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Phew! I need a vacation after my weekend.
For the past three weekends, we've been demolishing and rebuilding about 70 feet of our privacy fence, including the two gates. One weekend, Chris got out, mostly on his own and pulled down the panels of fencing. Oddly enough, we found someone on Craigslist to take them away to reuse the fencing boards. Everything else was rotting pretty bad, but the boards were mostly just weathered. I was just glad we didn't have to haul it to the dump. What a pain that would be, too, to try to reuse the boards. I bet a lot of them would split and fall apart as you pull them off the fence.
Anyway, a few of the posts proved rather difficult to remove, but by the end of the first weekend, we got them all out. The second weekend was when Steff and Lilly came up to visit. They kept Jonah occupied while we got out and got the new posts set in the ground and secured with concrete. Unfortunately we weren't able to get some of them as deep as we wanted. In fact, now with the fencing up and the gates hung, there's one side that we're not so sure about and thinking of reinforcing it a bit more somehow. We hit solid rock about 26" down and couldn't dig the holes any deeper.
This past weekend, with the concrete well cured, we got out and finished it all while my mother-in-law stayed with Jonah. She had just come up on a whim late on Thursday and had planned on staying the night so we could go do something fun on Friday, like go to the zoo or something. Once she got up here, Chris decided to take Friday off and try to get the rest of the work done while she was here. She wound up staying through Saturday and we still had a bit of work that we accomplished yesterday while Jonah took a nap or we'd tag team on the one-man jobs.
Chris' parents had visited the first weekend we were working on it and brought us a miter saw and table saw that they never use. We bought a nice shiny new air compressor at Costco and ordered a framing nail gun which had arrived. Chris also had picked up a reciprocating saw while he was on a run for some of the lumber. We must have pulled out every single power tool in our arsenal for this project (I take that back, we didn't use the angle grinder). I'm always really surprised at what we can haul in the Forester as well. Chris stacked up 115 fence boards (1"x6"x6') in one trip. He even managed to get the 10' long 4x4s that we used for the gate posts in there, though they stuck out the front window at bit.
But, at last it is done. There's one more little minor detail we want to do to it, just to make it look more finished and we need to redo one of the gate latches so it works better, but it's basically done. I think all of our neighbors were a bit skeptical at first, but most everyone came over and complimented us on our work at some point. One of our neighbors is the president of the homeowner's association and came out and said, "you know, there's a fine for showing up your neighbor, especially if your neighbor is the president of the committee!" Then proceeded to compliment our work.
I wish I had taken before pictures, but here's an idea of what the fencing looked like at least. Insert a couple of broken down gates in there and you'll have it.
A row of the rest of the fence, yet to be replaced. I know, it doesn't look that bad from a distance. When we moved in, parts of the fence were being propped up with what appeared to be the rotted posts they had replaced.
You can see that second post is warped and bringing the fence along with it. We pulled out at least one other that was more warped than this one. One of the many reasons we've wanted to replace this fence since we moved here nearly two years ago.
You can see the rotting on the crossbeams here. Another of the many reasons we've wanted to replace it.
Here's what we've done with it. I'm especially proud of the arbors over the gates, though they were probably the easiest part of the whole project. I like the clean lines of it as well, better than the dogeared fencing (which is how it comes, we snapped a chalk line and cut the tops off and I kind of free-handed the curves on the gates).
Right side of the house:
Front of the whole section.
Front of the gate.
Back of the whole section.
Back of the gate.
Left side of the house:
Front of the whole section.
Front of the gate.
Back of whole section.
Back of the gate.
Granted, we didn't save much, if any money by doing this section ourselves, what with the purchasing of expensive tools. But, we've got a huge yard of more fence to replace (which we're going to split into two more projects), a deck we'd like to build, hardwood floors we'd like to put in and who knows what other projects we could find where we'll use these tools over and over. We look at it as an initial investment. Besides, by doing the fence in pieces like this, had we rented the tools, we could have paid for them by the time we were done. And since there are several other projects we plan to use them for, we justify the purchases. Would have been nice to have an auger, but that one we just couldn't justify. I will say though, I don't plan on ever buying a house that needs a fence replaced. If we had to build one from scratch, that wouldn't be so bad. But trying to line up existing holes for posts when they don't really line up, ugh! And the demo was a nightmare. Some of those old posts were like 3 feet in the ground. Some of them were so rotted that they broke off and Chris had to dig out the pieces that were stuck in the ground.
Now hopefully it will keep Sunflower in the yard for a bit. We really need to put down some nice huge stones she can't dig up underneath of the gates. I'd love to do a flagstone walkway from the driveway to the patio in back (soon to be a deck). But that's not something we can do at the moment. I've tried some round, 1' diameter concrete stepping stones there. But in her determination, she just winds up using them for leverage to pull herself through to the other side. Of course she had torn about a 6" gap in the bottom corner of the old gate. If she tears up this fence, I swear we're going to have a dog skin rug somewhere in the house.
