Sunday, June 21, 2009

Shrunk Fence + Painted Garage

Our fence, two weeks ago:



Our new, Washington Terrace compliant fence:


We're not cutting the rest. It's far enough from the curb, and I think it looks alright.

Also, Meg painted the garage, which hadn't been painted in yeeeeears. I made such a difference!




Next: I'm fixing the side of the garage and surrounding our patio with a fence, a very, very tall fence.

Top Ten of Being in Church During Mother's or Father's Day + What We've Learned

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10. Meg's back from her relay
9. No super early morning meetings
8. When I say "Happy father's day," people start saying it back to me and suddenly stop, with a confused look in their eyes.
7. Meg still gets flowers and chocolate during mother's day
6. Brother S's daughter reminds us why we're probably better off childless
5. Barbara Bush quoted at the pulpit
4. Top 5 of Good Parents according to Bro. H's 6 year old daughter includes: "Plays video games"
3. Bro. B. (app. 70 years old) days we can be his parents
2. There's no license for being parents (unless, like us, you can't have your own children)
1. "Being parents is the best calling you can possibly have" (ouch)

Friday, June 05, 2009

100 Posts! + Fence

I hit 100 posts! And it only took two years!

Anyway.

Our house's south-west side has always been notorious for its hideousness (dat a word?)


That's our house's view on Google Maps. The hedge was trimmed (It was way worse), but not yet cut.

Last summer we cut the bushes (they were very thorny, so it hurt a lot), and we lost all privacy! We decided that eventually we would put up a fence, or something. Our friend Jose helped us level the dirt that was left over, and to get rid of some stubburn roots.

This summer we finally decided to go ahead and put up the thing. As part of the preparations we had to get rid of the old chain link fence's posts. Some were easy to remove, but one of them was ridiculously hard. This is why:

Once we were ready, I dug the post holes, put up the posts, and cemented them down.



The next day I put the beams across. It took me a couple of days, because I had to make sure that they were straight (leveled), and the distance between each post was different, so I had to measure the beams and cut them individually.

Meg then helped me put the pickets, so that went pretty fast. We finished in less than a day.

My problem with the fence is that, although it looks nice (especially from inside), it looks kind of boxy and somewhat boring. Fortunately (sarcasm alert), the city inspector finally decided to drive by the house and gave us a citation telling us that the fence is not up to the city code, because if it is by the sidewalk, it can't be higher than 4 feet. If we want it to be 6 feet, we need to set it back 6 feet. But it makes sense that, living in the bussiest corner of the city, the inspector would never see the fence as we were building it, but only ONE DAY AFTER we finished it.

Of course.

So now we have to go to the city, talk to the inspector, and set the fence back, or cut it down to 4 feet.

And there goes our new found privacy.