Personal Dog Park

Winnie and Stella now have a place to run free in the comfort of home, while Mike and Sara no longer have to worry about our dogs chasing squirrels beyond the property line, or dealing with a tie-out cable that’s frozen to the deck in the middle of winter. This post is about the newly installed fence in our backyard.

Pure happiness is a dog rolling in the grass. Not terribly relevant to this post, but an adorable video!

Installing a fence at this home was never a major priority, especially because of the breed of our first dog Winnie. As a Doberman/German Shepherd/Labrador retriever mix, she learned to respect an invisible fence boundary quickly, and we never left her outside for extended periods of time. This breed difference was very noticeable to Mike, who grew up needing a fence to keep his Beagles from running away to chase every small critter smell. Sara had a different experience growing up, with a Bichon that did not have a fence and was happy enough to spend very short amounts of time on a line in the yard. However, when we adopted Stella (a Golden retriever/Labrador mix) in 2020, and more of our neighbors had had young children and adopted pandemic dogs of their own, we decided it was a good time to consider our options for fencing in our yard.

Stella after breaking her line. One of the many reasons we installed a fence.

We looked at several styles of fencing, including wood, decorative aluminum and chain link. We ultimately decided on black chain link because it was the most affordable option that best matched our neighborhood. Dakota Unlimited in Rosemount, MN offered us the most attractive offer, so we pulled the trigger in December 2020.

Winnie spent the winter trying to avoid getting tripped by Stella’s line.

Installation did not happen until much later. It seems quite a few people adopted dogs in 2020 (the year of the pandemic) and also decided they needed a fence. We were 80th in line for installation with Dakota Unlimited for the coming season. The fence was ultimately installed in early June 2021.

Every fence post is individually cemented into the ground.

There is a 10.5′ wide gate along the side of our garage.
There are also two additional gates– one at the back of the property and another on the south side of the house.

Here is a video of Winnie and Stella stepping outside for the first time in their personal dog park:

Overall, we are very happy with the chain link fence. It makes letting the dogs out a little less stress-free.

Window Well and Pavers

Welcome to the jungle behind our house! For years, this is where the weeds would call home. This year, I decided to do something about it, and replace the unsightly window well in the process.

This project began, like many yard projects, with a shovel. I dug a hole around the steel window well, and pulled it out.

Next, I dug a little deeper, then put down “paver base,” which is a sand-gravel mix that I bought at Menards. I compacted the base layer, then started laying my bricks.

We used 6×9 Quarry Gray bricks that we bought at Menard’s.
My Makita angle grinder with a mason blade had no trouble cutting through these!

The window well bricks are spaced out 1/2″ further each layer, and are held together with landscape block construction adhesive.

Also bought a Tamper for this project–one of those boring tools that just takes up space.

After creating the window well, I dug out 5″ deep all around the area where pavers would be placed. I needed to go 5″ deep, because I needed 3″ of paver base and the bricks themselves are 2″ deep.

This is the pattern we used. The orange dots represent 6×9 bricks, the green dots represent 3×6 bricks and the blue dots represent 6×6 bricks. Sara crossed them out as we went.

I was surprised at how easily the pavers went into place. I have always heard that the hardest part of making a patio is the preparation, and good prep certainly made the rest of the process very easy!

I put white gravel in the bottom of the window well.

We finished the project by putting polymeric sand in the cracks (when mixed with water, it bonds together, preventing weeds from growing)

We’re very happy with the results. Maybe someday, we will get rid of the cement patio and expand it further!

Thanks for reading!

-Mike