Fence Done!

We put the finishing touches on the fence yesterday, painted it, and I was on the road home by 1:00 PM. When we went down to the building supplies to buy material on Saturday we talked to the manager who Brooks buys much of his material from, up to $100K per year. Sometimes he gets good deals and this was one of those days. In the "bargain bin" we found a five gallon pail of the best quality Olympic Stain available. It had been mixed to the wrong colour and refused by the original customer. It was Milk Chocolate in colour. The original price tag on it was $199.99 and it was marked down to $99. For that kind of saving, I can like milk chocolate. We took it up to the till and when Brooks introduced me to his manager friend and said we were building a fence for me, I asked for the "Starving Old Pensioners' Price". He then marked the stain down another 25% to $75!

This recycled fence was not actually in panels but was a big pile of loose four foot long cedar boards in Brooks' yard. The tops were rotten down a couple of inches and the bottoms up about six inches. Using Brooks commercial radial arm saw I sliced off the tops and bottoms and was left with very solid boards three feet long. He has a large framing table that automatically squares the fence panels and we quickly built new 2X4 frames for the new panels. These have an extra 2X4 across the middle which allowed us to stack two of the recycled boards to make six foot high panels. Narrow cedar boards cover the joints. They look really nice.

We then stood all the panels up in Brooks' parking area and he went to work with his spray gun. This had to be done because the old boards had been stained green many years ago and had varying amounts of colour still on them. Brooks supplies painted panels if a customer insists (and is willing to pay) but hates doing them. The sprayer is hard to clean and maintenance costs on it are high. As well, he usually hits the shop or his truck with over spray. It is not a nice job to do but they have a huge order of stained fence coming up this week anyway. He is the only fencing company on the lower Island that will paint or stain fences at all.

Our panels now look like giant 6' by 8' foot Hershey Bars but will blend in nicely once they are up. It will not take long to get used to them. Brooks will bring them up in a couple of weeks to install them. The guy who will be house sitting for us this winter is coming over to help as the panels weigh about 300 pounds each! I will have to buy posts and cement at that time. The entire project should cost me no more than $500 for all seven eight foot panels, including beer for the crew. It is good to have family in the business.