It’s time to choose a new fence for your home! The options are endless, and you may find yourself overwhelmed by choices. Well, there’s one type of fence that has been around for decades and will be popular for many years to come. The picket fence, a row of vertical boards or pickets held together by horizontal rails, is an instantly recognisable style of wall. Could this be your new fence?
Picket fences burst onto the scene as the ‘American dream’ fence but have since gained popularity worldwide. You won’t be able to go for a walk around your neighbourhood without spotting at least one. For a good reason too: as well as its stylish design, picket fences offer a whole host of other benefits for you and your household. Jim’s Fencing contractor has installed picket fences for homes all across Australia and are experts in this field. They’ll be able to install an excellent quality picket fence for you that will reap all of the benefits listed below.
#1 Street appeal
What gives off more of a whole, suburban feel than a picket fence? A picket fence is considered a ‘classic’ design by many people. It’s the type of fence we see in movies and shows and represents the kind of residential homeliness that would be attractive to many passers-by. By having a well-maintained picket fence bordering your home, you’re making your property look more beautiful and appealing from a single glance.
#2 Environmentally friendly
Traditionally, picket fences are constructed out of wood. If sourced ethically, wood is a highly environmentally friendly building material. It’s 100% organic material, can be recycled into other wooden products and breaks down naturally into the environment around it. If this is one of the most significant benefits for you, be mindful of the paint or stains you use when colouring your fence, as you can source environmentally friendly versions of these also.
#3 Gain privacy and block off trespassers
Picket fences are entirely customisable and can be suited to you! The ‘common’ style of picket fence may be up to hip height or similar to show off your beautifully cut lawn and letterbox. If that’s your style, you can go with that. However, your picket fence can be built up to whatever height is best for you. If you intend to give your property a bit more privacy, you can build it up a few metres high so onlookers and neighbours can’t gain access or see beyond it. Also, you can go for a hybrid – a lower fence in the front yard and a higher one in the backyard where you’d like that extra privacy.
#4 Keep children and pets inside
A great benefit of any fence is to keep your household safe, especially for younger children and pets. Again, this is where picket fences adaptability comes into the light, as you can choose for the pickets to be as close or as far from each other as you’d like. If you want to keep in wily pets or children, you’d probably prefer to have the pickets standing directly next to each other, with no gaps that anyone can squeeze through. Picket fences also lend themselves great to have gates or locks installed, so you can make them extra secure for little hands or paws.
#5 Durable and long-lasting
An adequately installed picket fence built with premium materials is designed to last. It should be able to withstand changing climates and extreme weather conditions. If the wood is of good quality and properly treated, it should be immune to termites and resistant to rot. A good picket fence should last decades, with only minor care and maintenance needed.
#6 Raise your home value
A fence is essential to many homebuyers for a smattering of reasons, including the ones listed above – privacy, safety, appearance. In that same sense, a shoddy, rotting fence will not attract many buyers. Or, it may be used as a way to haggle down the price of a property. Having a beautifully clean, well-built picket fence will be very attractive to potential buyers of your property and could raise the overall monetary value of your home.
#7 You can switch out the materials based on your preference
We’ve been referencing the benefits of wooden picket fences for most of this list, as they’re the most common across Australia. However, sometimes wood just isn’t a suitable material for your home. Maybe the soil around your house is very damp, and you’re concerned about the potential for rot, even with treated wood. Or maybe your climate is extremely dry, and your apprehension is based on dry rot. Whichever it is, you don’t have to give up on your dreams for your dreamy picket fence. You can get your desired fence in another material better suited for your home – PVC or aluminium.
#8 Budget conscious
As a picket fence is such a well-known and classic design, it’s considered one of the most affordable options for fencing. Any professional fencer worth their weight will know how to construct and install a picket fence, and it’s less complex than other types of fencing designs. Whether it be wood, PVC or aluminium, the materials are all considerably lower cost than different types of fencing materials, like glass or marble.
#9 Able to adapt the style to suit your home
When someone says picket fence, many people will get the same image popping up in their head – a white set of wooden palings ending in a sharp triangle shape. But did you know that the humble picket fence comes in many other variations and styles? In fact, you can customise your picket fence to whatever aesthetic you like. This traditional style dates back to Colonial times, and many homeowners stick to this design as a homage to the classic design. However, you can choose your picket to end in a rounded shape, an oval shape, a square form, a spear shape, or many other designs. You can select your pickets to all be the same height or for them to be varied short and tall planks across the rails. You can choose white, or you can choose black, brown, green, blue, red, purple – whatever you fancy! You can choose the pickets to be shaped in Victorian, Roman, Gothic, Georgian or other styles. You can opt-in for an additional post topper, which can be shaped like circles, pyramids, flat-tops, stars or acorns. Once you start going down the rabbit hole, the options are endless!
#10 Added security feature
One great benefit of a picket fence – or any fence, really – is the additional safety they provide for you and your home. Did you know that most burglaries take the intruder less than five minutes to break into your house? For many places that end up robbed, the issue is that they were easy to break into and escape from. Potential burglars know how to scope households and are always going to go for the ‘easy’ steal rather than a house with features that may make it difficult to escape. Your picket fence will aid your home as a physical deterrent to someone looking to break in. Most experienced burglars wouldn’t want to deal with trying to hop a fence/waste precious seconds fiddling with a gate lock. As well as looking great, your picket fence will give your household an increased defensive feature.
Call Jim’s Fencing on 13 15 46 to discuss your picket fence options and to arrange a free quotation.
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