Our daughter has a back garden that can be accessed from the street. She was keeping it closed with a dog gate but when we wanted to borrow that (thanks 👍) we wanted to replace it with something a little more permanent.

I’d never made a gate before so spent a while looking up some suggestions. In the end I went with a frame of 2x4 with some 1x3 boards.

Here’s the frame, with some dowel rod used to pin it. The dowel rod was from my scrap pile and was coated in paint that came off when I banged it in.

I put a diagonal in as well (not shown). Then I cut the boards and used some spacers when screwing them in. I didn’t have enough boards to cover the width, that’s why I had to space them out.

That was the gate done, but I wanted it to look a little better, so decided to add some curves.

I used a bucket to draw the lines and then a jigsaw to cut it out.

Things I learnt

  • It would have been easier to sand the curves on the boards if I had cut them before screwing them on
  • I hung the gate on the fence, but the weight was too much and the fence is bowing. I should have hung it on the wall of the house.