DIY

HOW WE UPDATED OUR FENCE

Last spring we refinished the fence in our backyard.  I was really happy with the results, but for whatever reason we didn’t get to the section over in our side yard.  I decided we had put this project off long enough!

I actually had a urge to power spray something so it worked out perfectly!  Using long up and down strokes on each board the old worn stain and water damage just comes right off!  You can see where I didn’t spray around the metal flower because it wouldn’t come off the fence.  I don’t know what my husband did to it, but it took viking strength to finally get it down.  The difference in the wood is amazing….and this is wet wood.  It gets brighter once it’s dry.

As you spray the boards down all the water and wet wood mush splatters all over you.  Fun.  I am seriously regretting that I washed, blow dried, and curled my hair yesterday.  Bad decision.  My hair is even worse than my arms.

The fence is nearly dry here, you can see how light it gets.  I went to town with the power sprayer and also sprayed off all the brick fence. Look how bright the stone end cap got.  Power sprayers are cool.

Then I did the other side of the fence.  I’m filthy so I might as well go for it.  This is our side yard and future square foot garden area.

Wow, look below at the difference!  It’s so clean.  The flags are marking off where we want our square foot garden boxes.  I’m married to a Civil Engineer.  Dude always has orange flags on him.

This is after I power sprayed everything and it has fully dried.  It nearly looks like new wood!

So now I’m ready to stain.  I’m generally pleased with the work we did refinishing the main backyard fence, but I was never really happy with the color and I had problems with it.  I’ve now discovered Ready Seal stain in Pecan and I love it.  I learned about it from our contractor.  He used it on our covered patio, and now on I’m using it on everything.

I decided to brush it on.  From past experience rolling doesn’t work very well because some boards are wonky and uneven.

Some cedar wood trim was added to give our fence more of a custom look.  I wasn’t wild about those little scallops on top.  We might add this to the bottom to hide any wood rot.

Staining the front side went much faster.  I’m on Day 2 and starting to hallucinate I’m so tired.

Ugh…. all the little nooks and crannies are taking forever.  Finally after what feels like an eternity I finally finish.

Before pic again:

All finished.

You still can see a little of the uneven shading but still a vast improvement no less.

Power sprayer+new stain +trim cap=Fabulous!

Another before pic:

And after:

All done!  I’m happy and my hair is clean again.  Next week I’m adding some potted boxwoods.


 

Laura

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