I hope y’all had a great Memorial Day Weekend.
I love all the reminders and tear jerking stories of all the men and women who have sacrificed so much for this great country that we call home. We need to hail them all year long!!!
While we enjoyed some family time, we got a much needed project started.
Since we’ve moved into this house, I’ve hated the ugly air conditioning unit next to the house. I took a bunch of pictures of it but they didn’t turn out so you’ll have to use your imagination for the “Before” pictures. Sorry about that!! Here is a very sad drawing of what we are imagining.
A few of my neighbors put fencing around their A/C units. It looks so good but we couldn’t afford the fencing at our local Lowe’s Home Improvement so we ad libbed.
I’ve seen so many cool projects using wood pallets. And how can you beat that they’re FREE!!?? We went on Craigslist and typed in “free wooden pallets” and we found a bunch of businesses trying to get rid of them. So it was like Christmas for us!!
We took about a dozen pallets in all. We want the pallets to match as much as possible.
My next job was to paint them white.
The posts on the right will be cemented into the ground at all four corners and the pallets will be attached by horizontal boards connected to the posts. Hopefully, the pictures will explain it better than I can ;).
The helpful Lowe’s Home Improvement salesperson told us about a cool instrument, a PostLevel, to help level the posts before cementing them into the ground. It was a lifesaver!!
We also bought a post hole digger.
The first thing we had to do was measure. We put spikes down at the four corners where the posts will go. We tied string to connect all four spikes and leveled it. This way we know how to make the top of the fence level all the way around. There was a slight slant from right to left so the LOML cut a couple of the posts to make them level.
Digging the holes was the LOML’s job and thank goodness because it was labor intensive. Digging NC red clay is tough!!
Next, we filled each hole with about 4 inches of gravel. The LOML read that with the gravel there is less sitting water on the bottom of the hole to rot the posts. After putting the posts in the holes, we added more gravel to surround the pole before pouring a “collar” of cement to top it off.
Then the LOML poured cement into each hole, added some water and flattened it with his hand.
We’re going to let the cement dry and I’ll be back to you with the next step of our fence.
Thanks for coming by and reading my posts. If you have any questions or if you just want to say hi please leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you!!
Love y’all,
Linda
