To make your Jacksonville home stand out from the rest of the white and gray homes surrounding you, consider creating a beautiful fence that enhances the appearance of your home’s exterior. A little time and creativity can go a long way, and with a vision and a few power tools, you don’t even have to do the heavy lifting of fence installation. Here are some design ideas to help you transform that square stockade fence into a unique showpiece.
Fence Styles
Wooden fences come in three basic styles: stockade (boards side-by-side with no space), shadowbox (boards on both sides of lateral supports), and board-on-board (pickets that overlap slightly). Acceptable wood species for fences in Jacksonville are pressure-treated pine and cypress. If you’d like to go to the higher end, you may also use cedar, but that can become quite expensive. You can dress up any of these designs or make arrangements with your fence contractor for a more unique fence. Wood fencing is usually the easiest to enhance creatively, and replacement wood is fairly inexpensive if you make a mistake.
Accents
For a 6-foot-tall wood fence, accenting the top foot can really set your fence apart, and this work can be done in a weekend. Adding a top cap — a horizontal 2″ x 6″ board, laid flat — gives a boring fence a sturdier appearance. Coordinate with one of Jacksonville’s local fence contractors to move the top rail of the fence panel to the top of the pickets to have an attachment point.
Using a jigsaw, cut geometric shapes, such as diamonds, squares, or triangles, into two adjoining fence pickets. Place a 1″ x 4″ board flat against the top of the fence and another down the face of the fence to accent the area.
Ask your fence contractor for decorative post tops. The tops of these posts usually have a routed band with a beveled top. This will dress up a fence significantly. You can also purchase fence-post tops at most home-improvement stores. Additionally, consider using a 6″ x 6″ post with your fence panels butted against it as an accent from top to bottom.
Shrubs
If your desire is to hide or mute the side of the fence facing the street, consider using a creeping vine of some sort. The vine will grow up and through the fence, softening its appearance. Consider jasmine or bougainvillea, both of which grow well in the Jacksonville climate. Jasmine tends to stay green throughout the year; in the springtime, its white blossoms give off a fragrant odor. Bougainvillea also stays green all year long; its blossoms are pink and red. A word of caution regarding bougainvillea, however — at maturity, it grows large thorns. For specifics on viable vines for your Jacksonville home, the University of Florida IFAS Extension provides good information.
With some time and effort, you can turn your merely functional fence into a beautiful fence, an inviting showpiece for your home that enhances its curb appeal.
Image Source: MorgueFile
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