Back when I was about 14 or so, my parents had a chain link fence installed to keep the dogs in and the people out.  For some reason, everybody and their brother thought it was appropriate to traipse through our yard to get to Maple from Lexington.  Anyway, the fence had held up pretty well, but had taken a few hits from limbs & trees thanks to storms.  I had propped it up and fixed it where I could, but it was in pretty bad shape.

I’ve always had dogs as a kid and adult, and when I was a kid, the dogs stayed in the fence, even though they could jump it.  Maybe they were too dumb to know they could go over, or maybe they figured they’d stay where the food was.  In any case, it was never a problem.  However, as an adult, I’ve had a series of fence jumping dogs.  We solved that problem with chains, but it was always still the goal to get away from that.      

I’d been doing some research to see if there was any way to convert a chain link fence to a privacy fence.  I did find an adjustable wood adapter, but it requires 2 3/8” posts.  Unfortunately, mine were 1 5/8” posts.  On top of that, most sources I found indicated that it wasn’t a great idea to re-use the chain link posts, as they are spaced at 10’ for chain link, vs. 8’ for privacy, not to mention that they were 6’ posts (4’ above ground).  However, I then found a post here that gave me the idea:  sleeve the posts with 6’ 2 3/8” steel posts, screw them to the 4’ posts, then mount the adapters.  Of course, I wasn’t comfortable with just gambling on the whole mess not falling over, so I figured I’d add in the occasional wood post to keep the whole thing from falling over.

We decided to do a test with just one section.  I figured if it was a complete disaster, we’d just have to wait.  As you can see from the first picture, it came together pretty well.  We then decided to do the math and see if it was reasonable to buy all the supplies we needed.  Long story short, we came up with the funds, got a couple of quotes from Lowe’s and Home Depot, and placed the order.  I ended up choosing Home Depot because they matched Lowe’s pricing and could deliver next business day.

Why was NBD delivery important?  Well, my wife was in Montana while I was working on figuring out the supplies needed, and I figured I’d take a couple of days off to work on projects.  Really, the goal was to get a fair amount of this done while she was gone and surprise her.  That didn’t happen.

Home Depot was slated to deliver everything Friday morning, early, like at 8AM.  I was figuring I’d get started early.  The driver showed up, and based on a quick look, the order seemed right.  He unloaded everything, and was asking me why I had the steel and the wood.  As I was explaining, I took a closer look at the supplies and discovered that there were some problems here.  Instead of the 57 adjustable wood adapters I had ordered, I got 19 corner adapters.  Instead of the 1 1/2” nails, I wanted, I got 3 1/2” nails.  Instead of 2 3/8” posts, I got 1 5/8” posts.  The driver, of course, was just caught in the middle, and did his best to help, but ultimately, it fell to the store to straighten it out.

After about 8 phone calls, they finally agreed to send out a driver with the missing supplies, pick up the wrong stuff, and waive the delivery fee.  Some how, some way, they couldn’t find 1 1/2” galvanized framing nails for a nail gun.  Lowe’s had them.  Maybe Home Depot does too, but they couldn’t find them, so that was a wash.  I said I’d just go get the nails there, and call it done.  By the time all that was said and done, it was almost noon and I had a couple of errands to run.  Long story short, I ended up not getting started that day.

Over the course of the next several weekends, my wife and I began to tear out the old fence, sleeve the posts, and get everything set up.  Once the old chain link was out of the way, we rented a one person auger.  My plan was to put in a total of 26 new posts.  I thought hey, one person auger, we should be able to knock this out in a day.

We got 4 posts done in 6 hours.  We hit everything from rocks to bricks to glass, bone, clay, you name it, we probably hit it.  The auger would run for 2-3 minutes, then we’d stop, dig out whatever was in the way, and continue.  I knew at that point we needed help.

I recruited 2 of my buddies to help run the auger.  One of the guy’s wives ended up coming over, and the five of us put in a very full day.  My 2 friends ended up getting all the holes dug by about 5, and we kept going until we ran out of metal screws.  By that point, the stringers were almost entirely done on one side, and the remainder was ready to go.

The next weekend was Labor Day weekend, and I was really looking forward to having 3 days to work on the fence.  Gloria was doing a bake sale for Wayside Waifs, and other than helping her get set up, this was my project for the weekend.  I couldn’t have asked for better weather; it was gorgeous outside.  Around 80 degrees, low humidity; abnormal for Missouri, but nice nonetheless.

Over the course of the 3 days, I got the rest of the stringers up, set the remainder of the posts in concrete, and got all the pickets up.  Unfortunately, I realized too late on the long side of the fence that my pickets were no longer level.  To fix it, I’ll have to take all the pickets out and re-do it, which I might do next year.  I also learned that just because you think you know where the nail is going, doesn’t mean you know where the nail is going.  When I was assembling the back gate, I had my finger on the other side of the picket and the nail got me.  Nothing major, but definitely startled me.

Overall, I’m happy with it; the dogs stay in, and for the most part, it looks good.  I’ll tweak the parts I don’t like at some point in the future.

Copyright © 2009 David H. Young, Jr. All rights reserved.