Sarah Bendrick's here.
Hey guys,
What's going on everyone? So today's a special video.
We're doing a big redesign of the front yard garden.
There's a couple things that I want to do this year before the garden really
kicks off. Number one, fix all of my drip irrigation. Number two,
rebuild a fence. And number three,
we going to do some remodeling of the pathways,
but this video is all about redoing the fence.
So we have a classic white picket fence out there. But my friend Sara Bendrick,
who's a general contractor, she's had two TV shows.
She's actually just a neighbor. She lives down the street.
She came up and she said, we need to redo this fence. It's like leaning,
there's rot, there's,
it's just not looking that professional and it's not looking that aesthetic and
it's blocking a little too much light.
And so what we're going to do in this video is actually you'll see the fence
tear down,
we'll talk about the design and then you're going to see it eventually
completely done. And it's a really cool design.
I think you're really gonna like it. So stay tuned.
So here is the front yard as it stands right now, not looking amazing.
I have to be honest with you.
And you can see the fence is a standard white picket fence,
but it's a little bit old. The paint is all chipped and stuff. It's very,
very unstable because some of these fence posts have been here for dozens of
years and they've rotted out, especially this one,
you can see I have a piece of wood holding it up cause this one's broken off.
And then there's even a metal,
a support that doesn't even hold it up and just crazy, crazy loose.
So what happens here along with the fence is the design of the fence.
You can see it's throwing a shadow even right around mid day,
almost halfway into these beds.
And so what we're going to do is not only is it doing that,
but it's blocking a lot of light from coming in from right here.
And I want more light. And so we're going to remove these,
but we're going to use the crossbeams and we're still gonna use the posts.
And what we're gonna do then is we're going to have metal grating that's framed
by wood and so more light can go through,
but it's still going to use the existing system.
So the first step is to slowly remove all the pickets. Cause like I said,
we're going to use these crossbeams and we're going to use the fence posts.
We may have to replace one or two of them, but for the most part they're sturdy.
So if we can clean up this paint and just use the crossbeams and slap on our new
design, I think we're going to be in a good spot. Look who it is.
Sara Bendick's here.
Hey guys. Sara's the mastermind behind the design.
So let's chat a little bit about why we're doing it the way we're doing it.
Sure. So we are taking off the pickets because they're a little dated,
they're kind of old. We want to open the space up, get a little more light,
but also lower the fence.
So we're going to use the existing two by fours here and here as well as most of
the posts we're going to come through with a metal grate.
We're going to sandwich it in here and then create a new fence that could also
work as a trellis. Uh,
but also just let's a lot more light and it'll be a lot more lower.
It's just going to update this whole space.
Exactly. So we're almost done taking the tickets off. We've got some over there,
we've got some over there. Got to take all these nails out.
Which is going to be kind of annoying. You can see that.
But after that we're cutting it to size and we're putting it in. Yep. All right.
We have the pickets off. That actually took longer than expected.
And this fence looks totally bare now,
but there's a lot of problems before we can get started on the actual put up,
because look,
this fence post is totally rotted out and then this one over here is on its way.
And so what I think we're going to do is you have one fence posts there.
You have one fence post there and we're going to do three instead of two.
So we're going to take this one out. We're going to take this one out.
We're going to go one, two, three just like that.
And so that should stabilize that.
And then we've got to take this gate off and make that,
but I'm going to show you what we're putting on it right now.
We got this metal over here,
so we're going to have this be filling up like let's say that's the bottom cross
beam. That's the other cross beam it's going to go doop doop.
Then we're going to put something on top and cap it to look really, really nice,
but we still have to do the fence posts.
I should have followed the rule of construction, right?
It's like it's always gonna take at least twice as long as you think it's going
to take, but all good, having a good time.
All right, so here's a concrete hack. If you can't lift the whole bag,
sixties aren't bad, but when you get started,
get to starting getting to the nineties they get kind of heavy.
You cut half of it like so just pick it up.
Now you have half a bag
before you mix any concrete.
You want to put the water in the bottom because it's nearly impossible to get
the dry concrete wet. Yeah.
Split my bag 30 pounds. That's a nice hack. Half bag.
It's a little more manageable. There you go. Can I lift 30 pounds?
Can she do it? It's just an awkward shape - you got, you got to get the,
you got to get the hips squat thing going.
We're working with Quikcrete right?
Yep. This is regular setting.
You can mix mix it like to a different like consistency is really wet can be
easier to work with. But if it's so wet it's harder to set your posts. Yeah,
so I like it to be just a little more set and actually if you just get it kind
of all the way wet,
like it's almost feeling like it's dry actually makes it stronger. Got it.
So the looser your concrete, the weaker it'll dry. Got it.
And we want these to be pretty strong. Yes, we did.
We don't want to have to redo this fence probably ever again.
Okay.
So we're going to draw a line across and this is basically give me a reference
to where that post is and that posts is so that our fence is straight.
We've decided not to notch our posts like this one right here. Um,
so we're just going to have ours sit here,
meaning that when this line is just going to be a reference to about here or so.
Right. So I just need to be close enough. It doesn't need to be perfect. Um,
this fence is going to look good. Yeah. Yeah. But it's a great reference.
All right, Sara's got it.
There we go. If we didn't have so many barriers.
