Fencing

This weekend we replaced the fence that separates my yard from my neighbor Greg's yard. Our old fence had to be 20 years old. All the posts were totally rotted and the fence was held up in one spot by the vines that grew all over it. We struggled for a bit on Saturday morning trying to get the fence to come down but when we found the vine that was holding it together it came down very easily. Here is the old fence in a huge pile on the street:

We cleared out the old fence and started digging post holes. Collin, Mike (Dad) and Greg manhandled the post hole auger that we rented from home depot. They struggled through roots and left over concrete from the old fence:

Some of the old concrete was in the way and it was pretty brutal getting it all out. Collin, Greg and Mike went at the concrete with picks, sledge hammers and digging bars. None of them ever want to see a digging bar again...

After we had the holes in all the right places we placed the posts and poured the concrete. When Saturday came to an end we had all the posts in place and we had gone to the lumber yard and bought all our supplies.
A full truck bed, what a pretty sight:

Sunday, all we had to do was frame it and nail up the fence boards so we went out that night and had a couple beers downtown retiring early because we were beat from a long day of tearing down and digging holes.
Sunday morning we woke up bright and early to a little food and handfuls of Ibuprofen. There were 4 extra people in my 900 sq. ft. house so Dad slept on a cot in the dining room, he's hardcore:

We figured the hard part was over and we would finish in 4 hours...Not a chance. We did not run into any major hang ups during the day but framing took a lot more time and thought than we expected. We worked for about 8 hours today and finished before dark. Here are some of the activities from the day:
Cutting a post down to size:

Leveling and nailing boards:

We borrowed that nail gun from a friend, Mike McKelvey. The gun made all our work much easier and I bet we saved a few hours because of it. Thanks Mike!
While I am discussing tools, I have to mention my brother. Collin has every tool known to man and we always give him a hard time for it because it seems a little excessive. However, I think we used every tool that he owns today. We used his chop saw, table saw, sawzall, air compressor...all of his tools were very useful so maybe I will have to lay off with the comments about how he owns too many tools.

We spent 2 8 hour days on this fence but in the end it looks great. I am so glad that the old one is gone! Collin, Dad, thanks for all the hard work.

Dad, Big Collin, Little Colin, Greg, Me