1.26.09 - 1.29.00 : Fence Build
Rewind to the end of the holiday season... our holidays were fantastic, but now that my calendar was open once again for weekend work, I needed to get into high gear. The new year was fast approaching, and I was finding myself at a crossroads. A lot of what needed to be done at this point was now fully contingent upon having a fence in the front yard. I’m going to be planting blackberries that I want to train along the fence, and I’m going to want to keep the free-range pets from the neighborhood out of my hard-worked veggie and flower beds. I’m also going to want to keep covetous neighbors at bay... Hence, a fence. Specifically, a 4 foot tall, two gate, bull wire fence framed out in wood. It’s good to know what you want. I find it makes things go a lot faster. The jury was obviously in on what the fence is going to look like, but how it was to go up was still in the air. But it needed to go in SOON. I found out from a friend that January is the time to put berry plants in the ground, and the fence had to be in before I could do that, or we’ll have to build around them and that just spelled disaster.
The decision to be made now was – to build it ourselves or to hire it out? Reflecting back on exactly this time last year, when Trent and I were frantically sourcing materials for our back yard privacy fence, staining wood, coordinating “build weekends” with all of our friends and loved ones and thoroughly tapping their good natures and will-work-for-beer tolerances, I found myself getting vaguely sick to my stomach. So I cleared my head and thought of all of my future harvests of fresh fruit and veggies, the bounty of cut flowers and dried herbs... My stomach settled. Cautiously, I conjured the image of the front yard fence in my head again, and the piles of money we would save (tummy’s ok so far…) if we built it ourselves (oooh, feeling sea sick *urp*).
Really? Let’s test that again. Cleared my head. Stepped outside. Took a few deep breaths and looked out over my future eden. Calm again. Let fly with a mental slideshow of imagined front-yard fence build weekends. I woke up to Trent standing over me, fanning me, asking me why I was screaming about augers and post hole diggers.
And so the decision was made. Neither of us could deal with another Spring full of fence building. We would lose our freakin’ minds. And our hair. And all of our friends. And quite possibly each other. Much too high of a price to pay. So I called in a couple of companies to give us bids. The first company did a bull wire fence for my dad’s place, and it looked great. To be truthful, I was pretty well set that I would use them, but was going to get a couple of other bids ‘cause that’s just how you do it. The sales guy came over and he and I and Trent went over the specifics of the job, and he created a bid. The price was just a little outside of the budget, but not uncomfortably so. I was feeling good. The second company was slated to come in the next week, so we filed the first bid and waited.
The second company came out and I shared my vision. Capitol Fence and Deck sent Mike S. out to estimate our job, and he was fantastic. He told me about the building process his company uses, and it was very different from that of the first company we had out. In a nutshell, instead of putting wooden posts in the ground, which eventually are susceptible to water damage and can leech chemicals into my garden soil, etc, etc, they use steel posts and frame the fence around these steel posts. It’s really a very cool design. It was also considerably more expensive than the first bid, which as I mentioned was itself outside of the budget a titch. Mike wrote up some numbers for us and we let him know we needed to deliberate and we’d be in touch.
Well, deliberate we did, and Trent and I nervously decided to go with the more expensive bid. I say “nervously” because you never really know what you’re getting into until you’re up to you knees at least, and the cost, though fair* given the materials being used, was nothing to sneeze at. However, now that everything’s said and done, every penny was worth it. Not only was Mike a pleasure to deal with, but his entire crew was as well. Once we let Mike know that we were going to be using his company to build this fence, he sent Alan out to look over the project one more time. We had to make a few adjustments due to where the gas lines lay. I was still in “nervous” mode at this point and felt that this discovery would be an ideal way for a few extra charges to be added to the bill, but my fears were for naught. The changes were minimal and didn’t affect the linear footage of fencing substantially. Also, and I think it’s relevant to say this, after dealing with Mike and his crew for most of a week, I really feel these guys are good guys, and aren’t out to nickel-and-dime customers. A lesser company may have found a way to tack on some charges, but that did not happen here.
