Let me start with a quick question: what is the first thing you see when you pull into a driveway?

Yeah, so that was a trick question since the answer, which I assume no one can argue with, would be ‘the driveway’. As such I have taken it as a personal goal to make the driveway as presentable and finished as possible. While there is still plenty of work left, we have recently accomplished one major goal.

The old fence that lined the end of the driveway and separated the front from the back of the house is now gone. Not only was the stockade fence in disrepair and missing sections, but it was also dark grey and visually confining. Walking through the gate en route to the deck has been described as ‘claustrophobic’ and ‘dark’. These are hardly words were hoping to instill with the new layout and interior. So out with the old and in with the new.

The plan for this project was to repurpose and remodel the fence into a very traditional white picket fence with the hope of making the backyard more accessible, open, and inviting. As an added bonus, the white fence would be much more visually clean than the dark grey one.

Before

In Progress

After

I don’t think I need to caption the end product, the photos should be enough on their own.

There is virtually nothing I would change about this project looking back. Perhaps a second gate close to the shed would have practical value, but putting in another post is not an insignificant effort this close to the driveway. Besides, it would have increased the stress to that end of the fence–a part that is already rather water damaged.