Fence Design For Beauty, Form and Function

Fence design can be an excellent design challenge and offers a designer a wide palette. With so many materials to choose from one can create a truly unique design or follow a modern design pattern or build something using the same tools and techniques as the ancients.

"A fence can be made of anything from live/living trees with intertwined branches to clear glass to massive heavy hewn stone. There really are no limits... "

Design Elements:

• PICKETS: Vertical - Horizontal - Diagonal - Squares - Rectangles - Woven - Louvered - Etc.
• COMPONENTS: Fence - Gates - Arbors - Fence Roofs - Etc.
• FENCE TYPES: Board and bat - Privacy - Woven - Mixture - Etc.
• NATURAL MATERIALS: Bamboo - Cedar - White Cedar - Mixture - Stone - Etc.
• HEIGHT: Low, Legal height, Mid or a Mix Etc...
• FENCE PURPOSE: Privacy - Security - Deer Fence - Beauty - Curb Appeal - Etc...
• MASS: Minimal: Glass - Wrought Iron - Stainless Steel Cable - Medium: Thin to thick Wooden Pickets - Bamboo - Thatch- Massive: Huge Stones - Timbers - Boat hulls - Iron Beams - Etc...
• DESIGN FLAIR: Hand Crafted Look - Mixed Materials - Arbors - Art - Shadow - Light - Perspective - Traditional - Etc...

Other Considerations:

• From 80+ inches of rain a year and all that entails like moisture, mold, fungus etc to hot dry fire hazard.
• Privacy needed in some areas and not in other areas.
• Strong design elements, unique and natural in appeal or industrial or blend in with what is all around.
• 6' or more tall for deer jumping height or ornate and thus the fence does not need to be so high.

Images Of Interest:

• GALLERY: http://www.gardenstructure.com/gallery/section/wood_fences
• Japanese: http://stmatthewsfenceanddeck.com/images/albums/NewAlbum_96d2a/sp02.jpg
• Vertical and Horizontal: http://billbarr.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/good-fences-2/
• Modern: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/sf/look/look-modern-fence-050175
• Modern: http://japanesegardening.org/reference/bamboo_fence.html

Free Fence Plans And Images:

• Redwood: http://www.calredwood.org/fences/fences.htm

Our Deer Fence:

All of the posts are in and wow, 10 feet out of the ground is high! Next is moving the water line for hose bibs (and eventually drip irrigation) and the putting up the deer netting.

Beyond that is making the fence really look nice in a design/style way - we needed something up ASAP so as not to miss the planting season so deer netting and posts will get us by for a while.

We wanted to get our deer fence up quickly at first, for planting and then beautify the fence as time and budget allow so we bought some rolls of Easy Gardener 6050 DeerBlock - 7-Foot x 100-Foot Netting which we plan to use for the deer fence and also worked well for protecting some newly planted fruit trees.

Fence Galleries We would love to see some additional fence galleries and design ideas for everyone to share.

Some Design Elements That Stood Out:

1Sustainable Bamboo offers many options for amazing fences.

2Natural fencing made of boards, it seems, are born to be square-ish and even two curved boards in the right places can really make a real difference on the over all look of the design even if only on the gate.

3A lack of total repetition helps - having three widths of pickets or more than one panel design creates variation and pleases the eye.

4Having the right type of fence for the right area even in the same yard.

5A fence can be like ahhh/beautiful and the Japanese fences are some of the best for that - a fence as an item of beauty or meditation.

6Having horizontal pickets can make a strong design statement in some cases.

7Having thinner pickets like 1" by 2" can look "rich" in detail if done the correct way.

8If you have the ways and means, a woven fence made of natural materials like dried branches, vines, bamboo or split bamboo is hard to beat for a unique design.