After months of taking a hiatus from house projects, minus the minor adjustments here and there, we are back on again! The weather is warming up and what better time than the present to kick off our ever growing wish list and make it a reality! So far this summer (our summer sadly doesn't begin until late June), we've finished the crown moulding in the living room, pulled out some monstrous spider-infested bushes, replaced the lock on the shed, added door stops throughout the house, (almost) finished the laundry room ceiling, remounted the basement bathroom towel rack, and cleaned out the gutters....and by 'we' I really mean my darling husband. What's next? We've moved on to the backyard and choose something that can only add value to our already wonderful home - a fence. It might be a couple months before we actual complete it, but at least we are going to start the process. Nothing fancy here. Just your standard cedar fence, although I wouldn't mind putting a lovely arbor like this above the gates:

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The tricky part is deciding how to work around the car port. The backyard is set up from the alley with a cement retaining wall which poses a difficult task for the handymen. In addition, we are concerned about not being able to see the car in the carport; however, we still want ample privacy.

We've toyed with the idea of a living fence, but couldn't find anything we liked that would provide coverage even in the winter. We've also considered putting up a half fence. This would still provide some coverage since the backyard is raised up about 3 feet from the alley, but it may not provide as much coverage as we'd like. Another thought we had was to put up the fence along the very back of the yard and along the side of the yard, but wait to do the part in front of the carport until we are ready to convert it into a garage which again only ads value to the home (especially in Seattle). It might look a little off for starters, but we wouldn't waste money on putting a fence there only to tear it down again in the future. What would you do?