How would you fence this yard? PIP

[lolanjoe]

The house is officially ours, yay! Now to wait for DH to finish school -- we move in November, but I want to have a fence in place before then since we have dogs.

The facts:

- We have 3 dogs, only one of which could jump a low fence, and one is a digger
- City rules state we can use 4' fence in front, but 6' fencing for back yards
- The fenced in area would be for the dogs to play as well as for entertaining, we're thinking about putting a fire pit / bbq area back behind the garage, which has a large overhang (not really visible in the pics)
- The porch would be included in the fenced-in area, I want to be sure the dogs can't jump the fence by standing on the porch wall but I don't want to block the view

Here's the front and top down views of the house, yeah, from Google maps. Note that there really isn't a back yard, it's a side yard.

Attachment Deleted               Attachment Deleted


What I'm thinking is putting a scalloped shadowbox 4' fence along the front, and 6' scalloped panel fence along the property line in back and against the alley side, which on the other side of the garage. I'm not keen on fencing the whole yard, it seems like it'd be a waste and it would be harder to keep an eye on the dogs, who would never be unsupervised.  

I'm thinking something like:

Attachment Deleted Which, obviously I made in MS Paint and looks dumb, but you get the idea. The red would be gates, with the front for access by friends/family, the door to the garage would be in there as you can see from the walkway, gate to the alley where trash is picked up, and gate to behind the house to get the lawnmower through. We'd fence to the end of the house with the privacy fence to replace the existing chain link fence.

What do you think? The only fence there now is the fence along the property line behind the house, and that's the only place where our property meets anyone else's since it's a corner lot and there's an alley.

TIA!

[blueshirt2003]

It took me way too long to realize that wasn't 2 houses. Lol

[lolanjoe]

Yeah, the garage is big and the house isn't huge!

[treedimensional]

I'm having some difficulty applying your design criteria to this layout. I can't really SEE the things you're describing, and I can't make ANY sense of the existing sidewalk configuration. I don't know what they were thinking when they laid out and poured those walkways.
Maybe it feels different to be IN this space IRL, but as it is, the current design feels so dysfunctional, I couldn't move forward with any permanent structures until it was redesigned.
Fencing is part of the overall landscape, and because I have so many issues with the what has already been done here, I couldn't build onto it in good conscience. I'd have to redraw and the whole thing.

[mrspez07]

I would pull the fence btwn the garage and house closer to the straight walkway between the two instead of projecting into the front yard. Fencing, in my experience should be at or behind the front face of the house.
Could you also do fence on the top back corner of the house or is the area between the back of the house and property line too narrow?

[lolanjoe]

The walkways lead to the front and side doors, and from the garage door to the side door. Moving the fence back to the garage walkway would put it midway at our porch -- here's a pic of the side of the house:

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There is a chain link fence across the back of the property which is not clearly visible, but runs from the alley to the end of the house on the street side and we'd replace with privacy fencing. This is the porch, you can see why I'd be worried the dogs would just hop out here:

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We'd like to be able to use the area behind the garage here for bbq etc, maybe this pic makes it clearer (the walkway is shoveled here, you can see it wouldn't be much of a yard if fenced off there):

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For a sense of scale, the lot is 53' x 120', or .15 sq acres. With 3 dogs, we'd like as much usable space as possible in the fenced in area without having blind spots where the dogs can dig.

[nomad100]

To me, having 3 gates is excessive and really chops up the yard in a strange way. 

Is there access to the back patio area from the house?  If so, I think you could get away with one gate in and out of the back yard. 

If the goal is to have an area for the dogs that is fenced off, why not do something like this? (the fence is in blue and the gate is in red).
You could also use the area in between the sidewalk to the garage and the fence as a flower bed/garden box. Or you could have the fence mirror the edge of the sidewalk. 

 

If you were planning on fencing the entire yard, my answer would probably be different but since you basically want to contain the dogs with a 6 foot fence (give that one could jump the 4 ft fence), this is probably what I would do.

[lolanjoe]

I think I wasn't clear about the fence height -- the back fence and alley side would be 6', but because of the rules from the city, the fence closest to the street has to be 4'. We would also use this area for entertaining and if we have kids they'd probably play in there, too.

I had put the fence gate on the side of the house near the garage since I don't want the dogs to have access to the narrow strip behind the house, and I don't want anyone having to access the utilities to have to enter the fenced in area. I would have not put a gate at all but DH wants one so he can mow back there, it's too wide to just gravel but too narrow to be useful. The A/C unit etc is back there too.

