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| The wood, for my gate, uncut |
Today, I’ve built a gate.
Not any old gate, but a real proper old fashioned picket fence gate. The sort of gate that would have originally been between the fence posts, but which now is oddly missing.
I know why it’s missing. In Kellyville – the Pleasant Village – there’s quite a few mentions of my house, which was one of the first in the village. It notes the great festivities there were on New Years Even in 1899. And how, after the partying has ceased, a group of boys had swapped over the gates on all the houses in the dead of night.
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| Mitre saw to cut the angles |
And so, my house has had no gate for the odd hundred years or so. Give or take 10.
However, it also means that people tend to use the front lawn as a shortcut between their house and collecting their mail (There are no letter boxes in doors in Australia – all of the post is delivered to the road), and I was determined to get a gate on it as soon as possible.
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| Half complete gate |
However, those on offer from the local hardware stores just look wrong. Fine on a 1960s chalet of which there are plenty in Kellyville, but not quite right for an old settler’s farm house.
So, knowing that it would take me all weekend – all long weekend – I bought the wood, and set about making it myself. Never have I been more grateful for Aldi having occasional power tools throughout the year. This week was power mitre saw week. And very useful it came in too, for getting neat 90 degree cuts, and then 45 degree cuts for the middle section.
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| My completed gate |
Using pencils as spacers got a neat gap between all the strakes, short screws to hold it all in place, two coats of paint, and then some galvanised metal hinges.
It looks all the world like the one that was swiped in 1899.