We should probably explain that if we removed this, it would make it easier,
but we don't want to keep the whole yard exposed overnight. And we're using that
still. So this is a good consistency, see how it's not like soupy.
It's kind of like you can see the chunks of rock
that's the best for post. She's plopping more in there.
That's the rest I'll mix up a little bit more. But the important thing now,
it's almost flush. It's almost flush, which is great.
So I'll work out any air pockets if there are any.
I mean there's gotta be a lot in here. Just kind of works it in.
And then we want to check and make sure that it's level, which it is here.
Just make sure the bubble is between the dots, making sure it's plumb,
bring it over there. Now while it's here, I want to stuff the concrete,
so really force it into place. So we'll wake up tomorrow and it'll be totally.
Totally ready. And in fact, this might be enough concrete,
that way we can cover it with dirt. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
This was going to be taller fence. I'd go way deeper. I'd use pressure treated.
This is like a little decorative. Yeah,
that was pretty good. Okay. Yeah. All right. That's good for this one.
We're level and plumb, let's move on to the next one.
So as you can see, the lights have kicked on. It's getting a little dark.
We didn't get as far as we thought we're going to get, but that's okay.
And we're going to come back tomorrow and crush it.
So stay tuned for the epic front yard transformation.
Good morning everyone. It's Sunday. Sara's over there.
We're back.
I just finished scraping most of these crossbeams here and it doesn't need to be
perfect. Just needs to be enough to cover it up with a decent coat.
And Sara's gonna start cutting some lumber. So stay tuned for today's update.
It should be a semi quick job. All right, so we haven't painted everything yet,
but we're going to test putting on one of the panels.
So what exact type of metal is that Sara?
So this is just a mild steel. It is going to rust out.
So it'd be a nice kind of brown color.
You could seal it or paint it if you want to change the color. Yeah,
we're going to let ours rust out or Kevin,
you want to stain it or seal it later, you can. Yeah,
we're basically putting nails and I'm hanging the grate on the fence,
so that's going to hold the weight of it.
And then I'm going to come through with this one by material and we're going to
just sandwich it on the top here.
This is more decorative just so you don't see the top piece.
And then we'll finish it off with an nice cap,
which will sit right on top of all of this like, like that.
That's gonna look really nice. I think it'll look good.
And we're also going to do one on the bottom so we'll have like basically making
a sandwich to keep it up. Yep. All right Sara, what's up? Okay,
so now I'm taking my one by two and we're going to frame it.
It's going to be level with my one by two by four right here.
And basically this kind of creates a nice little frame for our grate here.
So it looks like it's all snugged in at home.
And then I'm going to use nails or screws.
I have nails right now and it's going to basically hold this piece tight over
here and I'm just going to do a few every once in a while.
And that's just going to make a nice little great sandwich.
And we've got the bottom one on already and you've got the bottom one on
already. So yeah, you can kind of see it. Basically it's going to frame it.
I'll come through with one more on this side just to kind of like give it a
whole frame along the side. Yep. And then the cap goes on, right? Oh yes.
And then after I get this on, I'll slide the cap on top.
We'll have it a beautiful looking new fence, with reclaimed old
stuff and new stuff. Sara is back.
It's Wednesday hammering away.
We just are putting the grates up now. So we've kicked out the old posts.
There used to be a post right there. Now there's a post here, post here,
and we have to make it all look like this part.
So this part is got the vertical trim on it. It's got the cap on it.
We're just gonna apply that to the rest of this and we'll be good to go.
We did it guys. It was a little longer.
I think construction projects always take a little longer than you think.
But the fence, I mean, what do you think? Comment down below.
I'm really curious what you have to say about it. Is it perfect? No,
it's not perfect. I'm still renting my house actually.
I just spent this money to make the garden look good and put a new fence in that
I really don't get to reap the benefits of if I move. So I needed it.
I wanted it.
I wanted the garden to look amazing for all these videos I'm doing for you guys
and just for myself and for my own enjoyment. But some thoughts on this.
It ended up costing somewhere around $550 to $600.
Most of that was uh, the grate,
the grates were maybe about at least half of that.
And then you've got your concrete and your posts and your wood and your paint
and some miscellaneous supplies.
Now there's a couple things that I'm probably still gonna end up doing.
I'm going to do some touch up around the entire offense to paint like the gate a
little bit and just some of the things that are a little untidy.
But the one thing that's like the really major thing I want to do is down here
on the lower section it's pretty open so I haven't put edging in on that yet.
And what I want to do is either put a giant piece of wood,
like maybe another one by four.
The same thing I used for the cap down below to block any potential intruders
cause I've had some battles with some skunks and annoying larger rodents that
can easily get under this.
But if I put a one by four cap style piece down there,
I think I'll be able to block them and then I might even have to get like a
humane trap or something. But I don't know. I think this looks amazing.
On the next video for the front yard,
you're going to see me install the drip irrigation,
so stay tuned for that because this drip irrigation setup that you're getting a
sneak peek of right now is totally awesome.
So huge thank you to Sara Bendrick for helping me out with this.
Really could not have done it without her.
She designed the concept for the fence and actually picked up a lot of the
materials and put a ton of blood, sweat, and tears into the fence.
So thank you to her.
Shoot her a follow both on Instagram and YouTube and let me know what you think
of the fence guys. I'm really excited for this year in the garden,
so stay tuned, good luck in the garden and keep on growing.