The Bear Den: Fencing 101 (and not the sport)

Shawn and I have many big projects in mind for the house. The first big one that we decided to start first was fencing in the backyard. We looked at a few different types of fences, privacy, vinyl, picket, but then we settled on a split-rail fence for a couple of reasons. First, split-rail fences are very cost effective compared to vinyl and especially privacy fences. Second, we wanted to create a defined area for Cole (and eventually kids) without it feeling closed off. Third, I'm not sure if we had a third reason. But anyway, the project started last Saturday with Shawn, my mom, and Mark making the 1.5 hour trip to Honeybrook, PA on a rainy morning to pick up 46 posts and 120 11' rails. The bulk of the fence was put in by Shawn and his Dad over the course of one day during the week. A lot of the fence was also done yesterday, but we're still not quite done. You see, Shawn and I want to cut out a 14" wide trench under the fence so we don't have to maintain the grass, instead we'll put decorative stone there. Cutting out the trench wouldn't be so bad if we didn't have 450 ft worth of fencing. We're excited it's almost finished and it'll be so nice to let Cole run wild in the backyard.