Updated Outdoor Space

I have never done a post on our backyard or even shared a picture.  Mostly it is because we never used to go out there but also because it had a horrible patio covering that was falling down and just plain old ugly, it looked like this...

Actually it doesn't look so bad it this picture but believe me it was.  Some of the posts were rotting from below so they were sinking in the post holes and making it so some parts of the covering were high and some were so low even I (only 5'4") had to duck.  With this unsafe eye sore we never used the back yard...EVER!  Luckily, I decided to throw my sisters baby shower out here and knew I had to do something.

Immediately we got to work...

First step, we tore the covering down and posted the wood on Craigslist as free, it was gone by the end of the day!

Then I told my husband I wanted a new fence since this one was falling down, had termite damage and was really short.  I hated it but of course being that we don't have endless amounts of cash laying around he told me that it probably wasn't going to happen.  Or so he thought ;)

A few days after he told me NO and I pouted because, "how was I supposed to throw a great shower with a shabby fence" I woke up and heard our neighbors across the alley tearing their old wooden fence down.  Things just work out sometimes and I told my husband that I was going to ask them for their old fence and have it re-worked into ours.  I honestly believe he didn;t believe I would actually do it but I walked right over there with Eli on my hip and innocently asked while batting my eyelashes, what they planned on doing with that old fence.  Trash it was the answer so by the end of the day it was on our patio.

Next step, find labor.  Good ole Jeremiah likes to be "kind of" handy but fence building was not on his list of "fun" things to do.  All I had to do was hire our gardener to re-purpose our existing (horizontal paned) fence and the new/old fence materials I had just aquired and 2 days later a re-purposed absolutely AMAZING fence.  Well compared to the old one anyway.

Here is what it looked like before.

And here is a shot of how the fence looks now.  No more spying into the neighbors yard or looking into the ugly alley.

So before I loose your attention, here are the old shots of how our backyard looked BEFORE...

 And here are the new shots of our cleaned up and more private backyard.

 

 If you notice along the back of the yard the fence is a different kind of fencing material, that is the neighbors old fence and then the 2 sides of the yard are our old fence that was horizontal flipped up to add more privacy.

Our gardner charged us just
-$500 for the labor
-he used the existing cemented fence posts and all the old fence panels
-bought about $200 worth of extra materials (2x4's, nails, joint brackets, etc)

In the end, the entire project cost us only $700 compared to the $1500+ it would have cost for the materials alone of a new fence and the labor to install it. 

It still needs a lot of work and still looks a little bare but it is an improvement already.  Eventually we would like to build a more permanent structure over the patio and maybe build a BBQ area but for now we will be enjoying some summer parties out here.