Photo Pool Challenge: New Fence

Now that the weather is warmer but plant growth is still in an early stage, it’s a good time to put in a new fence if you need one. We reached out to a homeowner in Bed Stuy who recently replaced a chain link fence with an all-cedar one to hear about the details of the project. When he and his wife closed on the place, the chain link fence “was a bizarre disaster,” recalled the owner. For one thing, “it was made up of what our contractor called ‘five years of job site theft’ — thick plumbing pipe frame with chain link wired on.” In addition, there were numerous other problems, including a section of fence that ran through the middle of the yard, a hole in the fence over a drop where a child could fall through, an area where a tree had grown through the fence, and a spot where the fence was missing altogether.

As a first effort, the owners pulled out the part of the fence that ran across the yard and reinforced the rest of it as best they could. Then they added a reed fence on top from Home Depot using zip ties — “a super cheap solution,” said the owner. “We got three years out of the Home Depot fence before it was really starting to fall apart. So we started looking for someone to build a proper cedar fence.” They got several bids, and went with fence installer Mike Cerverizzo & Sons.

His crew put in a 6-foot-high cedar fence and dealt with all the oddities of the yard, including installing the fence over a retaining wall, boxing around trees and stumps that ran through the property line, and uneven ground. The total cost was about $3,500, which reflects the structural work and difficulties of the site, not just the materials. The cedar fence should last about ten years, at least, estimated the homeowner. “It’s been about 10 months since he put the fence up and it’s looking great so far,” he said. Have you installed a fence or are you considering it? Please share stories and photos here.

If you have a home or garden project you’d like to share, please contact cate at brownstoner dot com.

Above, a close-up of the new cedar fence.

The old chain link fence with a bamboo screen on top of it in the snow.

An early photo of the yard showing bits of the fence in the center of the yard.