Back in November, a week after we finished painting the house and staining the fence our dog, Penny, decided she wanted to play with Sam, our neighbor's dog. Penny is a pit/pointer mix who digs. Sam is a St. Bernard, so a large dog, who can head butt. Between the two of them the fence almost came down right then and there!
Fortunately, we have great neighbors and the "mending of fences"was the most civilized, organized and helpful process I've ever experienced with anyone Right away we started strategizing about what to do, what kind of designs, when to do it and how to move forward. Breakfast! Any project can move forward with food so we planned a breakfast to plan the fence rebuild!
Over waffles, eggs with chorizo, pan dulce, bacon, apple pancakes, juice and coffee we came up with a design, a budget, a start date, job tasks, etc. We both loved the look of the concrete wall above but quickly realized it was outside both of our budgets and time limit. It takes permits to build a concrete wall between properties, which equals money and more time. Our neighbors just had a backyard redo and we just repainted our house. Neither one wanted extended home builds or had more money to spare.
We also had to think about the dogs. Seeing one another is Penny and Sam's motivation to knock down the fence. We had to build something that wouldn't give them even a crack of hope! It doesn't seem that hard except that any wood you buy shrinks with time. Plus the dogs have ALL day long to find the one little crack that we missed. Then it's game over for the fence!
Day after Thanksgiving was set as the demo day. And so the process began on a rainy morning. Both of our families have two girls. Theirs are older. Us moms and their youngest started taking down the fence while their oldest watched our two littles. We did really well and the rain helped loosen up the posts. Dave came home and continued with them to demo. And then for the next two days the two dads rebuilt the one common section between both properties. The hardest part was keeping the dogs and kids inside away from the construction. Well, the hardest part for me anyway. Dave would tell you otherwise.
The fence was built but we needed to finish putting up planks on our side and staining all the new wood. Since November our backyard view has been of this:
Half the wood dark and half of it blonde. I think what bugged me the most was that our neatly stained fence didn't last even a week before it was mangled and now it's been like this!
On Tuesday I finally had had it. I started staining the fence. How hard could it be? Well, I got to paint for about an hour before I had to go in and hang out with G who needed lunch and some attention. I got this far:
Big difference huh?! Ugh!!! I think I got through six planks. In my defense, I was using a paint brush and it was going slow.
Today I tried again with roller brushes and a little free labor. P joined me and within 20 minutes we got this far! The rollers made a huge difference!
Look at my girl go! As with most of these projects they seem like fun at first and then they're not. It wasn't long before she was complaining but she did get quite a bit done before she went back inside.
The part of the fence that's up is stained. We still have the corner to go but we also need to build a cover for the pool pump. Dave and I are still strategizing on how to do this. And after staining the wood I realized I'd rather stain the next set of planks before they go in. Staining them behind the pool pump would require a contortionist.
At least the view is now like this:
It needs a second coat. It rained the day after we finished staining. The timing couldn't have been better! We're getting there, one plank at a time!
Labels: neighbors, painting, pets, wood work
