Setting the Fence Straight

Well, I woke up at 5:50 A.M.  Not AT ALL what I planned on, but my mind was full of stuff, so sleep was elusive.  I let Dad know around 7:00 A.M. that I was ready for him!  He took off work today just so he could help!  Outsiders call this phenomenon "a glutton for punishment."

Well, since we were heading to the house, we figured we might as well fill up a truck with my first load of moving items.  Why drive an empty truck if you know you will have to move these items anyway, right?  So we figured we would grab my garage shelves and start with those first.

Well, wouldn't you know it, as soon as we arrived at the new house, we both looked at each other and asked, "So do you have the keys"?  Nope.  Nope.  So THAT was how our day was going to go, huh?!  We figured we might as well take advantage of our mistake and used it as a way to just load up on another truckload of moving items.

Filling up the garage FAST!!!

We brought over a LOT of stuff from my garage!  Where to put it all?!

Once we finally got back to the house WITH the key, we had a decision.  What to work on today?!  The good news with a long list is that you have a myriad of options to choose from!  We decided we would tackle the broken fence in the back.  When I bought the house, the long fence had been leaning forward.  It actually leaned so much that either the previous owner or more likely the foreclosure company had set up a lean-to post and tried to prop it up.  They even set out a bag of sand to hold up the post, and that had been so long that the bag was long gone, and only a mess of sand was left.

The fence falling forward.  Two fence posts were busted right at the ground from the rocks in the back.

Unfortunately for us, the fence posts had split right at the ground.  A commercial car dealership behind the property had installed MASSIVE amounts of white rock for a drainage ditch, and these heavy rocks appeared to put pressure on the fence.  Well, the 20-year-old fence couldn't hold, and so it fell forward.  I bought the property "as-is" so fault or not, it was mine to deal with.  We had set a goal of digging up two fence posts a day, so why not use that goal along with ANOTHER goal and kill two birds with one stone?!

So we set to digging.  And, agh, this fence company!!!  They set these posts deep!  And sturdy!  and strong!  Which is why the posts broke with the pressure!  Because underneath the ground, the post sure wasn't budging!  Each post was buried 2 1/2 feet deep in concrete.  We had a new tool with us today, though, and we set out to digging, then breaking the concrete with a breaker bar, then digging some far.  We certainly had better results.

The footings were DEEP!!!  It didn't help that the large rock rested right against the fence, either.  Hard to dig!

The work was tedious, though.  The fence is old.  So every time we took out nails, I chose to replace them with screws.  And we had to reset two brand-new fence posts hoping to line up with the old fence.  Measurements were basically silly at this point.  It only came down to, "Does it match up with the old one"?

We had to take three panels down.  Here is after one new post and panel is back up.

The old broken post on the rocks, the new post set.

Two broken posts on the ground, one new post set.

Basically why we had to do the project.  The rocks just pushed the fence forward, breaking two of the posts.

Two more sections to go.

So little by little, we started to see a fence take place.  But it was definitely slow-goin'.

We needed some tools from my house, so we headed back that way for lunch.  We picked up some concrete for the fence posts, and the afternoon was more of the same.  Remove the old fence, dig up the old posts, replace with new posts, and remount the old and weathered fence.

Finally, towards late afternoon, we had the project complete outside of the concrete curing.  It looks so much better.  The fence really needs to be replaced, but it's functional, should be durable, and it gets the job done.  For the cost of two new posts and sweat, the fence is back is business.

The massive fence is straight again!  Looks sharp!

After the fence, we started on two more projects.  Mom showed up after work (thanks, Ma!), and she and I both agreed that the garage paint job needed just a little bit of love.  When we showed up this morning, the sun just hit some un-sanded spots, and frankly, they showed quite a bit.  So she took the task of sanding and painting a fresh coat of paint on the rough spots.  I was a bit disappointed that I had to do some extra work when it was hired done, but then I remembered:  I paid a guy $100 to do this garage!  I can sure afford to spend a little bit of time and effort to make it sharp!  I'm still coming out way, WAY ahead.  So we just did it.  No loss.

The wall as I acquired the house.  Yuck!

The new white wall!  Gorgeous!

Dad and I took to the chore of starting to remove brush from the fence line.  I felt a bit bad about telling Mom, "Hey, thanks for coming out, you work here, and we'll be way over here!" but she obliged.  This fence line is...well, let's just say the fence line needs some work.  Basically, picture a decade's worth of overgrowth the width of my yard.  It's hard to know where to even begin on a task like this, but it basically comes down to, "One stick at a time."  So Dad and I started cutting down brush and loading it into my truck.  It's tedious...but necessary...work.

