Removing the (oh so ugly) chain link fance

You guys! We got rid of the chain link fence! Do you know how excited I am?! I don't. think. you. do. That's ok though :) I'm so so so excited. The chain link fence with its green privacy slats was such an eye sore for me. The fence along the back and on the opposite side of the house are both wood, so it was out of place on top of being ugly.

In my last post I mentioned that a few friends offered to help The Engineer fix the pipes under the house. However, he finished that task so quickly that we instead asked them to help us remove the fence. Thank goodness for the extra hands!

The Engineer and I actually started work on the fence a week before on a whim. The long-winded story of how this all got started is as follows:

The house next door is a rental property and is now in between tenants. The owner is doing some pretty serious work to fix it up (!!!) so we knew it would be a perfect time to replace the fence. A landscape crew came and did a ton of tree trimming on that property (which was a good thing) and they cut everything on their side of the fence up to the property line. Again, this was great because it needed to be done, but there were a few tree limbs that they cut which we needed to cut all the way back to the tree trunks on our side.

One evening after work we went out there with the chain saw and clippers and cut everything in sight.

We did have a problem when it came to cutting the stumps off the trees though...the chain link fence was in the way.

So we figured there was no time like the present to start taking it down.

Since it was already evening, we only removed enough to get to the tree. We took the top bar so we could bend the chain link away from the tree. With the top bar removed, I actually used that bar to hold the fence away from the tree while The Engineer cut a notch in the bottom of the stump.

Once we got everything trimmed, we left it that way until the next weekend when we could tear the fence down for real.

Enter friends who didn't know what they were getting themselves into (insert evil laugh here). With the help of Tanner, Birelle, and Jason, we got the rest of the fence down in a three of four hour session. I think if it was just The Engineer and myself we would have been out there all day!

We started by removing the metal ties that held the chain link to the posts. 

Then the guys used some elbow grease (ok, probably a lot of elbow grease) to get the bottom of the chain link out of the ground where the roots had a firm grasp on it. 

From previous experience removing a few random posts elsewhere in our yard, we knew that the posts were concreted in the ground. We didn't want to go through the trouble of digging them out, releasing them from their root captors, and heaving all that weight out of the ground, so we opted to dig to the concrete and cut the posts off. In doing this, we were running the risk of having to remove one of the concrete bases if a new fence post happened to fall in the same spot, but this was a risk we were willing to take (spoiler: it paid off, we only had to remove one).

The Engineer and Jason dug out the posts ahead of Tanner who was manning the Sawzall. 

That Sawzall cut through the posts like butter! Brielle made sure that the posts didn't bop Tanner in the head...no need to do any more damage than has already been done right ;-)

I think Tanner did get a little consumed with the Sawzall because once all the fence posts were cut, he then proceeded to cut any and every rogue stump or limb he could find! I think I know a good gift for this guy :)

Glad you cleaned the place up a bit Tanner!

Removing the chain link is already an upgrade in my eyes, but I am SO excited to get the new fence in!

A huge thanks to Tanner, Brielle, and Jason for their hard work! And thanks to all of you for reading. You know what to expect next around here:-D