The garbage is picked up from the alley on the opposite side of the garage, so DH requested that gate too, otherwise he'd have to walk the garbage around the front yard and in front of the garage. There is a preexisting fence with a gate there already too, but it's chain link.

I'd greatly prefer a setup where I could just open one of the doors and let the dogs into the yard like we would have if I had a "real" back yard. The only doors out of the home are front and side, though.

[lolanjoe]

Also, I know it's a lot of gates, but only one would be visible from the street.

[mrspez07]

Mar 9, 2014 12:58:31 GMT -5 nomad100 said:

To me, having 3 gates is excessive and really chops up the yard in a strange way. 

Is there access to the back patio area from the house?  If so, I think you could get away with one gate in and out of the back yard. 

If the goal is to have an area for the dogs that is fenced off, why not do something like this? (the fence is in blue and the gate is in red).
You could also use the area in between the sidewalk to the garage and the fence as a flower bed/garden box. Or you could have the fence mirror the edge of the sidewalk. 

 

If you were planning on fencing the entire yard, my answer would probably be different but since you basically want to contain the dogs with a 6 foot fence (give that one could jump the 4 ft fence), this is probably what I would do.

This configuration makes the most sense to me. If it's not enough yard, go with your original configuration but take the fence to the walk near the street, and back along the driveway to the garage. The space between the fence and street sidewalk in your original configuration is kind if a no-mans land, it needs to be at least 6' wide for grass or could be less if it's a bed. The only problem w/ pushing the fence towards the street is sight lines backing our of the driveway. The city may also have requirements regarding the distance btwn fence and street.

[lolanjoe]

That configuration does not allow for that bit of yard to be utilized unless I leash the dogs and walk out there, which wouldn't be practical in winter in WI (and I really don't want to have to put on clothes just to let them out, either!). Just to be clear, I'm not looking for a dog run, none of our dogs are outdoor dogs, and I'm not comfortable having them unleashed outside of a fenced-in area. Jenny could probably jump a 4' fence if she was sufficiently motivated, but she will also be 8 years old when we move, so I don't think she will. I have seen her jump 3' fences, but she has never tried to jump 4' fences at the dog park.

The fence can be no closer than 42" from the sidewalk. It's about 6' from the garage to the sidewalk (DH's guesstimate, unfortunately we're too far away to measure it in person anytime soon), so 6' of grassy area would be fine by me. We'd probably end up planting roses along the exterior of the fence. It is kind of unusable, but that's not really space we'd utilize anyway. Also, putting the fence next to the driveway would make shoveling and snow blowing the driveway much more difficult with nowhere for snow to go.

I'm just having a hard time finding a decent configuration that allows for the side door and porch to be in the fenced-in area while keeping the dogs from jumping from the porch to an area outside the fence. The diagonal gate does look odd, but one at right angles would look odd with the curving walkway, too.

[treedimensional]

Mar 9, 2014 14:43:38 GMT -5 lolanjoe said:

That configuration does not allow for that bit of yard to be utilized unless I leash the dogs and walk out there, which wouldn't be practical in winter in WI (and I really don't want to have to put on clothes just to let them out, either!). Just to be clear, I'm not looking for a dog run, none of our dogs are outdoor dogs, and I'm not comfortable having them unleashed outside of a fenced-in area. Jenny could probably jump a 4' fence if she was sufficiently motivated, but she will also be 8 years old when we move, so I don't think she will. I have seen her jump 3' fences, but she has never tried to jump 4' fences at the dog park.

The fence can be no closer than 42" from the sidewalk. It's about 6' from the garage to the sidewalk (DH's guesstimate, unfortunately we're too far away to measure it in person anytime soon), so 6' of grassy area would be fine by me. We'd probably end up planting roses along the exterior of the fence. It is kind of unusable, but that's not really space we'd utilize anyway. Also, putting the fence next to the driveway would make shoveling and snow blowing the driveway much more difficult with nowhere for snow to go.

I'm just having a hard time finding a decent configuration that allows for the side door and porch to be in the fenced-in area while keeping the dogs from jumping from the porch to an area outside the fence. The diagonal gate does look odd, but one at right angles would look odd with the curving walkway, too.

Because the semicircular walkway configuration MAKES NO SENSE.
THAT is the whole problem.
Reconfigure the walkways, and the remainder becomes easy.