Mom finished with her painting in the garage, and we decided to tackle a MASSIVE paint project:  the deck!  So Mom and I started painting spindles on my deck while Dad loaded lumber into the back of my truck.

Before Dad started working on removing the brush.

And After!  Tree by tree, we are getting there!  Nice job, Pa!

WIDE LOAD!  The second load of brush from the fence line.

We sent Dad home with the brush for the burn pile, and Mom and I stayed behind to stain.  Oh, let me tell you, painting spindles is a royal pain!!!  Talk about tedious!  But having one person on the outside with one person on the inside made it go so, SO much better.  Each could be on the look-out for the other person's drops, and trust me, we had plenty of drops!

We stained until we could stain no more.  The sun had set, so we were forced to quit...which was fine by me.  It was a long day!  We headed home around 8:30 P.M.

Staining the spindles...such slow work!

Our progress for the evening.  One side of the deck has the railing all done.  Such slow work!

A very good day at the house.  The fence is finished, the deck is started, and the forest is going away.  One project at a time!!!

All Hands on Deck!!!

I hereby declare that these days shall now be called Weekbegins.  I have no idea who decided that these days should be called weekends, for that just does not apply to a man who works during the week and then works some more when he gets home!

Saturday was a productive move forward, though!!!

But it was not without its share of frustrations...and blood.

Dad and I decided to tackle those pesky fence posts that are still in the ground from the short fence.  And I DO mean pesky.  They are set into concrete 2 1/2 feet below the ground, and that simply means that they do not budge ever the slightest until you get all the way down to the concrete.

Well, today we decided to see if we could remove them.  What a terrible, terrible idea.  Over the last 20 years of being set in place, I think they kind of liked where they were set, for they refused to move.  We dug, we pried, we implemented a plan that worked for us last time we faced this obstacle (yes, you may remember that we had a similar issue on the Yellow Foreclosure!).  But unlike our success on those, these just didn't move.

I went out and purchased a 16-foot "leverage board" to try a simply physics trick, and the board buckled and broke under pressure.  Twice.  Then three times.  I was left with splintered wood in my hand.  And we thought WE could lift it out?!  ha!

The depth of the posts!  This was WORK digging these out!

What failure and success looks like!  Notice the broken board used to try to "pry" the posts out!  They wouldn't budge!  But notice that two posts ARE gone!  Only from back-breaking old-fashioned hard work.

We talked about cutting the posts below the surface of the ground and just letting them lie in their grave for an unknown amount of years, but I just hate the idea of items left below surface.  With future gardens, tilling, a homeowner planting bulbs, and on and on, you just never know when these posts will rear their ugly heads again.  I wanted to do the job right.

Until I started trying to do the job right.

After much digging, MUCH back-breaking lifting, and untold amounts of sweat, we managed to walk away weary and limping with two (just TWO!), posts out of the ground.  But we were done.  We could quite simply do no more.  We dreamed about bringing a tractor or backhoe or homemade hydraulic device inside and fence and having them out in minutes ("delusions of grandeur" is what my psychiatrist calls these thoughts).  We talked about the $300/day rental fee for renting a small backhoe, and all of a sudden, it sounded great to both of us.  But deep down, we both knew that these posts were coming out of the ground simply off of our muscles.  And so we quit.  For another day.  Two down, four to go.  ugh.

Two gone, four to go...ugh.

Mom was working her own project inside, and I must say she is quite the help!  I have an office room that has 1991 wallpaper as an accent piece.  Umm, no thanks.  With any house I buy, the wallpaper is the first to go, this one being no exception.  With a steamer in hand, she made quick work of the process!  The high-quality paper left behind its high-quality glue on the wall, but she would have none of that!  So she started scraping all of that off, too.  I am going to have to keep her around!

Mom destroyed the wallpaper room!  Nicely done, Ma!

