A Story about a well needed fence

Many years ago I bought our first house. The house was a small two bedroomed property on a new build estate. My wife and I were absolutely delighted with it, there wasn’t a drop of paint out of place, it was nice and spacious and in a great central location. My wife was expecting our first child and it was a really exciting time.

After living together for 4 years in rented dwellings you cannot explain the feeling of finally owning a place and called it your own. The other great [part, which is unusual for a new build, was the large back garden. Even the front was bigger than most – between ourselves and our “attached” neighbour there was a solid looking wooden cross board fence, with a nice ornamental top that actually allowed viewing into next door. 
 
On the other side of our property was a traditional Cornish wall. This wall ran the length from the top of our back garden all the way past our house and “side” door and to the end of the front garden. The wall was about 3 to 4 ft high and it backed onto other gardens on the estate. We thought it brought a bit of character to the kind of normally clinical look of a new build. The houses behind facing the other way to the east and were smaller than our so the 35 metre length of our wall actually backed onto 4 gardens.

It only took a few months to realise that this perimeter of our property was not going to be enough. The two most central gardens consisted of a neighbour from hell style single Mother whose only method of controlling her equally hellish 3 grubby children was to shout at the top of her voice. On the other side of her fence was a massive Alsatian dog that could easily escape its own fence and made very light work of getting over our lovely wall.

Fencing Out THE NEIGHBOURS!

To cut a few stories short we decided that fencing the entire 35 metres was the only way we were going to remain sane living in this house.

So how do you start going about selecting your ideal fence?

We had our main purpose – to give us privacy and block out all the carnage from the houses on the other side. So we knew we needed 7ft fencing, making sure it was high enough to completely block out seeing anything on the other side. Unfortunately we were never going to completely block out the sound, and that I’m telling you is a real shame.

We had to decide how much we were willing to spend. But really we had no idea what it would cost so we called up Plymouth Quality Fencing and a lovely chap called peter came around to give us an idea on prices.

We thought it would make sense to have a similar wooden style fence to the other side of our property. Wooden fencing seems to be very popular these days and especially on housing estates. I suppose at the end of the day putting up a wooden fence is cheaper for the builders than a solid rendered brick wall. But it does give a warm traditional kind of feel to the areas as well. Peter and his team at Quality Fencing did a fantastic job. We were really pleased with the result and would definitely recommend them if you are in the Plymouth area. They are incredibly busy, as they have built up a really good reputation, so you may have to wait several weeks before it goes up.

Several of our friends suggested that we should have done it ourselves, why bother ringing a contractor and paying much more. Looking on you tube you can find a lot of instructional videos on how to build your own fence. I know that sort of work is really only for people who have some sort of experience, a building background or a very keen DIY enthusiast.

And that – I am NOT! Just ask my wife who snorted like a pig every time one of our friends suggested that I could have done it. She found it wildly amusing the thought of her beloved husband digging holes and lining up fence posts.