Garden Gates

The gate to our backyard (which is on the side our Rancher) is in serious need of an upgrade! It's one of those outside projects we put off. Which is crazy since, we did some many other outside DIY updates: painted our house, installed sod, redid our garden beds, painted our front door and prettied up our front porch to name a several  few projects. To be honest we rarely use our side gate, it mostly used for bringing the lawn mower out to mow the lawn. BUT, its an eyesore and its about time we fixed, after three years of it looking a mess.


The plan is to move our excising fence forward about 8 feet which will extend the interior side our backyard and give is a spot to place our trash, recycle and green waste containers. Right now they are lazily placed on the side our house and I want them out of site! I'm thinking we keep in the same spot they are in now, except along the fence line, and place screen in front our them. 

After we bring our fence line forward, we'll need to build a new gate. This is the fun part! I've been gathering ideas and trying to 'pin-point' our gate style. Do we want a single gate, a double gate? Curved? With lattice? With a door handle? Who know there were so many pretty & cool ideas. Oh, and after we do our gate update, I'll be officially calling the gate, our garden gate :) I've seen so many gates styles and narrowed it down to our musts: Create privacy, Pleasing to the Eye, Go with the style of our house, Can be locked. Below are Gate Styles I Like.


I've always loved the looked of gates with a top curved. I love how this gate is private and pretty. I also like the black exposed hardware.

{via Pinterest}

Again, I love the curve on the gate. I would place the boards closer together.

{via Pinterest}

I think the lattice on top of this gate is very pretty. I would want our gate lower and not so close to our eves. I think a little breathing room is a good thing :)

{via Pinterest}

I pretty much adore everything about this gate. First, I love that house is shingles (like our home) I like the pretty door handle and the down curve of the gate. Most door curved gates I looked at didn't offer much privacy, this gate offers plenty of privacy. I also like that this garden gate reminds me of a pretty door. Another plus, is they painted the gate to match the house and it works seamlessly! I also love the blooming vines. We have vines on the side our our house, there are finally blooming again and I would love add more on the side our house. 

{via Defining Your Home}

Obviously this gate won't work for our needs, since we want a private gate. But I love the large decorative exposed hinges. It really gives this garden gate a custom look. 

{via Pinterest}

Now that I've shared with you gate styles I like, here's gate hardware I also like. This decorative gate kit comes with everything (I like the exposed hinges, and pretty handle) The gate kit style is kind-of cottage like, and I like that look and think it could work well with our home style. 

Out of all the gates, I've been looking at I favor the one below the most. I think with a few modification to fit our needs we could make a pretty gate very similar to this one. 

{via Pinterest}

After narrowing down the gate styles, I noticed I'm most drawn to gates that a painted. Which is odd, because typically I don't like fences or gates that are painted. I prefer the natural wood, I usually cringe when I see a yellow house, and then the attached fence is also painted yellow. But since were about to do our gate upgrade, I'm rethinking my previous stance and would be open to painting our gate white, but I would want to keep our fence natural wood. 

What gate style do you prefer most? Do you like painted garden gates or natural?