Tag Archives: fence

And now for Mom’s fence…

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Steve and I both thought that water sealing my mom’s fence would be fast. She has a small yard. How long could it take!? 

Well, there’s a mile of fence around my mom’s small yard. Not really, but it seemed that way. We started at 8:30 AM, and finished at 2:45, with a tiny break for lunch. 

You can see that it really needed this and it does look much better now. And the fence will last longer, too. 

  
On the up-side: it didn’t rain. On the down-side: it was clear and sunny and hot. We are both beat, but happy to mark this chore off the list. Yay!

Busy Sunday…

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About our busy Sunday… Last night Steve and I were sitting by the pool, looking at the fence and we decided that we should water seal it. I remembered doing this job with a sprayer and that it wasn’t so bad so we decided that we would get up and do it today. And we thought we could do Mom’s fence too. Silly us. 

I didn’t take a before photo but the wood was gray, like our neighbor’s fence:


At 7:45 AM Steve went to Lowe’s for a big can of Thompsons water seal (TWS). He had checked our pump sprayer and it worked, but sadly as it turned out, not with the TWS. Ours sprayed a jet, not a mist. Back to Lowe’s once, and then again.


We tried both of these to no avail. Deep sighs all round. We couldn’t use a roller on the outside of our fence because it’s not flat. Instead I used a wide brush.

As I worked, memories started coming back to me. The last time we did this the same thing happened! How could I have forgotten? Note to self: forget the sprayer.


It got hot. I put on sunscreen and a hat and powered on. Even behind the bushes.


Steve worked on the inside of the fence with a roller and brush. I joined him and we were making good progress. Clouds rolled in, it got cooler! Yay!

And then it started to look like rain. At any other time we would have cheered. More sighs. We ran out of TWS and Steve went Back to Lowe’s.

It started to sprinkle, then rain but we were so close to finishing and the rain wasn’t hitting the fence so we finished what we could and tidied up.

Steve cleaned out the sprayers and brushes.  (I love that man.)


The sun came out and after a couple of hours it was dry enough for Steve to finish the very top of the fence.

We used clear TWS but it still changes the color of the wood. It’s brown again!


If we’re lucky, we won’t have to do this again for 2-3 years. It’s worth the effort because it lengthens the life of the fence, but it is not a fun job.

Moms fence awaits. It is flat on one side and can be rolled so it’s faster but we’re going to wait until it’s cooler.

PS: We celebrated with ice cream at Braum’s!