We’re back! With a new fence

It’s been a minute since we’ve had any updates coming from our place. The last update was from July when the tree roots blocked our septic tank. Well, we’ve finally done another house project so we’re here to share it with you. We’ll also give a brief recap of the last few months to let you know what else has been going on here.

The back story

The primary reason we’ve not been working on the house is because of our business, Loxaco. The workload went crazy and we ended up moving out of the home shop and into 4,000sf of commercial warehouse space. The transition into the space was a really crazy time. In addition to producing the panels, I also had to set up the new shops (3 of them) with lighting, electrical, duct work, and dust collection. While this was happening we also produced the largest order I’ve ever done. It was a crazy couple months. Ultimately, we’ve done 5 times more sales this year than last year. That’s just nuts. We’re definitely blessed.

Oceana moved her salon

During this same time period Oceana made the tough choice to move her salon from Jupiter to here in Sebring. That meant two things. First, she was starting over and would be building her clientele up again in a new area. Second, that meant she had free time to be able to help with the woodworking business. And we needed it. For 2-3 months she slaved away with me 7 days a week from early in the morning until late at night making sure the orders went out on schedule. I was finally able to hire additional employees and train them to replace us. We currently have 3 guys working full time for the company. The company purchased a large flatbed truck for hauling material. You may see that parked in the back yard behind the house.

Hurricane Ian

We survived hurricane Ian. It was pretty uneventful (fortunately). We lost power for 3-4 days due to some trees taking out the power lines behind our house. During that time we slept in the camper van and ran the generator so we had A/C. During the storm I went out driving to check on the shop and found a car that fell into a sink hole in the road. The road literally swallowed the car. It was 3am and nobody was about so I jumped on the side of the car and walked up to the drivers door to see if anybody was inside. Fortunately there was nobody there. For us, the only major casualty of the storm was our old dock. It was at the end of its life but I was hoping that it would last long enough for us to finish the house. The water rose well above the height of the dock and the wave action just ripped the dock apart. Bummer. I guess that project just got bumped up on the priority scale.

A chain link fence?

That brings us to the new fence. Right next to our house was an empty lot. That lot was for sale for years and was purchased by a pair of ladies about a year ago. Well, they decided that it was time to completely clear out the brush around the entire property. They had a company come in and take out everything but the palms and live oaks. What this meant for us was that our yard and house were wide open to 27. For those that don’t know, 27 is a 6 lane highway with a speed limit of 60mph. With the greenery gone we have more noise and less privacy. The neighbor indicated they were going to put up a fence, so I inquired about what kind, and they said they were going to put up a chain link fence only along our property line. Why only along our property line? Not sure, but it doesn’t make sense to me. Also, a chain link fence doesn’t help with either privacy or noise, so I took matters into my own hands.

Not wasting any time

While the tree crew was still busy working in their yard, I had lumber delivered for building the new fence. After work on Friday I got started laying out the line and digging the holes. I got a handful of posts set on Friday night before running out of daylight. First thing Saturday morning I was back at it. I finished setting the rest of the posts and then started running the rails. Now, most people run their rails between the posts in 8′ sections. I, however, opt for 16′ long rails that span multiple posts. I stagger the joints of the top, middle, and bottom rails onto different posts. Instead of creating multiple panels between the posts, this creates one large panel which is much stronger in high wind situations.

The pickets

Once the rails were up, it was time to get started on the pickets. Traditionally, pickets are ran on the neighbors side of the fence giving them the “pretty” view. However, since the neighbors are going to be installing a chain link fence down the property line, I will have no way to service the pickets in the future should some need to be replaced. As such, I opted to run them on our side so that we can perform future repairs as necessary.

Oceana got home from work just in time to start installing the pickets. She’d hand me the pickets one by one and I’d nail them up. I’d nail just the tops of about 10 or so and then check for plumb. I’d tweak them to be plumb and then go back and nail them completely off. The pickets went up quickly and before we knew it we had a privacy fence up. It looks nice too. It has definitely helped with the road noise. There’s still much more road noise then before everything got cleared out, but now there’s noticeably less with the fence up.

Here’s some pictures of the finished fence. You can see 27 in some of the pics.

We’re not done yet

We stopped the fence in line with the front corner of the house. We’re considering running a fence from the corner of the screen porch up to the new fence with a gate over the driveway. We’ll see. However, after having lived with it for a few days, I think I want to extend the fence down another 20 or 30 feet so the front bedroom (and A/C unit) are not so exposed to the road (Lake Byrd Blvd). That’ll be easy enough to do.

The animals

Teak is doing well. You’ll see him and Oceana doing the rounds around the lake. Oceana will ride her bike and Teak will trot alongside. Our chickens are still doing well but they’re not laying many eggs anymore. Some of them are old enough that they’re no longer layers. That means it’s time to get a new batch going. Oceana put a bunch of eggs in the incubator to hatch another round of chicks. Unfortunately, only 1 hatched. A single chick gets lonely and will usually die, so Oceana went to the feed supply store and bought a bunch of day old chicks. She got quite the assortment too. After the newly hatched chick was dry enough, she joined the other chicks and became part of the crew.

Teak likes chicks

Teak is infatuated with the new chicks, especially the hatched one. After the chick hatched, she sat there in the incubator chirping and looking for the rest of her crew. Teak was concerned and he hung out with that chick. They bonded or something. That chick is his buddy now. He sits there in front of their cage just watching the little black one (the hatched chick). He’ll do this for hours until he gets too tired of standing.

That’s all, folks

That’s all for now. We’ll be getting back into more regular house work in the next few weeks so expect to see more from us soon. We’re looking forward to getting this house wrapped up. Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a happy new year!