mean structurally sound, nice siding, etc. However, since I moved in (it was vacant when I moved in and boy don't I wish for those days!) a renter has moved in (friend of the owner's I guess). This guy is older (60's?) and I think works at a little bar in our neighborhood. He's always doing "weird" things like refinishing boats and cars in his garage (the smell! Ugh! I thought at first he was cooking meth!!...not that I actually know what that would smell like but I have a decent imagination.). There is a crappy old boat in front of his garage in the alley that he's "working on" (not in the past couple of years but still...); for the longest time there was a Saturn back there missing a hood and a quarter panel, etc. Now there's also a semi-cab (I think?) back there? Anyway - the thing is there's a lot of JUNK. Our entertainment center, which we left on the sidewalk with a big FREE sign last October, has sat on their deck, since then. The poor thing is made of fiber board and sat in the elements for months before it was tarped. There's a fridge on his deck, some other appliances maybe...? The sliding glass door was broken (!) by a crazed ex (!!!) a couple of falls ago and is still not replaced but has had plastic & plywood covering it since then. There are numerous....things in the yard including a nasty old mattress (!!!), a lawn mower, a metal structure that I think maybe you're supposed to put a boat on...? Anyway - a lot of crap. We have to look at that crap EVERY DAY. It's annoying and quite frankly I think it diminishes the value of our cute house & our lovely yard. The neighbors on the other side (Hi Anna!) rock and the other end of the block is a-okay - but this one neighbor. Ay yi yi....

We've been wanting to put up a fence for...oh about 3 years. But we're either too lazy, tired, broke, indecisive, etc to actually do it. Well when the Sunday paper came this week there was a Menard's ad and in that ad was a sale price on pre-assembled, treated dog-eared fence sections....we counted what was left in our "wedding money cash fund" and decided to go for it! We already have a chain link fence there (on our property) and decided to do it quick and dirty (and possibly without a permit) and wire the new fence to the old.

Within 3 hours the thing was done! (not counting the time to go pick the fence up, tie it to the truck, drive very slowly home, stop for Dairy Queen before getting home and then asking Dustin (our cool neighbor) to help unload it).

We are so ECSTATIC with the results we can't stop talking about it. You'd think we just built the Great Wall or something. This gives our yard SO much more privacy. I love the fact that we can enjoy our yard more the rest of this summer and next year when Baby B is here and we want to play in the yard, we won't feel quite so on display. I also think our property value went up just a little.

Before: piles of...stuff! Note the mattress that has been there...since I think before the snow flew last year. Egads!


Another Before shot


After! Glorious Boundaries! Visual Barriers! Whohoo!

Comments

kmd said…
Holy cow, you really did have an eye sore there! Good work! It looks fantastic!
As the saying goes "fences make good neighbors"! Definitely a major improvement, not to mention you'll feel better when you get to go outside with the baby later on. :-)
Test said…
Great work - it looks so much better!

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