August 25th 2006

Today I worked on painting and covering another panel frame and got some work done on the graveyard fence.  I have 7 completed panels.  I need 15 in order to make my planned layout work.  I have 10 frames already built, so I need to build 5 more frames and then cover them.  A few have to be covered on both sides.  In addition, I have 3 times that much fabric that needs to be painted that will be hung on the existing carport walls.  The painting process is painfully slow.  I can get about 2 panels worth completed in a day if I stay on top of it...  The limiting factor is drying time.  If I buy another 3x8' piece of plywood sheeting I could double the number of panels completed in a day...  It's a boring job with lots of waiting for paint to dry.

In between coats of paint I have lots of time to work on other parts of this year's haunt.  I've been cutting PVC and drilling holes like mad for the graveyard fence for the front yard.  There's a lot of fence to be built and it seems like Halloween is creeping up on us faster than ever now.

I saw Halloween decorations going up in the department stores already...

The graveyard fence is simply made of 1"x2"x8' lumber and 1/2 inch thin wall PVC pipe.  You can see detailed instructions on my props page under "graveyard fence".  It costs about $1.00 per foot of fence including paint and screws.  Becky and I figured that to surround the entire front yard would take almost 200 feet of fence, so we decided to scale things back a bit and go with a 16'x24' rectangular grave yard.  I need to manufacture eight 8 foot sections of fence in addition to the four 4 foot sections I have left over from last year.  That will give us a nice sized graveyard with a path to the front door.

My fingers have a few blisters from the spray can trigger, so I may have to take a break from constructing more fence this weekend.  I think I will concentrate on getting more of the painting done so I can have the grunt work out of the way and move on to getting more props ready...