Making a cedar gate for a cedar deck

At first we thought to buy a premade gate for our cedar deck, but found out the opening was rather unique and not a standard width. Besides, finding a cedar pre-made gate would have been problematic, to say the least.

So I purchased some inexpensive fencing pickets made of cedar and from no real experience except seeing other gates I crafted the gate shown here. I wanted to avoid ripping the boards as much as possible and fortunately all I had to do was cut cross grain the bottom foot or so.

I found some galvanized screws that were short enough and proceeded to keep the boards together by making a Z type construction of some 1x4's.
I found some door latch hardware that cost very little and two plated hinges to hold the door to the cedar post. After a few hours and a trip to the hardware store, we now have a door that has lasted so far 3 years in use. It is lightweight and has never needed any mainenance, plus the fence boards were already cut dog earred, a plus for giving it a little design as well with no effort on my part.

The key here was to think a little outside the box, so to speak, and that sent me looking for the fencing material, cheap and in cedar too, matching the deck!