Picket fence (part 1)
Way back in July we started working on beefing up the existing fence in front of the house. I wanted an enclosed yard so the kids could play out there. The boundary fence on the north side of the house was also not in the right spot, so we moved it and reclaimed about 500 square feet of our yard.
This has really been my dad’s project, but I’ve helped as much as I can.
In order to get the kind of pickets I wanted, we had to make them. We ordered 1×6 and 1×8 8-foot premium cedar fence boards. We ended up hand picking through them, because a lot of them came in warped, cracked, etc. Also any boards with large knots down the center were put aside. First we cut the boards to get two 3.5-foot-long boards. (The extra cedar we put aside as scrap wood.) We ripped all the 8-inch wide boards in half, and 1/3 of the 6-inch wide boards in half. We ended up with an equal number of 6-inch-wide and 3-inch-wide pickets, and twice as many 4-inch-wide pickets. I wanted to alternate pickets – narrow – medium – wide – medium – narrow – medium – wide – medium – …
To get nice rounded tops on three different sized pickets, I hunted down three suitable templates. For the wide pickets, an empty paint can worked. For the mediums, a large can of tuna, and for the smallest pickets, a can of peaches was right. I traced the template onto the best end of each picket, and Dad cut most of them out.
Then we painted. And painted. And painted–that tedious and never-ending job. Cedar that is going to be painted has to be sealed. It’s something about the sap staining through the paint, or whatnot. Anyway, I didn’t want to worry about it, so we primed all the pickets with oil-based exterior primer. That stuff stinks and takes forever to dry. I finally got the last of it out of my hair this morning, and I haven’t used it in about a month. Also, it transfers to couches quite easily. We used up an entire 5-gallon bucket and had to buy more. These boards just soaked it up.
But once everything was primed, the top coat went on pretty quick. Gavin got to help with this part. He really got into it, although Grandpa made him the scapegoat for most of the grass that ended up painted to the boards. I know he looks very paint-free in that picture, but I assure you it is entirely a trick of the lens. He managed to paint his overalls to his boot at one point. Luckily, he’s about to outgrow those clothes anyway.
Part 2 tomorrow when I get around to it…
