Taking a page from the Karate Kid… "Paint the fence Daniel-son."

Well not exactly paint. I set out to seal the wood reverse scalloped fence that contains my dogs into a half-acre, third-wooded, canine wonderland. Yesterday, I walked both sides of the fence spraying off all of the dirt and spiders with an extremely long hose (actually 3 long hoses). Today I painted it.

Notes on painting a fence – any fence but especially a not contiguous fence…

• Buy a paint sprayer. You can get a good one for around $300. If you can’t afford the sprayer you can’t afford the fence. Go chain link. Besides the sealant itself will cost you more than that. I personally went through 18 gallons of sealant and one fairly young back covering my fence.
• Get the longest lasting sealant you can find. Trust me. After the first time you won’t want to do it again any time soon. You’ll be kicking yourself for not paying $20 more for the 5 year sealant instead of the 2 year.
• Schedule a massage.

Oh yeah, I finished in one day, but shortly afterwards I collapsed for about an hour on my back before I could get up and walk again. The cause? Well apparrently far to times stooping to reach the bottom of the fence. Some quick calculations revealed that I covered around 950 feet of fence (you have to do both sides) with about a 6" spayer. Add in cross braces and such and that’s 2000+ reps with a 2 lb barbell – oh I mean spray nozzle.

The end result is a very pretty fence – I went with a slight cedar tint in my sealant – that will actually stay that way. Nothing like watching all the money you invested in a fence slowly rot away before your eyes. The other result was a few days out of commission from training. I was able to do pushups and pullups but my back prevented situps and running for a few days. Basically until it was time to leave for my camping trip of course. ;)