Perhaps the most-frightening aspect of this house, though, is the continual smell.  Ever since I walked in those doors for the first time, I have smelled what smells to me like a veterinary clinic.  Some people smell it, others do not.  One of the termite guys smelled it like me.  My sister smells something but not pets.  My mom smells something but not pets.  Well, until today.  She smelled poop when she walked by the dishwasher.  Dad doesn't smell anything.  But it's over-powering to me.  Well, the dishwasher DOES smell, so we decided to see if maybe that might be the culprit for the whole house.  Mom couldn't even be inside when the dishwasher was opened.  Dad described the smell as spoiled milk.  I nearly threw up with my face close to the unit.  So we turned the water back on to the dishwasher and ran three cycles WITH detergent!  I know this may sound crazy, but when I walked back inside this evening, for the first time ever, I didn't smell pets.  Could it REALLY have been just the dishwasher?!  This is exciting!!!

The smell was so repulsive when you opened this up...

After noon, we started to tackle one of the larger projects on the list:  the deck!  I have a lovely-sized deck on the back of the house, but for whatever reason, the previous owners decided NOT to stain it!  The deck boards are actually fairly new (many still have the tags on the wood), but the wood had started to weather.  I would estimate they were probably one year past being able to just simply stain and go.  So in order to do the job right, I had to get that original wood back...which meant power-washing the deck!

The deck was NEVER stained!!!  C'mon, previous owners, you're killin' me!

Oh, my, did we have our work cut out for us.

I started power-washing after lunch with my little power-washer I picked up for $25 at a garage sale (ummm, best purchase ever?!).  The results were quite simply astounding.  The weathered wood just went away, exposing a gorgeous color!  Unfortunately, you had to power-wash every square inch of wood, and that just took a long, LONG time.

All in all, Mom and I would alternate shifts, and that power-washer ran a solid six hours that day.  But the deck looked new!

Mom in the middle of the tedious power-washing.

Can YOU see a difference?

Before...

And After!

Before...

And After!

Dad started tackling another massive project while we basked in the sun and water.  He started clearing out a very dense pile of wood along the western side of my privacy fence.  This area had become a catch-all for whatever the owners threw over the fence.  It appears that it started out as a place to store firewood, but over the years, the stacks of wood became piles of wood became piles of trash became home for termites became a dense forest.  As we picked up the massive logs (two men per log), some crumpled away from termites while others exposed even more logs.  We had our work cut out for us the next several days.

Where to even begin?  It's simple...one log at a time.

Little by little...two loads of brush and wood removed.

The ol' truck is weighed down!  LOTS of stumps in the back.

Two loads of old termite-infested wood to be burned.

I also tackled a very important project.  It seems kind of silly to call it important, but it really is!  When I bought the home, my beautiful front glass entry door was missing a cylinder.  So when you opened the door (or when ANYONE opened the door), the door just kept on going out of your hands.  We are all expecting the door to come back, but time and time again, I watched as the door was opened and just kept going back until it hit the house.  If I didn't address the problem now, I wasn't going to have glass much longer!  And a $10 easy fix is certainly much more welcomed than a $200 difficult fix when the door breaks.  So I installed a cylinder on the door to prevent the door from running out of ALL of our hands.

Now I wish I could tell you that that project took 10 minutes and went perfectly.  I wish I could tell you that the screws came out easily from the wood.  I wish I could tell you that the rusty heads didn't break off.  I wish I could tell you that my screwdriver didn't slide off the screw and bury itself deeply into my left index finger.  I wish I could tell you that blood didn't start pouring out from my finger.  I wish I could tell you that I didn't have to walk outside and ask to see if Mom had a Band-Aid.  I wish I could tell you that I didn't have to call and ask Dad to return from dumping the first load of wood with a Band-Aid.  But, alas, I cannot.  I REALLY did some damage to my finger.  The screwdriver went deep...to the point of me questioning if I needed to buck up and go get stitches.  But I had work to do.  And so I covered up the flap of skin with a wet paper towel and waited for my Doctor Dad to arrive with professional cover-up pieces of Band-Aid.  Probably the part that frightened me the most was the lack of pain.  Just a flap of skin exposing a hidden and I think second hidden layer of skin.  yuck.

But as with any man, I went back with a bloodied hand and finished the door.  You know, so the glass doesn't break and all...

Notice the lack of cylinder...the door just swung freely.  WAY too freely.

The door now closes on its own AND doesn't swing wide open!

Too nice of a door to let break.

But we had progress!  My hired painter came by today to start work on the garage, and he finished up his first coat.  It looks great (the yellow wall is gone!), but it's definitely going to need another coat.  So the garage is looking sharp, two posts are out of the ground, the deck is fresh and new, the wallpaper is gone, the front door is protected, and the stumps are beginning their march to a fiery death.  We ended up loading up two truckloads of brush and stumps tonight.



