We woke up bright and early this morning to get started, to avoid being baked alive by the sun. I poured a little of the stain in Nancy's pan, and we each picked a random wood plank to start on. Ten minutes later, after we had each finished a grand total of ONE plank, we decided the brush technique was less than ideal, and that continuing with this method would put us finishing sometime around Labor Day.
Plan B. I went and got the trusty bug sprayer out of the garage, filled 'er up, and got to spraying. Worked like a charm, and certainly covered the wood much faster than brushes. However, sending the gooey stain airborne on its way to the fence gives it the opportunity to also blow into one's hair, mouth, eyes, and clothes. Well worth it, we decided, to avoid painstakingly painting it with a brush. One other problem. The bug sprayer was 1 gallon, which lasted about ten minutes of spraying. So every ten minutes we had to stop and fill it up again. Which also meant that, while much more efficient, this method was using much more stain than the side of the bucket said. We got about 1/3 of the way through and ran out of stain.
We had planned on taking a break for lunch during the heat of the day anyway. So after lunch we ran by Home Depot for another bucket. We decided to go ahead and get 2 more, thinking that we probably wouldn't use the second one, and we could return it. We also bought a 2.5 gallon sprayer made specifically for our task at hand, so we wouldn't have to fill it up as often. Besides, the bug sprayer was getting clogged by this point.
The sprayer worked beautifully, and the rest of the left side fence and the entire back fence went off without a hitch. By this time, Nancy had given up on trying to stay semi-clean, so she was covered head-to-toe with red goop. Then about halfway down the right side of the fence, the sprayer broke. It would still spray, but only if I held it together with two hands while spraying. Add that to the fact that the house next door already has siding up, so we had to be extra careful not to inadvertently paint their house in the process...and the last 40 feet of fence took almost as long as the other 100 feet.
We finally finished just before dark. And we used all but about 1 gallon of the 15 gallons we bought. Here is a picture of Nancy. Without knowing the above story, you would just assume by looking at her that she had just gone on a mass killing spree.
What doesn't show in the pictures is the thick layer of red goop lacquered to her hair like an orange helmet. It is still there, by the way, even after an hour-long shower. She will be spending all day in the shower tomorrow, I bet. She vetoed my plan of dunking her head in a vat of paint thinner.
Anyway, here is the finished product. It was worth it...I guess.
Before
After
On an unrelated note...I talked to my Mom tonight. The first thing she tells me is, "hey, I got my colostomy last week." I almost swerved off the road. Because it would not surprise me for my mother to have major surgery and not tell me. And a colostomy, which involves severing the large intestine, cutting a hole in your side, and re-routing the end of the colon to this hole, where one's poop exits into a nice little plastic bag, is certainly major surgery. I didn't even know she had any colon problems, let alone had anything serious enough to need a colostomy. "Why did you have to have a colocstomy?" I asked. "Wait," she said. "Maybe it wasn't a colostomy. Yeah, it was a colonoscopy." Thanks, mom. You almost gave me a heart attack. Because a minor procedure sticking a camera up your butt is almost the same as re-routing your entire gastrointestinal tract necessitating the need to empty your poop bag twice daily.
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