This old garden fence in Germantown, TN needed a little help. Most of the planks (horizontal wood boards) were rotted on the top. Nail holes had expanded about 5x in size. There wasn’t much to nail the wooden pickets to. As you can see by the below pictures, the paint was peeling bad, too.
Gettin’ Garden Fencing Material.
The homeowner wanted me to save as many arrow pickets as I could. I couldn’t blame her. Wood ain’t cheap these days. After taking the fencing down, I decided 8 of the pickets were beyond repair. Finding these custom pickets was a lot harder than I thought. Apparently, stores don’t sell them individually. I had to buy an 8′ prebuilt fence row.
I could’ve gone to one of my go-to lumberyards. But nothing was close. It’s crazy how stuff is tailored to “first time tryings” and DIYers at hardware stores today. The big box brands just take advantage of people. No offense to aspiring “doers”. I’m just sayin’ mane. $40 for some 2×2″ and pickets is a ripoff.
Constructing the Curved Fence.
Telling the homeowner how much something costs is always tough. But we were both happy I was going to be able to rebuild it quickly. Since the posts were in good shape, and anchored to the brick, I decided to leave them be. The bolts needed to be tightened a bit, but the wood was in pretty good shape.
The Picket Fencing Focal Point.
Making the most visible part of the fencing look great my immediate goal. The pictures don’t really show it (on purpose haha), but the left side of the brick trim arches upward. Building this front facing (side entry) corner straight was important to me. In other words, I probably spent more time on this job than I had to.
At the same time, this section set my level. I was also re-using posts. The remainder of the fence needed to be able to carry the height of both planks. In short, simple carpentry can still be mentally taxing. Once this straight of garden picket fence was level, the rest was a breeze.
What Was One Thing I Underestimated?
The hard part came with the painting. I was initially hoping to be able to save all of the pickets and only paint the plants. However, there was a lag with finding paint that drug into the next day. So instead of waiting to paint before construction, I decided to build the fence. In turn, it took a bit longer to paint the dang thing.
What I Liked About the Garden Picket Fence.
I think the cool thing about this fence was its zag. That might sound silly but I didn’t know how else to describe it. The architecture of the backyard is great and having a sharp garden picket fence to decorate the space does wonders. Hopefully, with all of the photos I post, you’re able to see the difference.
Although it wasn’t in the original plans, a fresh coat of forest green throughout was a nice touch. Especially for the price. It’s always great helping out good people though. Appreciation goes a long way.
The project took about 3 days. It would’ve been 2 had we not run into paint-matching-problems ands a little rain.
