Living in an urban environment sometimes means sacrificing some personal space. Houses are closer together, square footage is minimal, and neighbors don’t have to work very hard to be nosy with their windows practically lining up with yours. Privacy fences can be hard to squeeze into the breezeways between homes, can be very costly, and may not even be permissible by local codes. So what’s an urban home-dweller to do? Why, build a “wall” of lattice, of course!
My husband and I embarked on this weekend long project over the Fourth to help create some privacy for one side of our house. Our master bedroom and bathroom (to be) windows face out to what was once a vacant property, but now is in the process of being renovated as a rental property.
We were getting pretty tired of feeling like we could never open our blinds on that side of the house lest we show off all our bedroom has to offer (which is the number one target of home burglaries, FYI), and with new tenants on the horizon, we wanted a buffer between our home and the one next door.
The great thing about the lattice wall is what a simple, yet great solution it was to our issue. A privacy fence was out of the question not only due to cost, but because of our city’s code about distance from the property line and house as well as height and transparancy restrictions. However, upon further research, latticework is actually considered landscaping in our city, which meant there were far more lax requirements concering placing it. And of course, lattice is far cheaper than privacy fence, especially if you’re willing to get your hands dirty.
We chose to go with vinyl for many reasons — less maintenance, it matches our vinyl siding, and basic personal aesthetics (we’re not huge fans of faded wood). Originally we wanted to get “privacy” lattice, which has a tighter weave, but the price wasn’t quite worth the benefit.
Come next spring, we plan to plant a combination of an evergreen vine, flowers such as morning glories or wisteria, and climbing roses to further beautify our wall while creating even more privacy once the plants creep their way up the lattice. This way, we not only have more privacy for our home, but we’ve upped the landscaping and curb appeal as well.
Our neighbors have all complimented us on it, including the owner of the formerly-vacant home, and we think it does look pretty nice as is. I personally can’t wait to have some greenery outside of our windows.
What would you suggest we plant on our lattice? Or do you have any clever security-disguised-as-landscaping tricks to share? Let ’em loose below!
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