Like most houses, we have that weird area in between our house and the neighbor’s house.

Not big enough to make a dog run,…..humanely, or even a place to keep chickens…….yet.

It’s a nothing space, but necessary if we need to access the back yard from the front yard. This is where the gate is.

When we moved in there was chain link, honeysuckle, irises, and a few big rocks.

After the chain link and honeysuckle were removed, and we trimmed the trees up a little, we really got a view of just how little space we were dealing with. I can’t believe there was ever that much grass growing over there.

This was the first part of the fence that Jack built….Good God, Over 3 years ago!

The horizontal fence created that perfectly odd little “prison yard” space on the side.

This picture must be from 2 years go, you can see that the gate is still the old short one. We’ve obviously only stained the front part of the fence too. The whole right side is still the color of dry cedar. You can also see the trail that Harley carved by runing to the front to bark at people who dare to walk in front of our house. When it rains, it’s all mud.

We suppose this is just enough room for a potting bench….like the one below from Ikea. It’s really a kitchen island, but has held up pretty well outside under the eave. Jamie wanted to add a tool shed too.

We replaced the back gate to the driveway a few weeks ago…..

The front gate was even more disproportionate to the fence…….Look how short it is here.

This transformation was much faster than the other gate. We are experts at building gates by now.

I reused the same boards, only flipped over to the unstained side, but we quickly discovered that they were 1/2 inch wider than the fence slats.

So I had to rip them down to the right size. 5 1/2 inches

Light years better than what was there before.

Looks even nicer with a coat of russet stain.

I even re-stained the whole front of the fence to cover over the “squirrel tracks”. (Damn squirrels climbing on our fence)

Way , More, Much Better…..

But the crowning finish was 15, 30, 45 bags of pea gravel from Home Depot.

We had toyed with the idea of having a small truckload delivered. But for some unknown reason we thought it would be much easier to just “pick up a few bags”.

Little did we know…..

3 trips later, we had “picked up” 45 bags, about 4 times each.

Here’s a reminder of what the side of the house used to look like.

And here’s what it looks like today…….

Quite a bit better, we agree.

I “restyled” Jamie’s mail-order tool shed, but more on that to come.

From the front yard through the new gate, we walk right into the potting bench.

I stained the bottom half with the same “Russet” stain from the fence and filled it with all the crap we need to pot plants….well, mostly cactus.

Now we have the perfect gardening area.

No longer that sad, sad “space” on the side of the house.

Someday….AAAhhhhh someday, the backyard will match this area in “Awesome-Ness”.

We promise.