Choosing Suitable Fence Styles

People love their fences. There's just something so very cozy about the way they screen your home from the world outside. When you decide to build a fence around your home, the effect you wish to achieve will largely determine the fence styles you will end up considering. If you look around, it probably becomes apparent that fences come built in all kinds of materials - wood, stone, concrete, vinyl, plastic, and even fabric. To make your mind up about the style and type of fence that you will build, you probably want to first determine the size of the space you wish to fence off and think about the amount of privacy you wish your new fence to afford you.

Certainly, you will need to check with your local authorities to know about what zoning laws there are that you need to pay heed to before you make your choice among the fence styles that are available to you. In some neighborhoods, zoning laws require that you not construct a fence that is any higher than a prescribed limit. Once you have made certain of what you're allowed, you could try out different kinds of fencing configurations on your own with makeshift materials - you could try using drop cloths of the kind painters use, or use a series of flower pots or something. You see, fences don't need to really hug the borders of your property. It could be a cute way to build a fence to give it curves and design little nooks in them.

Using wood in your design gives you quite a bit of choice. Wood can be layered and stacked in all kinds of ways for different fence styles. Do you remember the fence in the show Home Improvement that Tim and his neighbor Wilson talk over? That fence did a pretty good job making sure no one ever saw anything of Wilson but the top of his head. A fence made of a series of 6 foot planks set close together would make for an admirable barrier for privacy. Sometimes, people don't realize that a fence like that does more than merely offer privacy. It offers itself as a barrier against noise from the outside and strong winds, too. If your zoning laws allow fence styles that are higher than that, you'll probably need to build a fence on top of a block wall at the base.

But these are terribly straightforward and rustic fence styles. If you wish to create something that is a bit more creative-looking, you could try fashioning a fence of thin strips of wood woven together crisscrossed. Another popular design involves using rough hewn posts together with smoothly finished machined planks. The rough hewn posts are placed at six-foot intervals, and the smooth planks go into space between them. Certain fence styles allow climbing plants a lot of support, and allow for a beautiful natural look. For a fence that creeping or climbing plants would love, try using cedar lattice panels. If you enjoy having a breeze come through your fence, using this style would be great for that.

Using other materials can allow you new kinds of fence styles as well. Vinyl for instance, can be really low maintenance. You could try weaving vinyl strips through a chain-link fence for a really pretty effect all around. Perhaps natural plant-based fences are the prettiest kind of all. If you have local zoning laws interfering with how high you want your fence, using trees or flowering hedges are a great workaround.