Thread: Cemetery fence, take two

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Guys and ghouls, I'm hoping you can help me brainstorm. Close to 10 years ago, I made a cemetery fence/wall. I love the look of it, but it's getting old and torn up and it's a nightmare to store. So, I'm ready to chuck it all and start from scratch to build a better fence for 2012.

Lemme tell you about the old fence. It's constructed in eight-foot sections of fancy faux wrought-iron plastic fencing and pink foam carved to look like stone. Since my front yard is more driveway than grass, there are also two sections of free-standing foam rock/plastic fencing and an ornate gateway made of two five-foot arched wing walls, also of carved foam. There was a free-standing garden arch between the walls that matched the plastic fencing.

I love this look, and it seems fairly unique. However, since I made this a bazillion years ago, it's in terrible shape, and like I said... absolute worst nightmare from hell to store – seriously. So, I'd love to try to do something similar, though not exactly the same, and make it with storage in mind … and I'm kind of stumped.

Here's a pic from a few years ago, of one of the wing walls, part of one of the free-standing walls, and the arch. This is before the arch got loose in a windstorm two years ago and had to be put down. It was a mercy.



Anybody got any ideas? I thought of making it of thinner foam, backed by lauan, and in shorter stretches... but that would just give me way more walls to store only shorter...

It looks great, the style and design are cool. But making the construction lighter weight helps, as well as finding good ways to anchor things down so the wind doesn't terrorize your terrors.

Plywood bottoms with all-foam tops makes them sturdy, and eye bolts and roofing spikes can anchor anything in the soil.

A clearcoat over the work, or an epoxy coating, can help protect things.

I love the stone walls. The only thing I can think of is to go all faux wrought iron. That way your fencing sections are way thinner and thus easier to store. (either that or specigfically build a storage container for the stone walls...)

Thanks! Yeah, I'm debating going all faux wrought iron for the actual fencing, since I also want to expand the amount of fencing to enclose my whole front yard. Maybe then I could just do foam stone corner pieces and a new gateway.

The arch was really the only thing that ever had wind problems - the walls themselves once anchored stayed put. And I mean they staaaayed. Last year there was a microburst a few blocks from us and tree damage and they still stayed put.

Back when I made them, I knew I couldn't afford to buy the commercial foam coats and I hadn't yet figured out how to make my own. So, the new ones should come out more durable once I coat them.