Anatomy of a Fence

Someday it might stop raining and I'll have something new to blog about.. but until then I will keep blogging about old things that I haven't blogged about yet. Like my new fence. Our fences, as you might remember from here, and here, were 30 plus years old, rotting and falling down. In 2006, we removed the part of the back fence that ran between our yard and your neighbors yard before a winter storm took it out. We have been working on replacing it since. Last summer, we had the pine trees in the back yard taken down. Over the winter I talked to the prior owner of our house, who sells "organic lumber" now (he's a character in a half) about coming out to measure how much lumber we'd need to build a new fence and giving us an estimate. He not only came out to measure, but said in exchange for some computer work from The Boy, he'd help us build the new fence. I could do a whole blog post about him and how wonderful he's been to us since we moved here.. but that's another day.


In May, D came over and we chatted about how the fence was going to look, and what I wanted to happen, and then The Boy actually took some vacation time, and they started the fence. Once they started.. it went pretty quick. I am actually impressed as all hell at how fast both fences went up. On May 16th they spent the day taking down the old rotting fences. I used to joke about how one good kick and you could take the whole thing down.. I wasn't too far off with that. Over the next week, they installed posts and started doing rails. That next Sunday (the 24th, D came over with his back-hoe and we moved a shrub that was in the way of extending the fence (it became 2 shrubs), the playhouse from the side of the yard into the back corner, took our a rotting stump, moved some granite posts and dug the hole for the previous blogged tower. The next week they finished getting the posts up, put in all the rails and installed the posts and rails for the front fence.

Saturday May 30th began the installation of the planks. I was going to be in Maine at Old Orchard Beach that day celebrating my birthday with a good friend, but I was sick as a dog and stayed home. The boys asked me to help keep an eye on the boards and make sure they were going up straight, and I spent the afternoon sitting in a chair in the back yard supervising, because that was about all I had the energy for. They installed 78 feet of boards that day... from the start of the fence, down to the back corner. The next day, I figured out the "step" decrease from the corner of the fence, down to the barn. It was a little tricky, but I'm pleased as all heck with how it turned out. Over the next week, I took a personal day off, and we finished the fence.

It was a lot of hard work, and a big learning experience, and all in all.. I am very pleased with how it turned out. There are a few things regarding the front picket fence that I would do a little different.. but I can say now that some time has gone by... I can live with it and it really is nice. Next summer I will paint that front fence white.. and we've installed a nice post lantern out by the corner that lights up the whole driveway where there was no light before.