[lolanjoe]

How would you recommend the walkways be configured? I don't have the foggiest where to start if I were to change them. Do you mean have two walkways, one directly to the front door and one to the fenced in part of the yard? Or just have the one to the front door?

The front door would of course need a walkway to it, because mail is delivered there on foot. The side door is heavily used by friends and family (the front door has no way to block the dogs from charging it on the inside, whereas the side door has a pocket door between its entry and the kitchen) and I wouldn't want them to use the front door much. DH's friends have about 20 years of side porch entry habit to break if we wanted them to use the front door, which I personally don't because of the dog situation.

We'd be primarily using the side door ourselves since it is the shortest route from the house to the door to the garage.

Looking at the neighborhood on Google maps, it looks like many of the houses have the same kind of walkway, though their garages are behind the house with an alley entrance. They just have a smaller area within the curve.

[treedimensional]

Mar 9, 2014 19:07:57 GMT -5 lolanjoe said:

How would you recommend the walkways be configured? I don't have the foggiest where to start if I were to change them. Do you mean have two walkways, one directly to the front door and one to the fenced in part of the yard? Or just have the one to the front door?

The front door would of course need a walkway to it, because mail is delivered there on foot. The side door is heavily used by friends and family (the front door has no way to block the dogs from charging it on the inside, whereas the side door has a pocket door between its entry and the kitchen) and I wouldn't want them to use the front door much. DH's friends have about 20 years of side porch entry habit to break if we wanted them to use the front door, which I personally don't because of the dog situation.

We'd be primarily using the side door ourselves since it is the shortest route from the house to the door to the garage.

Looking at the neighborhood on Google maps, it looks like many of the houses have the same kind of walkway, though their garages are behind the house with an alley entrance. They just have a smaller area within the curve.

They need to make sense- the walkways need to make a shorter, straighter path for traffic between areas. The front walkway should lead from the street directly to the front door. There should also be a direct connection from the driveway to the side door. And a secondary connection between those two walkways, if necessary. Curves don't work here. Straight lines that move directly from point to point work, and they would be FAR easier to plan your fence around, because then, the walkways would finally make sense. The existing wide arc doesn't facilitate traffic patterns.

[lolanjoe]

Okay, so making a direct path from the sidewalk to the front door, and then the garage door/alley entrance to the side door -- then would I use a front gate at all? I would like side door traffic more than front door, but friends would generally park on the street, they can't park in the alley and parking in the driveway doesn't work since the city tickets you if your car obstructs the sidewalk (sort of like DH's car is doing in the pic of the garage).

So this:

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or this?

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ETA: Put the fence in the wrong place in the bottom pic, the fence would have been easily bypassed via the porch for the dogs in the erroneous one. This part of the yard has been fenced in previously when MIL was a little girl, but they cut it off at the corner of the house. It wouldn't be too bad there, but the porch would again make it too easy for the dogs to just hop over.

[lolanjoe]

I completely underestimated DH's adoration of this walkway. Ugh. He hasn't had issues with changing anything else about the house, but apparently this walkway has some kind of nostalgia with it. I'm thinking about just doing it the same way Grandpa did it, and just putting up a tall trellis along the porch portion as a temporary fix. As much as I hate to think about it, the dogs jumping will probably only be an issue for a few more years as they age.

So it'll be something like:

Attachment Deleted

I'm thinking a couple of trellises in front of the part of the porch that faces the street wide enough to take away the temptation of jumping from ledge, maybe with climbing roses?

[thatgirl2478]

Mar 10, 2014 8:39:51 GMT -5 lolanjoe said:

I completely underestimated DH's adoration of this walkway. Ugh. He hasn't had issues with changing anything else about the house, but apparently this walkway has some kind of nostalgia with it. I'm thinking about just doing it the same way Grandpa did it, and just putting up a tall trellis along the porch portion as a temporary fix. As much as I hate to think about it, the dogs jumping will probably only be an issue for a few more years as they age.

So it'll be something like:

I'm thinking a couple of trellises in front of the part of the porch that faces the street wide enough to take away the temptation of jumping from ledge, maybe with climbing roses?

The idea of trellises makes a lot of sense, plus it would provide a little more privacy on your porch. 

[downtoearth]

I think I would just go from the SW corner of the house to the garage (hitting the garage about 1/2 way on the wall). Then you can pull into the garage, go out the side door and along the walkway to the house without opening any fence area. Plus, then you can do the 4' fence in front with a since gate at the southern area of the curved walkway and the back from the garage along the back of the property to the house can be 6' tall.

Does that make sense?