DIY Garden Fence 

Here's a little backstory on this garden fence that I built. So sometimes the best ideas come from mistakes, and I made some mistakes building this fence before. We have this nice annual Garden in the front of the house and it grows out of control and takes over the sidewalk. So last year I decided to build a fence in that area to hold the plants back. The first time I built it, I bought these cheap bundle of stakes from home Depot, drilled some holes through it, and just ran a rope through it to hold everything back. At first it worked as planned, and it looked nice, but it soon became apparent that it wasn't going to work correctly. The first thing that went wrong was that the wood was too thin and fragile so they started to bend and crack and the second thing that happened was the rope that I used was a natural fiber rope and as soon as it rained one time the rope shrank and again led to tightening up and pulling down all the stakes. So that fence kind of lasted a season and then I tore it down and this year decided to build it back. Better stronger and nicer!

 Basically what I did for this build was get some 2x2 material, cut them to the length that I wanted, which was a little taller than the precut fence stakes that you can buy. I cut the ends to shape a wedge and have a nice shape at the top, and then I found some nice hardware to attach the rope to the front of the the post as opposed to running through the post.

 I think it turned out super nice. It's got a really cool look to it and it's functional, which is the most important thing!

Step by step 

Materials used: 

• 2x2 cedar 8 ft long 
• 1/2-In copper plumbing clamps 
• Black screws 
• Shellac clear coat 
• Nylon rope brown color 
• Black zip ties 

Tools used: 

• Miter saw 
• Power drill 
• Sandpaper 
• Rubber mallet 

Step 1: Cut the posts to length. I went with 32 in to make a moderately tall fence and to be able to get three posts out of each 8 ft length of cedar. 

Step 2: Cut each post bottom at a 45° angle to be able to pound down into the ground. Then cut a 22 and 1/2° angle on the top od each post as a decorative look.

Step 3: Applied three coats of shellac clear coat, allowing it dry for an hour in between coats. Sanded in between each coat for a smoother finish.

Step 4: Built a hole spacing jig out of a scrap piece of wood to make all the holes uniform for the straps. Then attached all the copper straps, pre-drilling the holes to avoid any splitting of the wood. Went with the black screws as a design choice to complement the cedar tone wood, and the bronze straps and brown rope.

Step 5: Laid out all the post to find the correct spacing. Kept one extra post just in case one gets broken in the future. Jen pounded the posts down roughly four or 5 in deep making sure they were solid solid. 

Step 6: . Fed the rope through the top and bottom straps individually , pulled to the correct tightness, and finished off with a zip tie on each end holding the rope to avoid having to tie knots.

That's pretty much the whole thing. It didn't take too long. The longest part was staining and waiting for the stain to dry and sanding in between coats. It all came together in a weekend. When I picked up materials at Menards, they didn't have the natural finish rope that I was looking for. I ended up ordering the rope on Amazon. Here's the link for that rope. The fence has been up for a few months now and it's holding up great. The finish looks great and I'm super happy with it. Hope this inspires any one who can't find exactly what they want and are excited to create something new. Happy building!!