Out with the old:

Wow...

Who would have imagined that a busted down old fence could detract from the appearance of the yard more than having no fence at all...

Yep, that's right. I finally got around to ripping down the nasty old fence that the previous owner so carelessly erected 15 years ago.

Now I don't know a whole lot about fencing or how long treated fence posts are supposed to last, but seems to me that they should last more than 15 years... About 1/3 of the posts were already broken off within 2" of the ground, another 1/3 snapped off at about the same spot when I tried to pull them out, and the remaining 1/3 were so rotten that it's a wonder that they didn't snap off. My guess is that the previous owner didn't bother to spend the extra cash to get treated fence posts...

In all, it took me about 2 1/2 hours to rip the entire fence down, about another hour to clean up the mess, and a mind-blowing 1 1/2 hours at the Totem lumber desk. Not that I'm going to complain, I did change my order on the poor guy twice and insist on two separate invoices so I could charge 50% of half the fence to my neighbor...