Tuesday, October 29, 2013

A Fun Project

We visited the Morikami Gardens about a year ago and I was inspired to replace an ugly, rotting stockade fence between the garage and house with something a bit more interesting.

Not sure what it would look like, we built a small fence first using pressure treated 4x4's and bamboo.


The bamboo poles were nailed to horizontal stringers mortised into the side verticals. After cutting a slice out of the larger bamboo pole, the nodes had to be cleared to allow it to seat cleanly over the verticals. Esthetically pleasing, it also helps keep the rain out of the ends of the verticals. Once assembled, we gave it a coat of clear, UV-resistant sealer. Something we hadn't planned on was how the sun, as it moved to the West, shone through the bamboo with soft yellows and greens.



Liking the outcome, and making use of what we'd learned, we moved on to the gate. We used red cedar, white cedar and bamboo.


A forstner bit was used to drill holes to fit the bamboo into the grid pattern. The verticals were fitted to the bottom bamboo, then put in place.



It's not quite finished. I'll be adding a door and a light. The door might look something like this: