The Power of Poseidon...

OMG, my HOA is a PITA. (Mom, I'll wait to continue while you google those abbreviations).

 Understand now? 'mmmkay. We received a nice little letter stating that we needed to clean and restain our fence. Admittedly, it did need it. But demanding politely reminding us via a generic letter that I not be lazy and do work? Fuhgetaboutit.

Except, then a friend at work said she'd let me borrow her power washer so I didn't really have an excuse after that (drat!). Plus, since I'd never used a pressure washer, this was my chance to size it up and see if I should buy one. Can't argue with a free chance to use a power tool (of sorts) and get something done that was long overdue (even if those PITA HOA were the only reason I was doing it).
Anyhow, forget my blah, blah, blah-ing... on to pictures!

Here's the before:

We have a corner lot so our fence it quite a bit longer than most. Which is a bitch. So, I was only able to do the outside (read: the place the HOA will see) this weekend. But I hope to get around to the inside fence so it's all uniform.

I started power washing and geez! what a difference.
It looked beeee-u-teeeful! I was soo impressed. Just straight water and it looks magnificent. Here it is after only 1 section.

I felt like Poseidon, the greek god of the sea, wielder of water...

I just had to add this pic in. When I searched pics of Poseidon I never imagined I'd get one like that ^^^^^^.

Ummmm...nice trident Poseidon.

See how easily I can get distracted? It's a wonder I was able to do the whole fence (outside). 

Okay, after it dried for a day we put a clear spray of Thompson's waterseal:

 It looks soooooo good now. Like a whole new fence. Take a look-sie:

It looks uh-mazing.

A word of advice, while the power washer does all the work for you, this was very time consuming.  I only washed the outside (still have to do all the backyard side). It was split up between 2 days and took me a total of 10 hours to power wash. The clear finish was easy, only taking about an hour to spray on and follow up with a brush.

We bought a 10.00 pump sprayer from HD. Looked similar to this:

Made the application very easy. You can find it next to the sealants in the paint section.

Look at the difference now in my fence compared to my neighbor's who butts up against us in the rear (okay, how can I write that sentence without having a lascivious thought?).

Looks awesome.

Even our little lizards approve.

See him at the top of the post?

This makeover cost approx. $40.00 for 2 cans of sealer and the sprayer. Oh, and a batch of brownies for  my co-worker who lent me the power washer. But now I'm so addicted to power washing I might just have to buy one myself.