Swishy Swish Gate
How do you transform a front garden from open and manicured to a fenced in private space? This is the question Heather from Instinct Interiors asked herself as she set about designing the new face of her home.
Linking the new to existing
Steve Pensak from PLC Landscapes is a master with stone. His seamless work on the front fence includes a bluestone clad low wall, with a ‘crazy pave’ design to match the driveway he created a few years earlier. The wall includes columns designed to support the Chalkhorse open steel fence panels. The steel part of the fence is fairly traditional. It’s hard to climb but open enough to still show the garden. The long panels help create a sense of openness.
Then there is the gate
Heather and I sat down, each with our own pencils and blank paper, in what we called ‘Duelling Sketches’. We each came up with different ways to create something that not only blended with the home but was also unique. We combined elements from both, emphasising gentle curves that reinforced the shapes of the chimney and swishy reeds that brought a sense of movement even when the gate is closed. We ended up with the ‘Swishy Gate.’
Watch how the custom Gate Keeper works!!
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Swishy Gate Keeper
New skills and innovation
To curve the heavy (30mm) parts of the gate, I needed to get the steel rolled by a specialist ‘ring rolling’ company. It’s not unusual to outsource this sort of thing but I tend to keep outsourcing to a minimum, as it is an easy way to use up a budget. When it came to the 10mm steel reeds, I decided to custom create my own roller. Not a precision tool but for ‘natural’ looking reeds it worked brilliantly, and kept the project on budget.
Some in-house ingenuity also came into play with the gate ‘keeper’. Most gates are designed to roll along a track at the bottom and are held in place at the top with a guide block or rollers. This works for rectangular gates but nearly always leaves scratches. That would never do for the swishy gate!
A new method had to be found.
The solution was to incorporate a smooth sleek solid bar of stainless steel that matches the top curve on the gate, keeping it vertical without touching any painted parts at all. This innovation will now be a standard feature on all my gates.
The Swishy Gate was a wonderful project and one that I believe blurs the line between functional and decorative and functional art.
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Check out Instinct Interiors on Instagram @instinct_intereriors and Stone Man Steve at www.plclandscapes.com.au .
Photo credit goes to Heather from Instinct Interiors
Swishy Detail
Swishy Shadows