Garden Gate

This weekend's garden project went well. I decided Thursday that I needed a real gate on the new garden fence. Amazingly I've only fallen once scrambling over the half height fence from milk crate to milk crate. I kept expecting to fall again though, and my sneakers snagged every time I went over. I priced out a chain link door and just the panel is 40 bucks, including no hardware or posts. That idea lost. I ended up pounding two more 7 foot metal posts in about 4 feet apart. I screwed cull wood 2x4 to those, at 51 cents each. Using two 2x3 scrap pieces I had lying around and three 1 dollar 1x4 scrap pieces I made a frame. I clipped off the extra fence pieces I left hanging when I put up the fence. I already had two hinges. So for $5.00 I got a nice hinged gate. I might end up putting a wheel on the side that swings out to save on wear and tear, but overall I'm quite happy with it. I'm especially happy with this part. I even set it up so tennis balls can't roll under it. Sadly enough this attention to detail takes me a huge amount of effort. I'm usually too lazy to even measure things once let alone twice. I also spend way too much time at the clearance lumber section at Home Depot. They're already conveniently cut small enough to fit in my car, and as long as you check for straightness they're nice and cheap. It's why I've ended up with a bunch of 2 foot square and 4 foot square planting beds. I've even ended up with planting beds I didn't measure before hand at all. I just bought two pieces of 2 x 8 and cut each in half to make a square. It's gotten me in trouble before. Right now I have four 2 x 6 planks, and some nice 2 x 12 pieces waiting for a use.