Monday, December 6, 2010

A new addition to the back yard. In need of a noun.


Doug built this bamboo screen in the area we've been fretting over for years, even before we lost one huge tree to the right of the red maple. The design ideas were done by both of us (in my opinion) but he ordered everything, and he definitely did 99.9% of the work. We had been considering bamboo for months (years?) but after we saw the bamboo exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum when we were there in September, we knew we could do it. We were mostly convinced by seeing how strong lashings can be; we are pretty certain that no wind will knock these things down. The bamboo will rot over time and we'll have to replace each piece probably. Another help in getting the project launched was hiring someone to buy some big 4 x 4s, bring them to our house, dig big (3 ft deep) holes, insert the 4 x 4s into the holes along with concrete, and stake them up until the concrete was set. We hired a young kid to do all that, and then Doug did all the other work of constructing the structure. It's a screen, really. Now, when we sit on our deck we won't have to look at all the miscellaneous yard stuff our neighbor keeps behind his house. [Which is his right, don't get me wrong.] Doug added a third panel on the left, just to the right of the red maple, and I have a feeling he's now addicted to making these things so there may be others here and there in the years to come. Our county only allows fences to be 6.5 feet tall (maybe only 6 feet actually). So these structures are definitely NOT fences. They're way taller than 6 feet. So far, I don't call them screens. I call them the bamboo things. I'm searching for a better noun.

2 comments:

Kitt said...

Sculptural windbreaks.

Pam J. said...

One clever friend suggested The Bamboo Curtain.