a garden gate

We finally got around to hanging our little garden gate on the weekend on the new fence's western side. This 'new' gate is actually the gate which originally sat at the front of the house on the old garden fence which we pulled out. We liked the idea of keeping the original gate that 'went' with the house, a little piece of the Brindabella farmhouse's history. Here you can see where the garden gate used to stand, the photo on the left is the farmhouse a week after we moved in (eeek!!) and the photo on the right is taken recently, before we pulled the rest of the garden fence down but after the new fence had been put up:

We decided to put a gate on this side of the house as the stretch of fence was quite long with no access into the paddock except at the front and rear driveways. Putting in a gate allowed for you to step out from behind the laundry and wander on down to the gum trees, where the dogs currently live and beyond down to the dam for a swim. Plus, it was just going to look super cute and break up the whole long expanse of fence (as pretty as we think it is, I have the blisters to prove the prettiness!)

The old gate was well rusted though so we asked the man at our local hardware store what his remedy would be. We thought a spray on paint stripper but this turned out to be way expensive and the man said we would need a few cans, so we opted for the paint on method. After a brush off with a wire brush to remove any flaking paint, rust chips and dirt we set about painting the stripping agent on to remove all the old paint (which we assumed was lead based, mmm yummy). The paint stripper was really goopy and quite tricky to apply but Mr M did his best in his chemical users gloves and mask whilst I tried not to get any on me.

We then gave it a hot wash with the truck pressure washer. The instructions said to just spray off with a hose but we figured we had access to hot water at high pressure which was definitely going to help strip the old gate back to it's bare naked glory. We then went about spray painting it using a rust-off paint in white. It took a fair bit of spraying to get every nook and cranny but after a few coats that we did on a giant piece of cardboard in the shed it was looking pretty spiffy. 

 

That was three weeks ago! It sat in the shed until this Saturday when we said 'hey we should really hang the garden gate...'. So we did. And now when I look out the study or bathroom windows, or pop over to see the dogs or take photos down at the gum trees I get to walk through this cute little gate.

Admittedly it's looking a little naked at the moment, all shiny and new, but we think it will slot in nicely to our cottage garden once we get some plantings along the fence, grass all grown and the wooden posts and gate hardware doesn't scream at you 'look at me, I'm NEW!'

Mission accomplished. Weekend not a total waste of productivity. Sorry if every Monday post is garden related, it's just what we get up to around here on the weekends! Head over to sunny + scout for possibly more exciting weekends.

Photos by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella