Wrought Iron Gates for our home - my early Christmas present

Those who know me , know of my LOVE for anything old and iron.  Every year we go to this high end garden center for our Christmas tree that also sells expensive antiques , statues and fountains and so on . They sell the type of antiques for people with homes that are Mansions with gardens that are  listed as Estates for the wealthy people.  I can only dream when I go in there.  While we were walking through the garden center , I saw this beautiful wrought iron arbor with some rust showing throughout it.  I fell in love with it.  I looked at it over and over and then I saw the price.  I said to my honey,  " I would love this for our garden. . .  oh, maybe someday ."   Christmas morning came and he said your present is out in the yard. There it was flat on the ground.  I could not believe my eyes.   It took three of us to move it and set it up.  We set it up over the summer and added a lace vine to each side.  The vine has tiny white flowers and grows rapidly.  It is so gorgeous.

I built a short fence from oak pallet boards with gates and placed the arbor in front of it.  It separates the fireplace wood stacking area from the rest of my back yard.  I'm letting the wood age and change color before I add a sealer to the fence
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Isn't this gorgeous ?  I got an early present this year.  Black wrought iron gates for the yard .  It's going to take a major landscape redesign to use them.

I'm guessing they are about 8 feet tall by 6 feet wide. They are leaning against each other here so it's hard to show you how pretty they really are until we set them in place.

Here are the end caps that go on the posts so you can have an idea of how large the posts are with the electronics that will need to be replaced.  The posts are still  in cement  and will be removed this week or next week.

What a great Christmas present....I guess this is just part of my present as he said it.  I will have to carefully plan where these gates will be located since we have a long driveway that curves and we will need dump truck and Peterbilt access  into the yard.  Hmmm....maybe we can just move the driveway for the gates to work properly.