I’ve lived in my house for 16 years. There is no fence between me and the house to my right, and only a fence behind the garage between me and the yard on the left.
Until two years ago, the renter on my left repaired lawn mowers in their backyard as a small business. The place was junky with mowers and parts. I didn’t mind vegetation overgrowing the fence. It was hard to mow the grass under the bushes; whatever grass could survive.
The fence was the neighbor’s and on their side of the property line. He did not maintain any of the bushes. The fence was both a 2-foot-high wrought iron and 4-foot-high rolled wire. The vines in the bushes wrapped around the wire as they grew.
There were a couple of wisera bushes with sprouting vines. Though nice in blooms of purple flowers, the vines are invasive.
Every couple of years, I would trim back the bushes, cutting some down to the stump. One year, I had so many branches that I had to hire someone to haul them away.
Last September, I received a text asking if I had any bushes or trees that needed trimming. I responded that I could use some help clearing once the leaves were off. They asked for pictures. Here is one that I sent. The shed on the right is mine. The garage on the left is 2 inches off my property line.
They never got back to me.
My lawn mower repairman has moved out, and I was tired of having to cut back bushes. At the start of the year, I budgeted for a fence replacement in 2026.
Starting last December, I cut down the bushes from front to back, whatever would fit into a weekly garbage pickup. I lost a few weeks in February while I was chiseling ice.
By May, I’d removed all the bushes I could, and I started getting estimates. The existing fence needed to be removed, one tree leaning over the fence needed to be cut down, and the stumps ground.
One company could do the entire job; others could do part of it, but not all. The estimates for the parts were 60% of the estimate from the company bidding the entire job. Since time was not of the essence, I got permission from the neighbor property owner, then tree removal, then fence removal, then stump grinding. By the time I returned from Utah, I was ready to get fence bids.
I either called or submitted an online request for an estimate to four local companies. I wanted a solid wood fence that bushes couldn’t grow through. I wanted cedar but would settle for pressure-treated pine.
One gave me an estimate over the phone but could only do pine.
One lost my request and called me after I had a signed contract with another company.
One came out, measured, and gave a bid for cedar and pine. I showed her a neighbor’s fence I wanted to duplicate. Her bid was for another style.
Superior Fence and Rail came out and measured. I showed him the neighbor’s fence. Instead of 4×4 wood posts, they used wrapped galvanized metal posts. He showed me a sample. Their cedar bid was not much higher than pine. So I signed an agreement for cedar. Their lead time was 4 weeks, and they completed the work on September 23.
In addition to the fence on the left side of my backyard, I had a pen built to the right front of my garage. You can’t tell the posts are not solid wood. They should stand up longer. From the front, my next year’s project is to trim the trees behind my garage and fence the right side of my backyard. I couldn’t do that work this year because the trees were overhanging my property line. 
The final total cost was about $100 under budget.