Gate Rebuild

Anyone else in the PNW have a fence or gate blow over in the last 3 months? Yeah I thought so, I see them down in peoples’ yards when I’m out driving every day. We lost our gate a few months ago after a particularly bad wind storm actually snapped the wood off. This happened in November but with the weather, the holidays, and my husband’s job we didn’t get a chance to fix it until last weekend. 30+ screws later it’s up, functioning, and swings better than it did originally.

We first built this gate in April 2019 and it’s held up amazingly well especially with kids and the wind slamming it shut on a regular basis. When we moved into our house there was no fence except on the sides by the neighbors and we wanted to be able to contain the little ones without constantly having to watch for them running out in the street. With a 4 and 1 year old at the time it took us a couple weeks to finish it but we are so thankful we built it when we did. We hope to stain it this year, but I keep oscillating on the color I want to paint the house and I can’t stain the fence until I make a decision there. It blows my mind seeing these pictures, now almost 4 years apart, how much the color of cedar fence boards change once they are weathered.

What I can’t wait to see is if we move this entire fence/gate line this year when we replace our shared fence because I’ve decided right where this gate is would be the perfect permanent garden location. After reading Nicole Burke’s book Kitchen Garden Revival in the last few weeks, I’ve decided I really want to change my garden so it’s all in one spot and not scattered around my yard. After some drone pictures that a friend helped me out with, and a lot of research and measuring(my least favorite) I’ve decided this gate is pretty much 1/2 way through where I want my garden to be. So stay tuned for my future garden design and maybe part two of this gate’s life.