Hidden gate - ideas please.

[Monkey Mark]

Morning all.

I'm going to be replacing our back fence as it well past its best.
I'll be putting in a 6ft fence. My wife wants a gate in it but as our garden backs onto an open area, she'd like a "hidden" gate so as not to make our garden an easy target.
It's not something i normally do so I'm struggling to get my head around the best way to make it. I know it's not really going to be hidden i just don't want the gate to stand out a mile.

Any ideas would be great.
Cheers. Mark

 

[beech1948]

About 18 yrs ago I built a fence out of close boarded panels which were 6x6. I modified one of the panels to become a gate which accessed a school playing field via a border of trees and shrubs.

I put a treated 2x4 perimeter frame with X beacing using a halving joint in the middle and M&Ts at the ends. It withstood 18 yrs and then we moved so a success. It did not get used a lot except by kids going to play on the school fields.

 

[Stanleymonkey]

I fitted a rail to cover the gap in the shed doors. Painted it to match and went in for a cup of tea. Looked outside and couldn't see the thing! Rail was same width as the shiplap in the shed doors and blended in completely. Could your gate open outwards and be full height? Then you could cover the gap on the non hinged side with a suitable piece of wood.

Not sure how you hide the hinges on the other side though.

 

[Monkey Mark]

Thanks for the ideas guys.

I'll give a little more info and answer a couple of questions to help any further ideas.

It will be a close boarded fence. The gate will be full height and as yet no decision on opening in/out.
Not bothered about seeing hinges etc on the inside, just hiding the outside a bit is my aim.
Not decided wether to go with typical gate hinges or heavy duty butt hinges, again whatever will work best really. I intend to make the gate reasonably sturdy so decent butt hinges may work.

It won't be used every day. Just as a kind of short cut occasionally.

Thanks for the help guys.

 

[Bm101]

If it's close board and you have it opening outwards you should be able to hide it completely. Another option would be to paint a variety of fake gates all along the outside. After trying a couple any would be villain will surely give up in frustration.... :-"

Right... back to sanding the floor it is then. :roll:

 

[sunnybob]

To be realistic, any villain worth the name would be over a 6ft fence a lot faster than trying to open a gate.

Unless youve got broken glass or barbed wire on the top, theres not much point in going to extreme lengths to disguise it.

 

[thegsey]

-

 

[Bm101]

Thegsy if they are on the fence...

 

[Monkey Mark]

Will the face of the close board be inside your garden or out? Might sound like a silly question to some but I have fences facing both ways depending on which bit of our garden they are in.

If outward facing with the rails inside then this would be a relatively easy job. I made a fence like this recently by just building a gate frame that and opened inwards and had the boards on the outside matching the rest of the fence. You could ad an extra post at 3ft to make a normal size gate or to be extra discrete hinge an entire panel. If the close board were to face in with the rail on the outside then to make it look the same you would have to add some decorative rails to disguise it and possibly offset you hinges/posts.

Some might say they are not worth it but I think things like this are worth doing. I'm sure it would not stop a determined intruder but I think measures like this help discourage the potential intruders who are "on the fence" so to speak.

Hi. It doesn't sound silly at all. In our garden we have both inward and outward facing fences. This one in particular will have the face on the outside, to match neighboring fences, so the rails will be on the inside.

 

[Adam9453]

I'd make the entire full width panel the door so you can't tell from the outside.

 

[Monkey Mark]

I'd make the entire full width panel the door so you can't tell from the outside.

Unfortunately a full panel won't work. If it opened inwards thats a 6ft space I'd need to keep clear whuch won't really work with what i have planned. And outward opening i'd only get about 4 foot as the land to the rear raises up after a few foot.