Choosing a Design for Your Home's Picket Fence
One type of barrier you might be considering for the front of your home is a picket fence. Here are some tips for choosing from the different alternatives.
Style Options
Picket fences come in various configurations, and selecting what will suit your property can take time. One of the determining factors is often the architectural style of the home, which will suggest a particular type.
For example, early Victorian cottages had plain and simple pickets, forming a straight edge on top. As the era continued, the picket tips became more elaborate, and the fence might be arched to mimic the verandah architecture. Later house styles, such as Queen Anne designs, had fretted pickets with decorative cut-outs, and the posts on Edwardian houses sometimes had capping. Plainer picket styles can suit a more modern aesthetic. You can ask a fencing contractor for suggestions on what may work on your property.
Colour Choices
You can get inspiration from the colours on your house when choosing the fence colours. The pickets and posts can be the same colour or two different shades. If your home has trim around a verandah, you can repeat that colour on the fence or replicate the siding colour instead.
If a house has green weatherboard walls and white trim, you could build a fence with white pickets and matching green posts. For a bolder look, you can use green on the pickets and white on the posts.
Another possibility is to use two shades of the same colour on the fence or to make the entire structure the same hue. You can research how other properties coordinate colours in your neighbourhood to get ideas.
Material Alternatives
While picket fences were traditionally made from timber, they are also available in steel, aluminium and vinyl materials. These options differ in their appearance and maintenance needs. Wood has a warm aesthetic, but the paint will tend to flake off, and the fence will need repainting eventually. Metal fences can be powder coated, so they're almost maintenance-free. With vinyl, the colours extend through the posts and pickets. You can get advice about what material may best handle your local climate, whether hot and sunny or damp and full of sea spray.
Privacy and Openness
While you may choose a picket fence style to suit your house's architecture, consider other factors, such as the privacy it offers. A design with taller pickets that are closely spaced will provide additional privacy. On the other hand, widely spaced pickets can create a more open feeling.
For more info, contact a local fencing contractor.