Before...



The new garage walls!  Lookin' great!

Before...what a mess!

Beautiful and clean!

I knew this house was going to be little by little, but today we moved forward!  A couple more checkmarks to put next to projects!

And So The Flip Begins...

I officially signed for the house on August 4.  But with my work schedule, I had to wait to officially begin working on the house until today!  In order to get some sort of game plan for completing the "flip," I made up a spreadsheet covering all of the items that need to be fixed (at least that I could see now).  I actually made up the list before purchase, and after looking over the four-page list, I said, "Hey, I can do this."

I divided it up into Interior and Exterior, and I decided that I wanted to get most of the Exterior items done before winter...just a couple of months away!  So to the outside we go!  Frankly, I had several items to choose from, but one of the first that just needed to be done was the fence.  When I purchased the home, the privacy fence was in sorry shape.  In the front of the house, the fence had actually been removed and set aside and leaned up against another portion of the fence!  In the back, the fence was falling apart and leaning towards the ground, propped up by a supporting board.  To the east, the fence had been overgrown with trees, and to the west, a forest had overtaken the fence.

The fence as seen from the street.  A panel is missing (and is laying there on the right against the fence), and a post is broken.

 

The fence to the south...about ready to collapse.  Two fence posts are broken.

Needless to say, the fence needed some tender love.

Dad and I started out by working on the east portion.  For whatever reason, the previous owner had built a small fence between him and his neighbor (not six-foot tall).  I chastised the man in my mind initially, asking, "Now why in the world would he build a small fence if there was already a tall fence up"?!  Well, the more I think about it, the more it probably happened the OTHER way.  The previous owner of this house probably built up a small fence to still enjoy his neighbor next to him.  And then THAT neighbor wanted a privacy fence and decided to build a tall one.  So now all of a sudden, we have two fences right next to each other of different heights.  And with no way of mowing in between the fences because they are so close, the weeds and trees started coming up.  It was a mess!



The fence to the east.  Notice the large overgrowth BETWEEN the low and high fence!  You can't get to it!

Ah, the unknowns of a foreclosure!!!

Because we could take advantage of the neighbor's taller fence, I decided to just rip out this section of the fence completely (this would prove to be a very time-consuming decision!).  It just made sense.  In order to keep the weeds down, one simply could not have two fences that close to each other.

So we ripped off the old fence and started at the weeds and trees.  The trees were so untouched behind there that we had to use a chainsaw!  But the good news with "demolition" is that you see instant progress.  Every time a section of fence was removed or a tree was taken out, you could see the plan coming together.

The mess behind the short fence.

Years of untouched overgrowth (of course it was untouched...it was unreachable!).

The trees removed from between the fences.

What we didn't foresee was the quality of build of the fence.  After removing the fence panels, we learned that we had posts buried DEEP in concrete.  I am guessing the fence is at least 20 years old, and one of the reasons why is certainly the posts!  We could not get them to budge.

After cleaning up the east side of the fence, we moved to the north which is the portion you can see from the street.  I had a goal of enclosing the yard back in (that's the purpose of a fence after all), and this was our final piece!

Dad and I had to dig out two old fence posts that had broke under the ground.  And that was work.  The concrete footings were 2 1/2 feet below the ground, so we had to dig down to them, then work at prying them out.  I mean, that was WORK!!!  We were soaked in sweat.

Tackling the front of the fence to the north.

These old posts were set DEEP!!!

Putting the old sections back up after replacing the support post.

But the hard work paid off.  We were able to get the old rotten posts out, the new ones in, set in concrete and a fence and gate back up!  What a productive day!  Dad asked if I was ok with how the old fence looked, and I actually said I like the look of the old fence here because it matches the rest of the fence.  Having installed a brand-new fence here would simply make the rest of the yard look like IT didn't match!

One of the two new posts set in concrete.

The original fence is back up!

One fence side down, one fence side up.  And a checkmark next to one of the project boxes.  One step at a time...

On a happy and slightly exciting note, I moved in my FIRST piece of furniture to the new house today!  Mom had let me know about a table and chairs for sale for $50 (my type of price!), and tonight we moved it inside to get out of the way of some garage wall painting about to start.  If I do say so myself, I think it looks mighty nice in there!

The first piece of furniture!

NOW the house is getting the idea that it might be getting whipped in shape to become a home...