Geek Habitat

I finally got around to staining the new run (66 feet, plus two gates) of our backyard fence. Five gallons of stain, several hours (3 PM - 7:15 PM), and sore muscles later and the end result looks nice and, more importantly, should delay our next carpenter ant fence feast for at least several years. (The last fence was literally eaten from the inside out by carpenter ants!)

Due to the difference in time of day, and thus lighting, between when I began the project and when I finally wrapped up, the photos don’t do it justice:

Before (Unstained) Photo:

After (Stained & Waterproofed) Photo:

The fence was a bright unfinished wood (pine?) and now it’s a medium cedar tone and waterproofed (on our side, anyway; no telling when our neighbors will protect their side!) with Olympic 5 Gallon Solid Color Deck, Fence & Siding Stain. Actually, I splurged and got the “Premium” which is about $108 for 5 gallons; probably no better than the non-premium, but what the hell!

I need to pick up another 5 gallon drum of the stain to do the back run of our fence; it’s a longer run, but the fence boards have been stained before so they shouldn’t suck up the stain quite as readily as the new run of fence did today.

My neighbors who are enjoying the new fence run we share? Avoiding us. No intention of splitting the cost of materials ($650-700), nevermind they finally have a fence again as well, and had been asking about the fence every damn time I saw them. Considering we paid $1,200 for the new fence (materials, 2.5 days of labor, plus tear down and haul off, a new gate and a replacement for a battered/broken gate), you’d think our neighbors would feel an urge to chip in something. Nope. That would actually make sense. Seems their fun was in asking about when I planned on working on the fence constantly… now that it’s done, we apparently have nothing to chat about again.