Picking a Picket Fence Design

By Larry Walton

Careful planning pays off in a fence that looks good for years to come.

There’s more to planning a picket fence than just cracking open a beer and digging post holes, which occasionally looks to be the preferred method in my neighborhood.

Living in a historic landmark, as our little town is designated, gives me plenty of opportunity to observe how to and how not to build a picket fence. In their great wisdom and “historicalness,” the powers that be in our diminutive burg canonized picket fences as one of the two acceptable fence types within the bounds of their pre-modern jurisdiction. How to build the picket fences, however, was left to the homeowners with mixed results.

You might be surprised at the number of ways a collection of neighbors can make fences. Some designs have obvious issues such as pickets that are too wide or too narrow and spaces that are too spacey or overly tight. Other problems are less obvious and it takes some study to determine what about the fence is not quite right. Examining the relative merits of a neighbor’s fence design has its dangers, which is why I’ve done the work—so you can rank your neighborhood fences while designing a better alternative.

Set the posts securely to support the fence components. Short fences won't require quite as much anchoring as large fences, but this diagram shows a standard method of setting a post. A good rule of thumb is to bury a third of the post's length.