The plan revealed

So I took some measurements a while ago of the vacant lot that I bought behind my building and used some free 3D modeling software to design the layout for my fence and future improvements back there. It started out as an exercise in precise planning of my fence layout, but then when I realized that I forgot to measure the location of the telephone pole, where the neighbor's wall ends, and other things it turned into more of a conceptual drawling of overall what I hope to make the space.

So for those new to my blog that haven't gone to the beginning to see the pictures of my lot, here is what it looks like now (really now the fence has started to come up, which I'll show in a latter post):

My building is the one with the hill in front of it, and it's important to remember that I only own from the corner of my building to roughly the telephone pole; not all the way to Lang Street where this Keep Cincinnati Beautiful fence is. The building with the red slanted roof is my neighbor's and the far brick wall is I think technically mine, but the grey cinder block wall  behind it and the chain-link fence are my other neighbor's. So I have access to my lot yard from the alley only and could eventually make stairs up the hill into the courtyard/breezeway of my building.

So the initial plans are to build a privacy fence with the free skids that I got off of Craigslist.

As you can see, I got a little carried away with my plans. I put those grey car pads in there in order to visualize how cars might fit in the space, but I'd end up doing a paver/gravel combo probably. Even the alley side fence is tentative. I'm only building the long side of the fence for now. And the patio area on top of the current hill will be a long way down the road. It's also hard to make out in the above pictures, but my basement had a door to it that is half covered by the hill now. I hope to eventually gain access down there, so I can put laundry and storage there.

Maybe one of the most confusing parts of my plan are the cables that go above the car pads to the wall on the other side of my lot. These will be the supports for my hop vines, which will grown up cables on the outside of my fence and then across to create a canopy over the parking. As planned I think I can grow 9 hops plants and space them roughly 3 feet apart which is what I've read online. After seeing them grown in Oregon last month and doing online research, I'm still not sure what varieties to grow, but I'm planning on contacting local breweries to see if they'll use them (maybe buy them) for their test batches. I'm hoping to finish the fence this summer/fall and begin growing them in the spring. The hops plants will take a year to really produce much so I've got plenty of time.