The One-Woman Fence - Well, not entirely! - Part 1

How to build a beautiful privacy fence for your back yard.  

Actually, I had some great help from my Dad and neighbor.  I started out building this fence because we needed one and I wanted to surprise my husband when he got back from the field exercise he was on.  The prep work for building the fence consisted of watching as many videos on you tube about fence building that I could get my hands on.  Among the most helpful were the videos that were produced by the big blue and big orange hardware stores. 

If you are planning on building a 6ft wooden privacy fence like mine, you will want to rent a post hole auger and have a manual post hole digger like these on hand. 

I had about 30 holes to dig and ended up renting a towed post hole auger with an 8 inch bit in order to dig holes that would accommodate my 4x4 fence posts.  Each hole was drilled to a depth of about 22 inches.  We live in the south and 22 inches got the fence post hole below the frost line.   The rental place tried to get me to take the 10 inch bit they had on hand but were somehow able to find the 8 inch bit as I was standing in line.  In hindsight, a 10 inch bit would drill wider holes and provide more stability for posts in places that are under more stress such as the corners and the gate posts, but I didn't know if I could personally maneuver an auger with a bit that large.



In the following posts, I will show you how I put up my own privacy fence and how you can easily build one of your own!

Go to part 2 - Build your own fence