Hacking is often a term used to mean malicious behavior. But I believe hacking is a mindset. It’s about trying to be creative.. Taking things and making them work in a different way. It’s about not letting your self be your own limiter. Just because you’ve never done something before… doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.
I don’t consider my self good at carpentry. Or using screws, hammers, power tools etc.. I’m also sure some most of the work makes professionals cringe just like I do at code by a novice.
But when a project comes around that needs done.. I think the only way to learn is to do.
When ever I can I like to help on projects where someone knows what they are doing. This way I can slowly build up some tips and tricks.
I’ve always been a tinkerer with a very curious mind. My parents love to tell the story of me as a young kid ripping the thermostat off of the wall so that I could see how it worked.
Over the last few years I feel I’ve gotten a bit more comfortable with power tools. Hurricane Harvey hit me and my in-laws houses. Fortunately for us we were renting. But my in-laws have spent the last few years gutting and remodeling their house. A lot of opportunities to learn there and they have gotten to make the house like they want it. Look for the silver linings right?
Anyways.. Few years back we bought a house and I inherited an amazing fence . I’ve done repairs in the past replacing pieces that butt up against my neighbors yard. It was an urgent repair to keep the neighbors aggressive acting dog from barging through the very weak pieces. The side has always leaned out a bit towards the road.
What needs to happen is I need to pull all planks off and fix it properly. But until I have resources to do so I have attempted to straighten some and strengthen it.
First thing was obvious.. some of the bottom 2x4s weren’t even connected. 🙈
The second major issue is the top 2x4s were layed flat and super bowed.
I loosened some pieces around the beam leaving the section unhooked from the post and then since mostly doing by my self made a make shift pulley out of rope and stake in the ground.
Once they were as straight as I could.. cut a few spare 2x4s put them in as square as I could and then removed the bowed pieces.
Anyways… it’s not pretty. But it will last a little longer until I can do it right.
Hopefully interesting in some way! If not we’ll try again. I’ve got several more projects needing done 🙂