I've been working for a little while (about a week since I bought the lumber I guess) on building a new pair of gates for our driveway. The old ones were poorly designed -- two 5' gates hung from metal poles at either side of the driveway and meeting in the middle, swinging toward the back of the driveway. The problem was, they did not actually swing; the wooden gates were far too heavy for the hinges to support, so they were actually resting on the bottom corner at the center of the driveway. When you wanted to open a gate you had to either lift it up, or drag it along the asphalt -- either one is a hassle. So here's my bright idea: One 8' gate hanging from the pole on the outside of the driveway (i.e. the side away from the house). It has a caster on the side that is not on hinges; so instead of swinging it rolls open and closed. Additionally it has a drop bar to anchor it in the closed position. The pole on the inside of the driveway comes out as does the short fence from the house to the pole, and a 3' gate hangs from the fence post at the side of the house. It swings toward the front of the driveway. So the deal is, you usually keep the big gate closed, with the drop bar in the ground, and go in and out through the little gate. I finished building the big gate on Tuesday, and today I hung it on the pole. It looks pretty good, and it rolls just fine. (I may at some point need to replace the cheapo caster with something more durable though.) Ready to start work on the little gate. I will rent a jack-hammer from Home Depot to take the pole out of the ground -- this is kind of exciting as I have never used a jack-hammer before.
posted evening of Thursday, May 20th, 2004
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