Entry Gates and Columns - A Matter of Scale

As I was designing some driveway entry gates, entry piers and fencing for a client, I realized that much of the design was based on scale. If the scale, or sizes, are off, it will look quite funky!

So, where to start? Since the property was to be enclosed to keep out deer, I started with the fencing, believe it or not. Deer fencing has to be a minimum of 7 1/2 feet high. Knowing this helped to determine the height of the gate and driveway columns.

I decided that the gate edges where they attach to the columns should be the same height as the fencing. This didn't have to be, although it did have to be this height at a minimum. Columns look nice a little higher than the gate edges.

I won't bore you with all the details of the dimensions. Instead, you can how it looks in the above Sketchup drawing I did. I purposely did not put in grass and driveway materials, as I wanted the gate to stand out.

The columns are to be faced with the same natural stone used on retaining walls elsewhere on the property. The gates may be iron, steel or aluminum. Fencing will most likely be aluminum and will mimic wrought iron.

Any thoughts?

Blackberry Tour - Nice Phone But Plenty of Cons

I know, this is totally off topic. But where else can I get my thoughts out?

Just my take on the Blackberry Tour. It has had a lot of positive hype, but I am putting together not only my thoughts, but also those of others who have the phone. FYI....


It's a great phone. It's very fast and the screen is beautiful, but it has some negatives also...
1. Many of the phones bought have loose battery covers. It should be checked when someone first gets the phone.
2. The talk and idle time after a charge is not as good as my previous, older 8830 World phone. Actually, it's pretty poor.
3. At times it gets hot.
4. The BB Browser is still very slow. I would suggest downloading Opera Mini as an alternate browser. The only problem is that you cannot make it your default browser.
5. When sending a picture via MMS, do not send from the enlarged image. It won't work. Just send from the highlighted image. If this was stated somewhere, I never saw it.

With all the hype about the phone, I thought these points should be brought out too.
Susan