Holy Grime!

Yes, holy grime Batman! Here's a look at what we were facing at the start of last weekend:

Look at all that green! Yuck!  We are pretty sure that this poor fence has never been washed.  Eric and I had tossed ideas back and forth for awhile about what we wanted to do with this eye sore.  We talked about painting it (white? tan?), staining it, and/or replacing it. We decided that for now we would have to try and save the fence that is already here (replacing it would require some savings).  In order to do the next step (painting or staining), we would first have to power wash this puppy.  I was so excited when I remembered that my parents had a power washer.  This meant that we were about to take on an almost free (here's to hoping that our water bill won't skyrocket!) project!!  I was so anxious to get started.  Last weekend we had some pretty warm days, so out came the power washer.

We picked a random fence panel to start with and I think going into this our expectations were that a.) it wouldn't take that long to do the whole fence, and b.) the power washer would get the green grime off, but the fence would still have that gray look.  Well let me tell you that our expectations quickly changed.  Here's why:

Holy guacamole!  Look at the beautiful wood that was hidden behind that dull gray!  We couldn't believe our eyes!  Eric originally said that power washing was going to be MY job because I was literally jumping up and down at the idea, but once he got his hands on that power washer his motivation took a turn for the better.  He power washed various spots on the fence just to see if they would uncover the same beautiful wood that you see in the above picture. And guess what!

 

More beautiful wood!  It was like a magic show!  We couldn't wait to see what the whole panel would look like after we were done with it.  Here are a couple of snapshots of us working:

 Since this was our first time ever using a power washer, we had to test out how close we could get to the fence and how far away we could stand and still manage to get off the grime.  Here are some things we learned:

1.) We could stand a little further back to spray down the vertical boards.

2.) To get the green off of the vertical boards, we had to stand a little closer while doing a second pass.

3.) To get the green off of the horizontal boards, we had to hold the power washer gun at an angle.

4.) Power wash the bottom of the posts and the bottom boards first.  The water collects at the bottom of the fence, making it pretty muddy/marshy. So if you do these sections first, you don't have to worry as much about the mud splashing up on you or your clothes (I've had some pretty muddy legs and arms from making this mistake one too many times!)

5.) Make sure you wear old clothes and shoes!!

After about 45 minutes (some of this time was spent messing around with the proximity), the first panel was power washed.

 

Look at that beauty!  Just in case you were wondering, we purposely did not power wash the fence post on the left because we wanted to see the difference between this panel and the one next to it.  Here is a better before and after picture of the fence:

Consider our minds blown!  We never imagined that our fence was a hidden beauty.  Going back to our original idea of painting or staining it, we now have decided that we may just seal it.  I still wonder if we should get a stain and sealer in one, but we will see.  Right now we are just enjoying looking out our back door and seeing this gorgeousness.  We do know though that we need to decide fairly quickly on what our next step is going to be because we don't want the panels we've already washed to go back to what they previously looked like.  A lot of decisions need to be made, but Eric made one definite decision (after seeing how long it took us to do one panel!): It is back to being MY job to power wash the fence. The "pre-power washing me" would've said, "Alright!! I get to power wash the fence!," but the "post-power washing me" says, "Oh boy, I get to power wash a million more fence panels at 30 minutes a pop (Note my sarcasm)." Boo.  The one nice thing about power washing though is that it is instantly rewarding/gratifying. I do love seeing all of the grime coming off of the fence.  It is kind of sickening actually how much I love watching it fly off. Now that I have officially turned your stomach and let you in on one of my hidden obsessions, I will leave you with this picture:

Remember what I said about getting muddy?  My shoes didn't look so bad here, but they got worse after two more days of power washing.  I now have power washed four panels.  It is seriously going to take me like a month to finish the whole fence.  Sigh. Oh well, let's face it.  This fence is going to look like a million bucks when I'm done with it, and I may just get a good tan (maybe I should consider power washing in my bathing suit---or maybe that's going too far!)!  

What outdoor projects have you done?  Are they just as monotonous as power washing? Tell us about them! :)