You Gotta Have FAITH!

Dianna Wood
by Dianna Wood
Those of you who have been following us know that we recently purchased a 1964 single-wide mobile-home and have been working hard to renovate it. We finally are at a point where we can focus on the outside. The fence had to be replaced so that happened this week. The maintenance staff at our park actually pulled the old fence out on Wednesday at no cost to us! Now you have to admit, that is pretty wonderful!
I knew that I wanted to carry the inside "word" design out into the garden and now I had a fresh canvas to work with!
Here's a look at the original fence
The new fence being installed
Our Neighbor caught trying to squeeze through
This was a "good Neighbor" fence and even though we paid 50% and also helped to install it, we wanted to be a "Good Neighbor" so gave our neighbor Jasmine the good side. So, I had to work with the 2 x 4's running horizontal. The first step was to decide what word to use on the fence. We decided on "Faith" for many reasons; but, one being that neither my husband or I have green thumbs.


STEP ONE: I printed out each letter on an 8 1/2 X 11, cut them out and covered them with clear packing tape. I then taped them in place on the fence with painters masking tape.
STEP TWO: I stuck pieces of cardboard through the slates on both sides and taped the 2 x 4's vertically to match the 3 panel area I would be painting black. I then painted the three fence panels flat black and allowed to dry.
While the paint was drying, I remembered that my husband had made picture frames from scraps of door and window molding years ago and we had not been able to use them, up until now. I needed to fill the area between the "FAITH" Border and the fence post. So, we pulled them out of the shop.
I had several cans of flat black spray paint and since they were solid unfinished wood, I decided to spray paint them black while the paint on the fence was drying.
STEP THREE: After the paint on the fence had dried, I pulled off the masking tape and removed the cardboard.
We had a few garden tiles, that I had picked up at the Dollar Tree for a buck each and decided to place them in the middle of the frames to the right of the new "FAITH" panel. When I went inside to get something from the kitchen, I turned to notice that you could see all three words from the kitchen area: Love, Faith and Rejoice. I had not planned that, and was delighted!
We had another delightful surprise. When I went back out to hang the picture frames and tiles, a little visitor was there to greet me. I think he wanted to see what the heck was going on.
For those of you who hate snakes--forgive me. I just think he is adorable! Anyway back to the fence. I tried many different placements with the frames and tiles and finally found one that I thought was a great balance of shapes, colors, and worked well with the space.
Dianna Wood
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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4 of 49 comments
  • Jennifer Pospichal Jennifer Pospichal on May 15, 2014
    It's beautiful and peaceful-looking. You're such wonderful neighbors to take the rough side of the fence...but then you've done wonders with it! I like your little garden visitor, too!
  • Barbara Brewer Barbara Brewer on May 18, 2014
    we have a small garden snake too call it NO SHOULDERS sweet young bug eater
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