privacy fence | treetrunkdings

Now that the backyard privacy fence is complete, time to refresh the look of the front deck, starting with the broken latticework underneath, which used to look like this:

Here are some of the patterns I’m considering, reusing the old lattice work strips where possible:

Or if I’m really ambitious, I’ll turn it into a wood-and-metal mixed media display, something like this:

Merlin and Erin would have selected one design for me, I’m sure…

…after they watched the butterflies, hummingbirds, bees, birds, chipmunks and squirrels, of course.

What the cabin in the woods looked like under construction in April 1987, still with the same latticework today in 2014 — time to bring the deck into the 21st century!:

I am a woodsman in that I am a man who lives in the woods. I respect the right for private property ownership such that if we are all responsible stewards of the land we own, then our community benefits us, providing us good health, space for happiness and time to prosper.

I also believe that good fences, even virtual ones, make good neighbours — keep your eyes out of my business, including drones, network snooping/spying and next-door peeping Toms — in other words, I believe I can trust my neighbours to do the right thing, even when evidence points to the contrary, thus leaving room for education, instruction, advice and creative/constructive criticism to steer us toward being good neighbours, regardless of the past.

My next-door neighbours, Robert and Lauren Justice and their child, Olivia Grace Justice, like to keep their outdoor lights on at night — it adds an aesthetic value as well as provides a sense of security; however, when I sleep in the sunroom at night, their lights are disturbing, or, when I want to look at stars, planets and moons, their lights are a distraction.

Thus, I am led here, to this moment, where I begin documenting the privacy fence I’m constructing that simply blocks our back deck and sunroom from our neighbours, allowing both of us to use our private property as we please while leaving as much as the woods open between us.

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A few years ago, a subcontractor built a sunroom attached to our house. During construction, I added a “French drain” under the sunroom to prevent water running off the hill behind our house from flooding our crawlspace.

After they finished the sunroom, I built a new wood deck. At that time, the lot next to ours was undeveloped so our deck extended out into the woods.

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Eventually, the lot next door was developed, making us feel crowded in by suburbia:

Before our sunroom was built, I disassembled the old back deck where the sunroom would go, cutting down a tree to make room for the new back deck. I piled the pieces of deck wood on the ground, eventually moving them to the side of the house, where they sat for almost ten years.