FENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Monday, September 10, 2007 posted by Henri
Ahhh the fence. So there's this picket fence that I have been working on for, last time I checked, like 1 year. You cannot let me try to design anything. I get lost in the process and think and rethink and design and redesign and just continue to chew my design cud and ruminate endlessly in design bliss for hours and days and months until finally my wife steps out of the house and screams "FENCE!!!!!!"
Oh yeah the fence. I've been trying to build a beautiful redwood fence for the front of our crazy little home. I've learned a few things.
1) Redwood is damn expensive. Something about trees growing slowly or something like that. Each panel on my fence is in the triple digits in redwood alone. I have like 400,000,000 panels to build. It's time for a robbery.
2) Post hole diggers are tiny tickets to hell. Why rent an auger when you can for the same price buy an alien shovel. I am way too cheap to rent anything. Ergo, my kick ass post hole digger. With which I have dug many post holes. At the bottom of each hole I see a tiny view of Hades with little Devils winking at me before burrowing deep into my shoulders and back. Digging holes is the opposite of having a good time.
3) When each rail involves 10 passes on the router (5 for each side), you are perhaps a bit "too into it". Your design might be a bit ahead of the curve. For gods sake it's just a freaking picket fence and reading The Fountainhead 900 times in high school doesn't make you Frank Gehry.
4) When you friends offer to help, listen to them the first time. Take them up on the offer. Don't worry about their backs or well being. Just grab the hand that's extended to you....and drag them into fence hell.
5) No matter how many times you run out of the house to admire your 20% completed fence, it will with each time be no less absolutely wonderful. Caveat: Brushing your teeth in the morning while admiring your fence makes you look kinda like an idiot.
6) Do not believe in the theory of opportunity cost or other economic mumbo jumbo.
So I broke down and had the homies Afghanistan and Fayedunaway swing by on Sunday to help me with the fence. My wife had to get all psychological and use the term "Share in the fence building experience" instead of "Help you with the fence" in order to get me to concede and seek company on the fence building. We built enough panels for half the front yard. I'll post pictures when the whole thing is up.
Labels: DIY, Gear, Parenting Tips
posted by Henri at 9:12 PM
4 Comments:
I built a fence once. It was a nice way to learn that my backyard at the time was just a thin layer of grass and dirt spread over a large mass of solid rock. It was difficult not to roar with manly caveman delight once it was over and the fence was standing, so I just got drunk instead.
1:05 PM
Rather you than me I think.
I built a wall last year, but it fell down.
3:52 PM
Frank,
Take great pride in your manly fence-building endeavor. Man-router love is good (as opposed to the bad man-minivan love). As long as you're not routing two enormous lions into that redwood fence of yours, your neighbors will appreciate your fastideous/fanatical devotion to square corners and perfectly beveled edges.
9:15 PM
Ooh, I was going to build a fence for my old house, but sold the house instead. Good luck on the fence building! You could always hire someone you know.
9:39 AM
Post a Comment
<< Home