The build went VERY smoothly, after we found out exactly where the gas lines were. We knew from the paint lines and the flags where they *should* be, but couldn’t be positive until we found them in the ground. So the crew dug a pilot hole and once we located that pipe, we made a few more minor adjustments. That done, Leno and his crew got to work and in 3 days (well, 4, but one was a bust due to heavy rain) had that fence up. On the first day, they sunk the 15 or 16 posts in the ground. On the second day, they framed out the fence sections. On the third day, they added in the bull panels, finished framing, and built and hung the gates. The crew was awesome. They worked fast and hard, communicated well, and presented a minimal distraction for Trent, who works from home. They were personable to boot! At one point, I was unloading my car and had both of my hands full of random stuff. One of the crew cut across the yard from where he was working to open the newly hung gate for me. That was really the icing on the cake.
I’m a big fan of small businesses. I’m a really big fan of this one. I think that a mere two weeks passed between the day we had Mike out to do the bid and the day Leno and his crew finished the fence, and the majority of that time was spent by Trent and myself deciding which company to go with. Capitol Fence and Deck is a member of the Better Business Bureau, so I made a point of sending the BBB a glowing review of the company the morning after it was complete. I also called Mike S. (sales) and Mike M. (owner) directly to let him know how pleased Trent and I were with the project. I told him about this blog and let him know that I would love to include the company’s name and contact information and that I would send them my write up before I posted it so that they could take a look. (So if you're reading this, you can be assured it's been given the "thumb's up"...) Finally, to add a little bit of “legalese” or whatever - aside from being a very happy customer, I am not affiliated with this company. I did not receive any profits, payments, or discounts for posting this information. I just believe in giving praise where praise is due.
*This is based on actual information, and not just “a feeling”. Trent is an estimator for a sign company. From 7am until 4:30 pm, Monday through Friday, he is estimating the costs of building just about any kind of sign that you can imagine. He is well familiar with the costs of raw materials and labor that goes into this kind of thing. It’s not a huge leap from sign-construction to fence-construction. I’m not just digging platitudes out of my –well – you know where!
I put these pink surveyors' flags 1' from the sidewalk to show where I wanted the fence line to go. We had to adjust that just a bit due to the gas lines. This is one of those areas where Leno's communication really paid off for me. The measurements I set out were very important for the completion of other elements of the project at large, and being able to discuss things with Leno meant there were no surprises once the fence was complete and I started working on the rest. Having the information from our conversations let me adjust my drawings and plans while the team completed the fence. A++!
This is where we ran into the trouble with the gas line. The yellow dot at the bottom of the picture, toward the left, shows where the gas line goes under the sidewalk. It dog-legs from the barely discernable, vertical yellow line at the top right of the picture. Makes a perfect zigzag. NICE!
All the posts are in. They're initially much taller than they will need to be. Once they're all in and the height of the fence sections is determined, they'll be cut to size.
More of same. It seems I took a lot of pics from this vantage point, at various stages in the build, so I'm trying to throw them all in for perspective and continuity.
Lumber laid out for framing...
Ditto!
Framing started!
Framing continued!
Initially I wanted the fence topline to be perfectly straight. However, there's about a foot and a half grade to the lawn, which means that if the fence is a short 3 and a half feet at the house, it's going to be an overly-tall 5 feet at the sidewalk. Conversely, if it's a modest 4 footer at the sidewalk, it would be a mere 2 and half feet at the house. There was just no getting around this. This was my only sticking point in the design, but it had nothing to do with Capitol Fence and Deck. They didn't create the grade in my lawn! In the end, the "stepped" sides of the fence look fantastic and resolve the issue perfectly.
The framing is further along here. It's hard for me to tell if they've put the wire panels in yet or not.
Same here...
There it is!! Bull wire! Gotta love it!!
Look at that fine ass gate! That is SCHWEET!
And look how it swings!!
And look how that other gate swings. It is a dual-purpose gate - keeps "out" things out and lets "in" things in! Yay!! I call that a "FREE-ture".
And drum roll please.....Here's the info for
Capitol Fence & Deck
13724 Avenue K
Austin, TX 78728
(512) 990-2530
(maybe one of these days I'll get good and smart and figure out how to add a link to their site to my blog...)
This is where we ran into the trouble with the gas line. The yellow dot at the bottom of the picture, toward the left, shows where the gas line goes under the sidewalk. It dog-legs from the barely discernable, vertical yellow line at the top right of the picture. Makes a perfect zigzag. NICE!
And look how it swings!!
