On to other yard 'stuff'!

Okay, the tree is now history and I've contracted a company to make the screen pool enclosure 'like new' again, even though it hasn't been 'new' for quite some time. The important thing is that I've gotten a lot of yard work out of the way, courtesy mainly from my mother in law. The yard is somewhat semi-dead from the very cold weather that has blown in form Canada into Florida (who'd have ever thought that would happen)and it became a great time to remove excesses in some of the plants. The yard actually looks bigger than it has since we bought the place 8 years ago. The newest issue has arisen, privacy that was once a naturally occurring thing with the trees is now gone and we aren't as svelt looking in bathing suits as years gone by, so it's time to consider getting a fence. This is especially important for one side of the yard as the neighbor rents his house to other Brits that wants to visit the U.S. and Disney World, and we don't want to be on permanent display to a steady stream of strangers.

We did some homework online and at the home stores and narrowed the selection to aluminum, PVC(vinyl), wood, chain link, steel, wrought iron, and bamboo. We rejected chain link, steel, and wrought iron because of the commercial look and the lack of privacy (I won't use those slats in a chain link fence-yuck). The aluminum would be a bit noisy when branches hit them so that's out too. Bamboo? Not in hurricane country even though I do like bamboo. That leaves wood and PVC. I know the summer sun here can damage both wood and PVC over the years but PVC won't rot and a quick pressure wash makes it nice again. That would mean we have a winner, folks! PVC is the winner by logical selection. Now that I know the material I'll be acquiring I just need a pvc fence installation company to complete the picture. I'll let the Internet do the work for me here because I can search for insured, bonded companies just in case something happens on-site as well as get referrals and any BBB issues that may be floating around that the yellow pages won't tell me about. I almost hired a company that was described in glowing terms in an ad but a quick Internet check revealed lots of things that I don't want to get involved in with them. Do a little homework and you could save money and headaches as well.