Elijah Built us a Fence! (+ Found Friday Week 7)

October 9, 2020

Written by Daisy Montgomery

It sometimes feels like the house goes from no work being done to NON-stop work being done, and this week was definitely the latter!

We made so much progress on the house this week & couldn’t be happier about it.

The most exciting project is our new FENCE that Elijah built!

When he bought the house, you literally couldn’t see into the backyard past the brush. It actually camouflaged the entire house from the road. When we first started describing the location of the house to people in town, no one even knew it was there! It was almost completely hidden. There was a certain beauty to the privacy, but sadly, nothing about it was very beautiful…

The first week that we got the house, we spent days in the yard cutting down branches and removing as much of the overgrown weeds and brush as we could. The house needed to breathe! The original plan was to simply clean it up, and tear it down once our new landscaping created some privacy. However, once we “cleaned” it up, the brush just looked like a really bad haircut, which had to go…ASAP.

Some of our helpers moving the brush back in July!

So, a few weeks back when we had the excavators, we cleared everything to start from scratch! Chain-link fence and all!

While the new fence wasn’t in the original renovation plan, it was a worthy addition. Thankfully, Elijah can build anything-at least, that’s what I honestly think- and he was ready to take on the project. Turns out, he loves building fences & may have already gained his first fencing job (other than ours)!

One afternoon, we drove around town to stalk all of our favorite fences. You’ll find that when you’re fixing up a house, you begin to notice the quirkiest of details around town…

Here were two of our favorite fences in town! While we played around with the idea of an ‘X’ design, we decided to go classic with the 3-tiered straight-line farm fence.

Thankfully, we have amazing friends and couldn’t have done this fence without them. Big shoutout to Ross and Gavin!

Here are some before pictures when he first bought the house:

Here are some before pictures once we cleared out the area:

And here are the after pictures of the fence built!

Once the wood dries out, we will either stain it black, or paint it white…decisions decision.

In these pictures, you can also see our next project: the chain-link fence running on the side of the backyard. It’s awful! And, we had a tree fall over to crush it, which seems about right, ha! For that side, we are building a taller fence to mask that chaos. We’re already gathering ideas for it!

Meanwhile, we are getting our “bigger” landscaping this week! I think I’m going to become a major yard person. Our plan is to plant larger plants on the inside of the fence to get back some of our privacy that we cleared out!

Here are a few of my favorite features of our new fence…

On the right side of the house, AKA the side yard, Elijah left room for a a double gate that he’s building for the space. We have dreams of putting a long dinner table down the middle, with benches on either side. We’re going to string lights, and possibly line the edge with raised garden beds. The kitchen window overlooks this space, so whenever we have outdoor dinners, I’ll prop the window open to pass food out. We felt like this space needed a wide gate that we could swing open to welcome people to the dinners we’ll one day host there.

We’re also adding a second double gate on the other side of the house. The chain-link fence before didn’t have a gate here, but we felt like since our backyard is so big, it called for a bigger entrance!

The last fun feature is our farm gate. When Elijah bought the house, there was an old farm gate in the back corner of the backyard. We both fell in love with it, and it made the house even more perfect for us. Elijah is always pulling a trailer! However, Elijah wanted to widen the gate, so we wouldn’t be able to use the gate that came with the house. I texted my grandfather, Pop, to see if he had any old farm gates that he wasn’t using on our family farm. Sure enough, he had one! Right now, the plan is to use that gate, but we still aren’t sure if it will be the right size. He even has the original hinge pins that his dad put in. I’m crossing my fingers that it works. I’d rather have an old, rusty family gate than a new one any day of the week.

As if we don’t have enough projects rolling, the morning that Elijah started to build the fence, I decided to start stripping and painting our old windows! I really just wanted an excuse to stay at the house all day to work alongside Elijah…! Since this house was built in 1922, I had to wear a respirator-AKA Alien Mask-to be cautious in case there was any lead-based paint. That provided some good laughs. Made conversation a tad difficult.

Here are a few before pictures:

While we don’t have a specific vision for shutters yet, we know that we’re not using those, so we removed them!

Here are a few after shots! I still need to go in to razor blade some of the paint off of the windows, but I’m making progress!

We are painting the windows and the house the same color, Silos White! It’s the perfect white/creamy color. (We’re getting all of our paint from the Hoover Paint Store in Murfreesboro!)

AND, we had a painter come out to look at the house this week. Once our siding comes in, our house will be PAINTED! Hopefully within the next few weeks. While I loved the charming idea of painting the house ourselves, me & Elijah are both thrilled to pass this job off. SO. EXCITED.

It’s funny how we look at the house and see our vision, but others look at the house and see a chaotic work in progress! I’m starting to fall in love with the fact that our house is on a main road, because you never know what friends will stop in while we’re working! These were definitely our cutest surprise visitors yet…

Plus, we’ve had a few strangers yell from the road telling us that they’re excited about watching new life being breathed into this old house & it warms my heart every time. I posted on @fernwayhome Instagram last week, but the sweetest old lady pulled up to the house while we were working & gave us the most encouraging words & proceeded to bring us banana and pumpkin bread. She’s since then brought us several loaves. I want to be like her one day. 🙂

It’s all starting to come together!

Found Friday Week 7

Finally, as always, this week’s Found Friday collection is available in the Fernway Home Etsy shop! We lovingly refer to it as “Found items for an inspired home.”

In case you aren’t familiar with Found Fridays, every Friday we post a collection of found items to share with you. As we are on the hunt for pieces for our house at thrift shops, auctions, and yard sales, we always end up finding more treasures, so Found Fridays are our way of sharing those finds with you!