Fencing

No, not the fancy footwork kind with epee or rapier, the more banal kind with posts and cedar panels with latticework.

When we bought our place in 2003, the fence was given "a couple more years" by our realtor. Our neighbours to the north who own several properties in the neighborhood concurred.

Over the winter, our fence finally showed its age and one of the board kept popping out of its panel. I finally did some makeshift repairs to hold that in, which prompted the stress on the fence to show in another place and soon the side was sagging and looking disorderly.

We conveniently had a Home Depot flyer in our newspaper back in April that said they would come and give us a free quote, remove the old fence and dispose of it and then install the new one.

A brief digression - we have debated many a time to push the fence out closer to the sidewalk, but several things made us decide to replace the fence exactly in place:

• the Telus box that was in front of our fence was nice and small, but in February Telus came and replaced it with a huge box (for Telus TV among other things) about three times the size, which meant any previous plans for fencing around it would have to be redone.
• we would have had to move the garden over.
• any space we'd gain would not really be a net benefit. Notwithstanding that we have essentially a postage stamp sized back yard, we have several parks and playgrounds close to us, including one literally half a dozen houses down the alley, so any theory that the back yard would be a good play space for our daughter would not be fulfilled.
  

So we had AIM Cedar Works come out and give us a quote. We were technically too small a project (they wanted a minimum 60' of fence, ours was 54'), but they said they would do it anyways, and gave us a quote. 10% off if we booked by the end of April.

Well, we thought about doing it ourselves, but the price was very reasonable (much lower than we expected) so we booked it.

Yesterday, they came and installed the fence. It took them all day, as they hit a snag. The owner before the one we bought the place from had poured concrete in the back yard (torn out by the previous owner, and further reclaimed with a grass installation last year by us), which meant they had to jackhammer out and dig a trench to remove the gate posts. Lesson learned, aside from relief that we'd hired professionals, was that it's easier to install a new fence from scratch than to replace an old one.

The new fence is a thing of beauty. The old one was 4' tall and had a bracework of crossed bamboo poles for the Japanese hops we had to create privacy in our back yard. However, the hops are aggressive plants that in the spring grow as much as 6" a day or more, and further go to seed in the fall and die off until the spring, so there's always a mess to fix.

The new fence is 5' tall, and it's just the right balance between giving us more back yard privacy and less maintenance. I expect more back yard time this summer.

As a final comment - AIM Cedar Works rocks - they came when they said they were going to, did a great job of removal of the old fence, installing the new one, and cleaning up before they left. On time, professionally done, and on budget. I would happily recommend them to anyone.