Building a fence

So instead of a driveway, the last 3 or 4 houses on the block (ours included) have an alley that runs behind the houses. We used to have a garage and a full privacy fence that separated our yard from the alley, but the garage was torn down before we moved in and the renovators didn't bother to fix the fence in the back, just the one separating us from our eastern neighbors.

Last year in May we nearly had a home invasion incident and I'm not interested in having that happen ever again. So I'm building a new fence across the back of the lot to keep people from wandering out of the alley and into our yard. It's a private alley, so you wouldn't expect people to generally just end up going down there, but you'd be surprised.

I bought cedar fence planks from our local big box home improvement place as well as 4x4 posts, cement and 12' 1x6 planks as well. I'm using two 1x6 boards to hold the cedar together and then once I have the panels built, I will hang them from the posts. Here are some preliminary images of how the project is going.

From Stuff I Made

From Stuff I Made

As you can see, I leveled the posts and cemented them in. I have a bit of digging to do since the middle posts are in an area that rises up. I was going to build sections of fencing to fit each space, but now I'm thinking about just doing 2 pieces, one 12' long and one 8'. The cedar planks I bought won't fit perfectly within an 8' section and I've already set my posts. If I have to overlap using one plank and nailing it after the whole fence is hung, I think that would be easier than splitting those planks to fit or trying to piece something together.

I've never built a fence before so I'll be honest for anyone in my position. It wasn't easy, by any means. I used the 12' long 1x6s to attempt to get them all the same height. They aren't, by the way. The bubble on my level is within the lines on all of them, but there is one that is slightly higher than the others.

The hardest part was getting them all lined up straight. In the end I had to simply eye it to make sure all the 4x4s matched up. Then the leveling from the sides and the cementing went quick. I chose to ignore the instructions on the bag and only dump about 1/2 a bag of cement per post. This worked well since I also didn't dig my holes 3 times the diameter of the post. They will set for 24 hours and then I can hang the fence. You can sort of see the panels I'm lining up all the way to the right of the second picture. This project will be totally worth the effort as long as I get the fence up straight. I'll post new pictures as I finish.