My parents' fence

Went back to Richmond for the Victoria Day long weekend. Got Jeremy (http://www.seakrait.blogspot.com) to help me replace my parents' fence and gate leading to the backyard of their house. If you go to Jeremy's blog and look in his archive, I'm sure you'll come across a posting where he basically made fun of my plan for replacing the fence. See I was at work and I wanted to convey what we were doing. Not having access to AutoCad, I was unable to create a scale drawing of the new fence and gate so I used MS Paint. Those of you that have used it, know that it doesn't do much in terms of creating a plan drawing, but it was all that I had, and Jeremy decided to post it as the culmination of my thought processes, well, after a full Saturday and 1/2 day Sunday, I'm proud to report that the fence and gate are holding up perfectly, and my plan was awesome!!! so :P to Jeremy.

I must say though, that despite the fact that we were working until 10:30pm that Saturday night and still weren't done (my cordless drill ran out of batteries, oh and on a side note, Jeremy, I was telling a co-worker about the batteries running dead and he said they should invent a cordless drill with the cord option like you were describing!! So I say go for it!!!) it was a LOT of fun. Jeremy had a great idea to put a caster on the bottom of the gate so it would hold it up better and not put as much torque on the gate post, but unfortunately, the concrete path isn't level and the caster was getting stuck in the gate closed position so I had to take it off. But the gate does close and it does stay open quite nicely with a little hook latch that attaches to another post.

A few things we learned that weekend:

1. Definitely start early and get extra wood. It may cost a bit initially, but you end up realizing that you need to use more.
2. Wear runners or steel toed shoes. Definitely not sandals and barefeet. You might get dirt flung at your feet or concrete poured on you or concrete slopped on you.
3. Always add water to dry concrete, not the other way around, despite what the instructions on the bag of post-haste may tell you.
4. Measure twice and cut once. While we actually only made one measuring mistake, I figure it is sound advice for anyone doing any woodwork.

That being said, I think Jeremy and I could definitely start a house building company.

Black and Decker Rules!!