Gates

When I shared our new pavers a few weeks ago, I failed to mention another problem we had: our gate no longer fit. You can see in the picture below that we are missing the gate which enclosed the backyard.

Th gate attached right after the gutter. You can see the  hinge on the right.

Since the pavers were now level with our existing deck, the gate was about 6 inches too long and therefore could not be reattached. As a temporary solution, we laid the gate on its side and placed one of our outdoor chairs in front of it. Not ideal but with three small dogs, we had to make sure they couldn’t wiggle out. Well last Friday night, something wiggled in.

Max ( aka: Louie) 

Yep. I came home to find this little man in my backyard. Luckily, I was able to find his owners the next morning but this definitely lit the fire under us to finally address the gate issue. I had the gate and fence installed by a professional. Aside from my gutters, I think this is the only project I had NO desire to DIY. We weren’t sure if the gate could just be cut down. Thank goodness for handy fathers! He came over; we disassembled the gate, cut 6 inches off and re-assembled it. Leaving things looking like this:

But the gate fun did not stop there! Tim and I had been talking for a while now about adding an additional gate to the right side of our house to hide the a/c unit, sprinkler system, trash and recycling from street view. Well I called our original installation company to get a matching gate and was FLOORED by the price! $700 to come out and install a matching gate, $400 if I wanted to just purchase the gate and install on our own. Still way more than the $250 budget I had in my head.

So when Tim and I received a coupon in the mail from Lowe’s, we decided to go checkout the gating materials. We found this panel which was very similar to our vinyl fence. We also found this gate kit. We decided to take the plunge. We purchased 1 panel, 1 gate kit, 1 6 ft. wood post, 1 6 ft. post cover, a lock kit and some extra-long screws!

First we mounted the wooden post to the side of the house. 

 Then we cut out one side of the vinyl post cover and “clipped” it on to the wooden post.

Next we cut the panel and assembled the gate following the instructions in the manual. We were hesitant about using only glue so we also reinforced it with white screws. I am not going to lie, this was not a quick process and it definitely takes at least two people! This is the finished product.

We did have to make a second run to Lowe’s for a post cap and handle. I am estimating my total to be around $155! Sometimes it definitely pays to DIY!