Un-mending Fences

Remember this excited post about our future fence? And this great glamour shot of the slatted wood walls that would soon be surrounding our yard?

Well, here are the slatted wood walls now:

What happened? Well, for starters, three fence companies came out to give us a quote for building a fence with these gifted slat walls (“we’ll save a TON of money!” we said) but those three fence companies told us that they would not use our wood. The problem we discovered, is that we have soft pine, which would not stand up to rain, wind and sun and would end up needing to be replaced in a few years time. To pressure treat the wood would cost as much as using new materials.

Looks like our best efforts to be frugal and environmentally sound were all for not. I was bummed, not only because that meant shelling out more cash, but also because my poor husband had spent an entire day renting a U-haul and lugging these things to our house, and they were HEAVY. Once in place in the backyard, leaned up against our house, there they sat for months while we tried to decide what to do. Use them for firewood, build a tree house, and make a headboard were all ideas that I floated around, but still they sat, untouched. And then the rain started. After almost a week of downpours the wood looked terrible.

Then on Christmas Eve, the Mr. took action, busted out his work gloves and began dissecting them until we had a wood graveyard behind our house. Habitat for Humanity will be here Monday to take it to the local Restore.

So it looks like the decision was sort of made for us, and we'll be shopping around this weekend for the right hedges to line our front yard. We'll all be happier when we have a little more privacy, security and a safely confined space for everyone to play.