A parking spot was one of the requirements on our list when we were looking at houses. The Row House had a parking spot but the wooden gate that enclosed the driveway was barely hanging on by its rusty hinges. In order to park the car we had to get out, then manually push open the wooden gate that was barely hanging on by its rusty nails. We risked injury from the nails every time we needed to park the car. Clearly it was time for us to build a new privacy fence and double gate! We decided to move the gate further into the driveway rather than at the very end so we didn’t need to open and close it in order to park. The plan was to make a 6′ privacy fence and double gate door so that it still blocked off the backyard to give us privacy and security and we were still able to open the double doors to allow for over-sized items to be brought in through the yard.
Process
Choosing a privacy fence and double gate design:
After looking at different fences in our neighbourhood and online, we were inspired by this St. George Wood Privacy Fence and this Galveston Victorian design. In the end the fence was a mash-up of both styles.
Digging the fence posts:
We needed to dig out 4 – 4×4 fence post holes and have our posts set in concrete. We ended up contracting this work out to Perfect Post Hole Toronto. They came on time and banged out the post holes in about an hour using a digging bar and a manual post hole digger and set the posts in concrete that they provided. They made it look really easy. in fact when we need to dig more post holes I think we will do this ourselves (even if it takes 3 x long) as it cost about $100 per post hole. Our only complaint is that they did not clean up after and left piles of dirt behind from the holes.
Building the privacy fence:
We let the pressure treated posts set for 48 hours and set to building the static sides of the fence. First step was to mount the top and bottom rails with some brackets and start screwing the cut pickets into place with some deck screws. We had to cut the last picket on the outside lengthwise to fit. If you have to do this to a lot of the picket its best to space it out across a few boards so it is less noticeable. Once the fence sides were mostly done we set out to building the double gate doors off-site at a friends workshop. After framing the doors out and screwing in the pickets to the door we started the process of creating the top accent. This consisted of cutting the picket boards down to 1×1 strips and cutting them to length and setting them into a grove that was cut into the top rail and securing them with screws. It was a tedious process but we really like the way this look turned out. The fence accents for the static parts of the fence were assembled back at our place.
Installing Gate Hardware:
Now that we had the static privacy fence and double gate doors built it was time to mount the doors with some hardware we picked up from Rona. The gate hinges went on easy and we installed a cane bolt on one of the doors to make everyday use more convenient. The gate latch gave us a bit of trouble as it was not meant for a double door but we made it work. We are still on the lookout for a better gate latch for a double door like ours.
Fence Post Caps:
All we have left to do to finish off the privacy fence with a double gate by trimming the fence posts down and installing post caps. We want ones that have a solar light to increase the visibility in the backyard at night (Basically so we can see the raccoons…) These are the two options we are considering:
Let us know in the comments which fence post cap you prefer!
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