Chewies Bad Girl Fence

Currently we have a sort of vestibule setup for our dog doors to keep the house warmer in the winter. For the dog to get outside she needs to go out of the kitchen into the 3 seasons room and then from the 3 seasons room she can go outside. Recently she decided it would be a good idea to use the 3 seasons room as her personal bathroom instead of going outside. Until we could come up with a solution, we decided to close off the dog doors and we were letting her out ourselves. For anyone with dogs, they know this is a hassle. You have to come home at lunch and right after work to let the dog out which can put a damper on spontaneous outings.

Stacey and I both thought a small railing that would limit her space in the 3 seasons room and only let her go the short distance from one door to the other would be the best option. We are also rewarding her with treats when we notice that she does go outside to use the bathroom to try and use the railing as a temporary solution until the positive reinforcement takes hold.

I made a railing similar to this for our old house to replace a 70's red twisted metal railing they had that was super sketchy. At the time I did not take any pictures or write up an article on it so this is kind of a dual article since the railing is almost identical. I got the idea to make the railing from Stacey after we looked at the prices of making a traditional railing at Lowes and decided to look online for cheaper methods. We found this post that had a nice looking 2"x4" railing and decided to use it.

Materials

• ~10 - 2"x4"x8' 
• 44 - 2 1/2" Kreg Jig Screws

Tools

• Miter Saw (or circular saw)
• Table Saw
• Kreg Jig (can do it without just not as easy)
• Clamps (makes it easier)
• Drill
• Router 
• Orbital Sander 

This is the first project I used Sketchup for the design. I figured it would help me get the right number of spindles and make it easier to cut the pieces. I was half right, we'll cover that later on though. If you want to download the file it is available here.

I started by cutting my pieces down to length. Two boards for the long top and bottom, then three for the vertical support, and two more for the short top and bottom section. The remaining pieces are for spindles, I had seven spindles left over from the first railing but needed seven more.

Take the 2"x4" boards to be spindles and cut them in half with your table saw. Be sure to have a splitter in the back to keep them from pinching the blade. It often happens to me when ripping 2"x4"s.

After you have your spindles cut it is time to round over the edges. After ripping your spindles on the saw they will be a bit rectangular, which is fine. I have been trying to figure out a way to explain this that will be easy to understand for a couple days. Stacey liked this description best, so hopefully it makes sense. 

The round over, if set to the perfect height, will allow you to route all four edges of the spindle however you would like. If you have your router bit set a bit to low,  you could end up with some sides of the spindle not being symmetrical. In order to account for this you need to route the edges in a certain order. If done correctly only two sides of the spindle should touch the router table. 

Looking at the end of the spindle we will call the longer sides the top and bottom, those are the two sides that you should have touch the router table. You want to route edge 1 and then rotate (roll) the spindle to the other side and route edge 2. After having 2 edges done flip the spindle end over end and then do the same steps for edges 3 and 4. Make sure to only route from the top and bottom side.                                                                                                                                       If you route the edges and roll the spindle you could end up with something similar to the bottom figure. 

It's time to drill pocket holes if you have a Kreg Jig or other pocket hole system. All of the spindles get two pocket holes, one on top and one on the bottom. I know it sounds obvious, but make sure they are on the same side and that you are using the same side on each of the spindles. As I stated earlier they are not square.

The two end pieces and the center piece each get two holes at what will be the top. The short bottom piece gets two pocket holes on one side of both ends and the top short piece gets two pocket holes on one end. The bottom long piece will get two pocket holes on one side of both ends and the top long piece will get none.

I have a 4" spacer block clamped to the bottom of one of the vertical pieces and then the long piece clamped to the vertical piece at the other end. The spacer block is used to keep the height of the bottom of the railing consistent from one side to the other. I chose to go with 4" since it was the max allowed when I looked up the regulation on hand railing for stairs. If you don't have clamps, it's okay, just hold the pieces in place best you can when you screw them in. I was about to put the top piece on when I realized I did not have enough measurements on the diagram. The diagram was accurate but I did not cut the two bottom pieces correctly. The long bottom piece needed 3" removed and the short bottom piece needed 1 1/2" removed, and then I had to re-drill the pocket holes.  Don't worry, the file linked above has the added measurements.

After the pieces were re-cut and re-drilled. I was able to assemble the frame. Before routing a round over onto the top handrail I sanded the whole thing down to 100 grit. This isn't going to be used near a stairwell where people will be grabbing or sliding their hands on the handrail. If it were going to be I would have sanded it down to 220 grit.

A good tip that I picked up from the other site was to measure the center of your railing and install your spindles going out from there. This will ensure that you have equal spacing on both sides when you get to the end. I was using a 5" spacer block so I centered that on the center of the long board. I am only using a 5" spacer because its not a fixed railing. If it was going to be a railing near a stairway that is attached to the floor I would have used a 4" spacer to meet building codes. I also have two spacer blocks underneath the spindle to keep it centered on the 2"x4".

I was only screwing in one side at a time. I would do all of the spindles on one side and then switch over to the other side with my spacer blocks and do the rest. After you get the spindles installed you are pretty much done.

This last step is optional. If you like the way it looks here you can add a 1"x4" pine board at the top and bottom to hide the pocket holes. I used an air nailer with 1 1/4" nails to secure the boards. I covered the pocket holes for the stairway railing, but left Chewies fence without.