Now it's back to sewing for me. We should probably not watch DIY or HGTV much for a while. I think we're both feeling really accomplished and ready to tackle another project. Chris says hardwood floors. I'm looking at the bathrooms and wishing they were updated.
Anyway, a few of the posts proved rather difficult to remove, but by the end of the first weekend, we got them all out. The second weekend was when Steff and Lilly came up to visit. They kept Jonah occupied while we got out and got the new posts set in the ground and secured with concrete. Unfortunately we weren't able to get some of them as deep as we wanted. In fact, now with the fencing up and the gates hung, there's one side that we're not so sure about and thinking of reinforcing it a bit more somehow. We hit solid rock about 26" down and couldn't dig the holes any deeper.
This past weekend, with the concrete well cured, we got out and finished it all while my mother-in-law stayed with Jonah. She had just come up on a whim late on Thursday and had planned on staying the night so we could go do something fun on Friday, like go to the zoo or something. Once she got up here, Chris decided to take Friday off and try to get the rest of the work done while she was here. She wound up staying through Saturday and we still had a bit of work that we accomplished yesterday while Jonah took a nap or we'd tag team on the one-man jobs.
Chris' parents had visited the first weekend we were working on it and brought us a miter saw and table saw that they never use. We bought a nice shiny new air compressor at Costco and ordered a framing nail gun which had arrived. Chris also had picked up a reciprocating saw while he was on a run for some of the lumber. We must have pulled out every single power tool in our arsenal for this project (I take that back, we didn't use the angle grinder). I'm always really surprised at what we can haul in the Forester as well. Chris stacked up 115 fence boards (1"x6"x6') in one trip. He even managed to get the 10' long 4x4s that we used for the gate posts in there, though they stuck out the front window at bit.
But, at last it is done. There's one more little minor detail we want to do to it, just to make it look more finished and we need to redo one of the gate latches so it works better, but it's basically done. I think all of our neighbors were a bit skeptical at first, but most everyone came over and complimented us on our work at some point. One of our neighbors is the president of the homeowner's association and came out and said, "you know, there's a fine for showing up your neighbor, especially if your neighbor is the president of the committee!" Then proceeded to compliment our work.
I wish I had taken before pictures, but here's an idea of what the fencing looked like at least. Insert a couple of broken down gates in there and you'll have it.
A row of the rest of the fence, yet to be replaced. I know, it doesn't look that bad from a distance. When we moved in, parts of the fence were being propped up with what appeared to be the rotted posts they had replaced.
You can see that second post is warped and bringing the fence along with it. We pulled out at least one other that was more warped than this one. One of the many reasons we've wanted to replace this fence since we moved here nearly two years ago.
You can see the rotting on the crossbeams here. Another of the many reasons we've wanted to replace it.
Here's what we've done with it. I'm especially proud of the arbors over the gates, though they were probably the easiest part of the whole project. I like the clean lines of it as well, better than the dogeared fencing (which is how it comes, we snapped a chalk line and cut the tops off and I kind of free-handed the curves on the gates).
Right side of the house:
Front of the whole section.
Front of the gate.
Back of the whole section.
Back of the gate.
Left side of the house:
Front of the whole section.
Front of the gate.
Back of whole section.
Back of the gate.
Granted, we didn't save much, if any money by doing this section ourselves, what with the purchasing of expensive tools. But, we've got a huge yard of more fence to replace (which we're going to split into two more projects), a deck we'd like to build, hardwood floors we'd like to put in and who knows what other projects we could find where we'll use these tools over and over. We look at it as an initial investment. Besides, by doing the fence in pieces like this, had we rented the tools, we could have paid for them by the time we were done. And since there are several other projects we plan to use them for, we justify the purchases. Would have been nice to have an auger, but that one we just couldn't justify. I will say though, I don't plan on ever buying a house that needs a fence replaced. If we had to build one from scratch, that wouldn't be so bad. But trying to line up existing holes for posts when they don't really line up, ugh! And the demo was a nightmare. Some of those old posts were like 3 feet in the ground. Some of them were so rotted that they broke off and Chris had to dig out the pieces that were stuck in the ground.
Now hopefully it will keep Sunflower in the yard for a bit. We really need to put down some nice huge stones she can't dig up underneath of the gates. I'd love to do a flagstone walkway from the driveway to the patio in back (soon to be a deck). But that's not something we can do at the moment. I've tried some round, 1' diameter concrete stepping stones there. But in her determination, she just winds up using them for leverage to pull herself through to the other side. Of course she had torn about a 6" gap in the bottom corner of the old gate. If she tears up this fence, I swear we're going to have a dog skin rug somewhere in the house.
Now it's back to sewing for me. We should probably not watch DIY or HGTV much for a while. I think we're both feeling really accomplished and ready to tackle another project. Chris says hardwood floors. I'm looking at the bathrooms and wishing they were updated.