I've been lurking on this thread, but I guess I'll jump in... There have been a lot of different ideas floating around, and all with different implications. Public vs private from a sociability side, safety, keeping animals in or out... Our old house didn't have any fences, and there were very few fences in the neighborhood. We had a whole block of houses in a row with no fences (until the one got a dog), and we all backed onto protected wetlands. Everyone bought their houses in order to enjoy the view, and no one wanted to block it off with a fence. Kids felt free to wander through the yards as a shortcut, and most of the time, that wasn't a problem. Otoh, if you saw neighbors outside, you *knew* you'd be expected to go chat - and sometimes we didn't want to. But, I certainly knew all of our neighbors! At our new house, the houses back up to each other, and most of them are fenced. They are deeper yards, however, which helps. (Part of the reason everyone liked the connected yards was to make the small yards feel bigger.) We currently have fences on 2 sides of our yard, but one neighbor has a low perennial bed and a row of huge evergreen trees (Spruce?) along the property line, and has already told us she'd rather not have a fence there. Otoh, she has a fenced-in deck area, so she has a private area within her yard. I still like the idea of being sociable with my neighbors - but I also like the idea of having a private outside area. Which is part of why the back corner of the yard is going to be the "secret garden" with tall perennials and an arbor around it. (I'm not worried about winter height - I don't tend to hang out in the yard then!) I'm hoping that will be a good mixture of openness and enclosure...

Thanks for the info Sheri. I am going to have a metallurgist at the company look at the bolts. The base bolts appear to be stainless. I have the FED X number for the replacement parts. HF has been very good about making the shipping damage right, but they would save themselves a lot of money by packaging the houses better. I guess that they are used to shipping tools. As you know the instructions leave a LOT to be desired, so I might be asking for more help. Thanks again!

I posted here years ago when we were deciding about taking our pool screen down. We did it and It was the best decision we made! It looks much better and we dont have issues with debris and bugs (we did have to cut some trees down close to the pool). We love having it all open. Regarding the fence so you can still see the bay, our friends have a fence that looks modern and you can still see through. I posted a pic of our pool and an example of a possible fence.

Second time to try posting to here. My Firefox browser had to be updated with a new version of FlashPlayer 10.1 and I lost the whole thing when it crashed. Anyway, I wanted to show you the way they used the star jasmine in Italy. Gorgeous. The first picture is the two rows of low hedge growing over a wire fence (like chain link I think), with that pergola in the background literally covered with the jasmine too. This is around the swimming pool at the Tuscan villa we stayed at in Italy. And now for the picture of the ONE PLANT climbing the post in our front yard. The photo was taken in April 2008 after the plant had grown for one year. I will next put in a picture of it from this spring, when it is massive and in full aromatic bloom. This is without it being trimmed. As you see in the Italian picture, you can trim it to grow flat and tall like a hedge. To recommend it: It stays green all year, top to bottom is never bare (unlike Carolian jessamine which makes a big top knot and is bare on the lower stems), it smells wonderful, and blooms all over itself in May and June. It is not invasive, it is not poisonous. When newly planted, it needs to be watered until established, but then is drought tolerant. And that last photo above is ONLY ONE PLANT which is now three years old.