Seeking Creative Upcycling Ideas for Old Wooden Fencing

I think building our new fence was a job from hell, for the fencer.  Pouring, relentless rain, giant trees and roots, uneven land – truely the list was long, all week.

On the upside he didn’t have to take the old fence away (well I am hpping it was an upside for him).

The large stacks of fence wood, creates unlimited possibilities for me – again I am only limited by my imagination.

An outside children’s cubby house, veggie patch garden fencing, sand pits, privacy screens, outside garden art projects.

Interested to know what you would do with old fencing wood?

You don’t have to be Sherlock to deduce there will be upcycling, wooden project posts in my future.

The Fastest and Easiest Way to Paint a Fence

Finally the sun visited our town and stayed all day – not even the threat of rain.

It was time to finally try ‘sock painting’ our front fence.  Firstly a big shout out and thankyou to ‘Green Eggs and Cans’ for sharing her house sock painting technique with the world.

What is sock painting?

Put on a rubber glove then an old sock over the glove. I used a sock from our ‘lost sock’ draw – where all the socks without pairs go.

The sock on your hand becomes your ‘paint brush’. Place your sock covered hand into the paint then rub your hand over the fence. It’s not rocket science but I will never paint our fence with a brush again.

You may recall that I started painting the fence with a traditional paint brush but was forced to stop due to rain. So I can compare both fence painting techniques – brush against the sock.

My sock painting test?

Faster – a section of the fence, took me two hours to paint with a brush but an equivalent sized section only took 26 minutes to paint!!

Easier – because my fingers and hand are more flexible than a brush it was easier to get into the sides of the fence palings.

Cheaper – Old socks are cheaper than paint brushes and more abundant (well they are in our house). Using old socks is a great way to recycle too!

Simpler – I didn’t clean my sock with water or turps after I stopped painting.  Just made sure I throughly used up the paint on the sock, then left my sock on top of the paint tin.  Hours later I returned to painting by just putting the glove and sock back on.  The sock worked brilliantly again.

Sock painting will save me numerous hours of house painting work.  Hours I would prefer to spend in the garden and with my family.

Happy sock painting!

Easy Fence Making with Weaving Wattle Branches

It is raining.  It always rains over Easter.  I can only remember two Easters it hasn’t rained.

Most projects on my long weekend todo list, requires sunlight (painting, building etc). Despite the rain I was very keen to get into the garden.

Amongst the rain falling on my face, I had a random, spontaneous idea. “Let’s make a veggie garden patch fence with wattle branches”. We have a wattle vine bush in our back yard which is in desperate need of a major trim.  Now I have a use for those wattle brances.

Three hours later (and thanks to our Little One for having a big sleep), I completed my weaving creation.

Standing approximately 40 cm tall, it will help to keep two white fluff balls and a cheeky toddler out of my new broad bean seedlings.  Think I will continue weaving around the circumference of this garden patch – for complete protection.

Feeling very satisfied with my efforts today.