Painting by Flashlight

This weekend was a good one for doing a lot things besides watching the Cardinals hopes fade down at Houston's Minute Maid ("Juice Box") Park. Plus, since Matt was sitting out his sports activities for providing too little effort on school work and chores around the house, we had his help all weekend to work with us on our collective "to-do" list.

Our place is one of the oldest homes in the neighborhood, and as a result has a slightly wider lot than most. Typical gangways run 8 feet or so; ours is closer to 14. When we bought the home, there were no fences, which wouldn't work with a family dog. Over time, we've been completing the fences.

The one in the west gangway was the most complicated to design because of the layout of our yard and the neighbor's lot. By building it, we would be permanently enclosing part of the neighbor's yard into our lot. It's always been an area that we've maintained since it's on the back side of their garage and inaccessible from their yard. Nonetheless, permanently enclosing it into our yard makes the situation appear more official in terms of them acceding part of their lot to ours.

So, for a couple of years we've talked with the neighbors about how to work it, while avoiding any downstream legal entanglements. We agreed on the concept of preparing a shared access and licensing arrangement, no prescriptive easement implied or otherwise, and so we started building the fence this weekend.

It's solid wood, three posts set in concrete, to be painted all-white, with a gate and arbor creating a nice entry into the backyard.

From their kitchen window early this morning, the neighbors might have seen me painting by flashight. Hopefully, when the project's complete, they'll believe the end result makes both homes look better.