Oh, how we have been dreaming of the day!  When we bought our house, we were unimpressed with the ugly, albeit functional, chain link fence.  Our backyard is pretty much open to seeing the cars coming down the adjacent road and the travelers on the foot path.  Country kids at heart, we yearned for a nice TALL wood fence that we give us a modicum of privacy in our backyard…and block the annoying headlights at night.

I don’t necessarily want to be able to run around naked back there, but having the option is always nice (just kidding…really!). 😉

Being that we are one lot away from the road and foot path, leaving our kids alone in our backyard for even half a minute makes me nervous.  We even live in a nice crime-free neighborhood, but such is the state of society these days.  The nice wood fence will block strangers from seeing our kids playing out in the yard, and that will give us some piece of mind.

Last year we thought, “This is the year!!”, and we got estimates from a few companies for the fence of our dreams.  Then we thought, “Holy crap, that’s expensive!”.  We weren’t prepared for the price tag on the one we wanted.  I know it is hard to believe, but we kinda like the finer things in life, and we are willing to wait.  If you settle for a lesser item it only leads to “what if’s”.  We are planning on living in this house for a long time, so it was worth it to wait.  Settling on a cheaper fence didn’t make much sense.  And then it would have bothered us for the next 20 years…nagging us like a little devil with a pitchfork on our shoulder poking us and saying, “if only you had waited…” 😉

This year was the year.  We got this lovely fence with board on board on both sides (so you can’t see through it at all), decorative top board and horizontal board partway down, and post caps.  Just like everything, they nickel and dime you. 

fence

You want knot-free boards?  That’ll cost you $$ extra.  You want post caps?  That’ll cost you $$ extra.  You want it stained?  Oooooh, good luck with that!

So yes, we will be staining the 380 feet of fence now.  Lucky, lucky us.  We could just let it go and gray naturally, but we both think that looks like crap.  It takes about 2 years for your 2 year old fence to look 20 years old when you don’t stain it.  So….we will do the work.  We won’t like it though.  Oh, how we won’t like it. 

Those stain companies really need to invent a wood stain that lasts, oh, 50 years.  That would be quite nice…you know, instead of 4 or 5 years.  Wood fences are definitely not maintenance free.  No one ever said beauty was easy, though. 

And can’t you just see some great photographs taken in front of our lovely new fence?? 🙂