My husband has got to learn not to jinx us by saying things like “it should only take a couple of hours”. Seriously. Doesn’t he know by now (it’s only been like 20 some years!) that things NEVER go that simply for us?
We made it to the Cottage at a decent hour this morning even though we had to make an extra stop because Home Depot didn’t have a fence stretcher tool. Thankfully Lowe’s did. I have to say that the process of putting up a chain link fence is NOT as simple as my husband seemed to think it would be. Just the process of unrolling the stuff is a pain! We didn’t have the little bar strippy thing that you are supposed to put in the fence to hook the stretcher to, so our first attempt at pulling the fence tight had to be aborted so that we didn’t completely mangle the fencing. Thankfully we had a piece of metal conduit laying around that we were able to use and it did the trick.
Once we finally had the first section of fence in place and taught, we realized that our top and bottom rails were too far apart to nail the fencing to both. We had assumed when we put them in that a six foot fence meant a six foot fence – but we assumed wrong. Apparently in the world of fencing, six foot means 5 feet and 10 and one half inches . . . who knew? So next weekend my husband gets to move all of the bottom boards up – one and a half inches . . . . yay. We would have done it today but of course we had no idea we would need the necessary tool, and it was sitting in our truck – in the driveway – at home. Oh well. Onward and upward.
Once we figured out our strategy we were able to get the far side fence done without too much more trouble. Well – other than all the cursing my husband did every time he would hit one of those stupid staples with the hammer and it would fall out of the board and on to the ground . . . . it was a LOT of cursing. I hope the people in church couldn’t hear him . . . .
We were finally ready to start on the front side when we realized we would be short by about 18 feet of fencing. Again . . . . yay. We went ahead and put up what we had and then moved on to the gates. It was here that we realized that one of the gate fastener thingys that we had grabbed was the wrong kind – so out of the three gates, we were able to put up two. They at least went up without too much of a fight. That was something I suppose.
Then it was on to the last chore of the day – cutting the tops off of the posts so that they were all even steven. Now, I love my husband, but he doesn’t cut a very straight line with a reciprocating saw. Definitely not his forte. But he got the job done. A little touch up paint and clean-up and we were finally ready to pack it in and head for home. Around 6 hours after we’d started. And we’re not quite done. But it’s progress!!
Website looks very good; so far! Keep it up!!!!!!!