Staining the fence

Peter had talked about staining our backyard fence for awhile, probably since we moved into our house over 7 years ago.  He wanted to protect the wood and so I could understand it but it never seemed like a priority or the right time.

But this past summer, we decided to get it done.  Which quickly turned into me staining the fence.  Granted, Peter works incredibly hard at his job so I can work at home, but I still like to give him a hard time :-)

We borrowed a pressure washer from a friend at church and that was the first step.  And boy did it take awhile stripping away the nasty from the fence, board by board.  And cost us a pretty penny in our water bill too!

Then I spent the rest of the summer staining the fence, using a brush and going section by section putting 2 coats on.  I could get 1-2 hours of work done during the day while Ethan napped and sometimes could work in the evenings or on the afternoons on the weekend.  And of course, could only work on the days that it didn't rain or we weren't on a trip seeing family!  My goal was to be done by the time Ben started school and I made it!!  It was a looong project but it does look really nice now and hopefully it will look that way for a really long time.

The gray color is what the fence has looked like since we moved in and the brown is what it looked like after being pressure washed.  Yuck!

Peter really did help with the project too as he could.  And he stained most of the swingset as well!

Peter also cleared a stretch of mulch around our back patio so we could replant grass there and its been wonderful.  The boys used to have to jump across :-)

We are very happy to have this project complete but more than that really, we are just grateful to have the backyard we do for our family, it is wonderful.