Driveway gate replacement — faded iron out, powder-black in
This driveway gate in Washington County, Utah was replaced rather than refinished, because the frame had gone as well as the finish. The new setup is a matte-black double driveway gate on new posts with a matching pedestrian gate beside it, hung to the existing block pilasters. Gate work is often the opposite call — a steel frame usually outlives its cedar infill, so re-infilling and staining is the cheaper and better answer.
Before and after
BeforeSun-faded tan iron, sagging on worn hinges.
AfterNew matte-black double gate on new posts, with a matching pedestrian gate.
Replace the gate, or re-infill it?
Most of the time, don’t replace it. A steel gate frame in this climate will comfortably outlast two or three sets of wooden pickets. Cedar and redwood infill goes grey, checks and splits under southern Utah ultraviolet long before the welds or the hinges give up.
So the first question on any gate job is which part has actually failed:
- Infill gone, frame sound — re-infill and stain. Much cheaper, and the third photograph here is what that looks like.
- Frame cracked at the welds, or posts moved — rebuild. No amount of new timber fixes a gate that no longer hangs square.
- Finish gone but everything straight — strip and refinish.
This one was a rebuild: the frame had gone along with the finish, and the hinges had worn enough that the leaves were dragging on the concrete.
Why these two photographs matter more than the others on this site
They are the only two landscape frames in the entire photo archive — everything else Joe has shot is a vertical phone photo. That makes this the one before/after on the site that works full-width without cropping the subject out of it.
More from this job
The trades in this job
Tell me what needs doing.
Describe the job and send a photo if you have one. The person who reads it is the person who will do the work.