Build A Privacy Trellis, step by step

BRB, simply changing the name of this journal to “Solving Problems With Plants.” And I know we promised a large pool post, but the pool is still quite much in progress. Hopefully it’ll be done next month and we can write one big breakdown with approximately 473 photos. But back to how plants can not only hide ugly stuff, they can also offer some fairly strong privacy, as we are about to demonstrate below.

One of the things that contributes to our house being extra walkable to shops, parks, the beach, and restaurants is that it is less like a sprawling suburban neighborhood due to the plenty being a good deal smaller (you can read more about why a walkable neighborhood and a smaller house/lot truly appealed to our family ).

It is a similar feeling to our former beach house in Cape Charles, Virginia, which taught us that we truly did not mind being that close to other homes. Even though the houses on each side of us there were nearly identical, which meant that many of our windows lined up perfectly (in fact from one of our upstairs bathrooms we could see into BOTH of the neighbors’ bathrooms on either side – but thanks to the magic of blinds it was not an issue). You can read more about that house’s renovation here.

Here in Florida, our current home’s lot size is more than three times bigger than our Cape Charles lot (it is around 4,800 square feet), but it clocks in at around eight times smaller than the one we had in Richmond (which was nearly an acre!) so it strikes a truly pleasant balance for us. Not too much to maintain, but still roomy sufficient to add a pool, work in some strong outdoor hangout areas, etc. And not an inch of grass to mow, which might be my go-to part. We are also on a corner lot here, so we are not sandwiched between two houses like our Cape Charles house was… but on this one side of the house, there is another house that is somewhat close:

Luckily, that house does not have any windows that perfectly line up with ours – and thanks to the mature trees and the privacy fence that we brought in, we do not truly feel like we are ever going to be waving at each other from inside of our respective homes. In fact, after living here a while, the only spot that we felt a little more “exposed” than we hoped was one side window upstairs, above the kids’ art desk:

It is hard to tell from the photo above because it blows out in the picture, but in person, the left side of the window behind those two chairs overlooked the house next door simply a bit more than we’d like when you are looking at it head-on (for example, when you are sitting in the chairs at the art desk).

Yes, blinds could have easily done the trick, but we have truly enjoyed NOT having blinds on these upstairs windows because the up-in-the-treees views from this room are otherwise quite striking, green, and secluded feeling (you can read more about this room here in this post).

We figured there had to be a way to get that leafy enveloped feeling out this window too. So we hatched a PLAN with a capital T. What is that spell? PLANTS!

Fortunately, our deck wraps around simply sufficient to go under this window (it literally ends right at the edge of the window, as seen below). So we used a plain raised planter box + trellis setup to create a lush wall of greenery that blocks our view of the house next door (and their view of us).

First, we picked up this 48″ raised planter box (it is on sale right now) and primed & painted it white to blend with the house.

The raised planter box gave the plants a pleasant head start on getting them tall sufficient to in fact create privacy, and the “trellis” was in fact truly plain to add too.

It is simply two pieces of 2×2″ lumber (also painted white) that we screwed to the outside of our deck railing. Then we simply strung up some 1/16″ steel wire between the two, crisscrossing it between some evenly spaced out screw eye hooks. Sort of like a swift-and-dirty version of this wire trellis that we brought in at our last house.

The main difference here is that we were not trying to create a structured geometric pattern for the vines to follow. Our goal here was full coverage. So we simply weaved the wire back and forth to create some wide X’s stacked above each other, creating a “wire ladder” of sorts to give our vining plants something to grab so they could easily grow up to the top and fill the whole thing in.

The last step was to add the stars of the show: the plants. Well, and the dirt. But who cares about dirt. The real stars are, literally, the star jasmine plants that we planted in the raised planter box, right below our freshly installed wire trellis. Jasmine does TRULY well in our area, so we knew this would be a smart bet (it is all over everyone’s fences and pergolas and smells truly good). So we simply dug them in, untangled them from the stakes they came with, and gently wound them around the wire.

Then along the front of the planter box, since we still had some room we brought in some foxtail ferns for another layer of greenery. They also like our climate and grow to be large and full without any irrigation or high-maintenance needs, which is consistently a plus. To be clear, we do not water this planter box. It simply gets rain whenever that happens and it grows happily on its own, which seems to be the key for us.

We in fact planted this back in the fall and hoped for the best. And so far, so good. The jasmine is already taller than the trellis in some parts! We are simply keeping an eye on it, and occasionally we “re-route” some vines along a distinct part of the wire to assist fill in some of the bare spots (there are a few empty zones towards the top that we are still working on filling in).

Here is another shot of how it looks from the ground…

… and the other day we even had a chance to go inside the house next door to check things out from their vantage point (it is under construction and we are friendly with the builder). There are still some spots that need filling in, but it is fairly excellent how much it already obscures that window, which used to be fully visible from this POV.

So while it is certainly not as plain as adding a blind would have been, it only took us about an afternoon of work, and we are thrilled that it has given us another lush view the enjoy from these upstairs windows.

And since we are on the subject of landscaping, we thought we’d share a newer photo of the front of the house since that landscaping is filling in nicely too.

Plants here seem to be exceptionally glad, which is convenient because we do not have irrigation but they do not seem to mind.

More Trellis & Plant Guides

If you are looking for more information on some of our go-to plants (real and faux!) check out some of these posts below:

• Hands-on Diamond Trellis for Vines
• Make a Hands-on Outdoor Plant Shelf
• How to Build a Window Plant Shelf
• Protecting Outdoor Plants In A Deep Freeze
• Fiddle Leaf Fig Care Guide
• Tree Philodendron Care Guide
• Monstera Deliciosa Care Guide
• Snake Plant Care Guide
• My Go-to Faux Plants
• Straightforward Houseplants To Keep Alive
• 10 Houseplants For Better Indoor Air Quality

*This post contains affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site at no additional cost to you.

P.S. To see all the other projects we have done over the last year that we have lived here, this page has them all rounded up in one place.