In March 2025 I drove down to Indian Harbour Beach, Florida, to help my son Drew and his father-in-law Scott build a fence in Drew’s yard. Scott put a lot of work into it too, and the three of us got it done. I had planned on a few extra days of downtime, but I didn’t arrive as early as I’d hoped, so the fence ate the whole trip.

It was hot work. On top of that, I had a tooth that was going nuclear. Fortunately my daughter-in-law Cassandra is a dentist, and she took care of it while we were there.

From posts to panels

The first photograph catches the fence at the point where the structure finally becomes visible: the posts are set, the long rails establish the height and line, and the yard is beginning to take shape around it.

Fence posts and horizontal rails under construction around Drew's Florida yard
The posts and rails established the fence line around the yard.

From there, the horizontal boards turned the open frame into a continuous privacy fence.

The completed horizontal-board fence viewed from outside Drew's yard
The finished fence from the street side.

The inside used a more conventional structural face, with the posts and rails visible and the boards presenting a clean exterior toward the street. It turned out great—and the compliments from the neighbors helped set up the next project, when the man next door wandered over and offered me the SeaSwirl sitting in his yard.

The completed fence viewed from inside Drew's yard
The finished fence from inside the yard.

Drew’s ten-project review

Drew later included the finished fence in his review of ten projects completed around the house: what he did himself, what he hired out, and why. The fence segment begins at 7:23. It includes several clips from the build and the neighborhood controversy around it—the neighbors started out skeptical and ended up happy with the result.

Watch the fence segment from 7:23 on YouTube, or see “Every Home Project: DIY'd vs Hired Out” on The Drew Archive.