No not an English pub and no pun intended, this is literally my fence post, a post about our fence upgrade and the path we took to get there ;-)
This is how the Southern boundary of the property looked when we moved in...
No idea what that mark is on the photo above ?! Anyway, the existing fence consisted of galvanised posts, PVC coated chain wire, plus there was no path from the laundry door (halfway down house) to the washing line at the rear of the house - just grass/weeds.
At the rear of the property was the traditional Hills Hoist clothes line, which was removed to make way for the new shed and chicken pen.
Once the new shed was completed we had a new concrete path installed to go from the laundry down to the shed and new clothes line (now mounted on the back wall of the house).
Once the path was installed I set about making a chook pen at the back, with the eventual aim of making a bigger more permanent enclosure than the current coop, which we purchased when we first got the chickens.
This involved putting in a 1.8m high paling fence where the chook pen would go, which would then taper down to a 1.2m high paling boundary fence.
Once the 1.8m high section at the rear was complete, I started at the front of the fence and tackled it in sections, cutting off and pulling back the PVC coated chain wire, and then replacing with treated pine palings for a more modern look.
This process took longer than I thought as we chose to retain the existing galvanised steel pipes used as the posts and bearers for the fence. This meant pre-drilling each hole and then using a self tapping screw to secure the palings. Why pre-drill for self tapping screws I hear you ask? Well that galvanised steel is about 30 years old and tougher than concrete, so the pre-drilling sped up the process and reduced the amount of screws that failed to go all the way in on the first attempt!
This is the first section completed and we were happy with the result and how it looked compared to the original fence. This took the better part of a day...
And the remainder the better part of the following two weekends. But now that this was done, this meant that I could get started on the landscaping, putting in the plants that we had been temporarily been holding in pots (see the photos below) and putting down 25mm bluestone as mulch.
And below you can see the chicken coop and pen which has been built, and the passion fruit vine I planted for the girls is doing well getting established. I also put up a bird feeder (which we brought home from America) to keep the native birds from trying to steal the chicken's feed.
So all in all a lot of hard work but really happy to see progress being made and our vision coming together. Next step on the Southern boundary is to install a new path from the laundry door to the carport slab out front, and erect a pergola over the kitchen and dining room window, so that we continue with the landscaping and complete this side of the house.
The list of things to do never ends!
Cheers, Col
