Cedar Fences

Cedar is the default here for a reason. It holds up to heat, it moves less than pine, and it takes stain instead of fighting it. What separates a fence that lasts from one that doesn't isn't the picket anyway. It's what's underground.

Posts are the whole job. Set too shallow, set in dirt instead of concrete, or set in wood that rots on contact with soil, and the fence is on a countdown from the day it goes up. Everything above the ground is trim.

Style is the easy part. Board-on-board overlaps the pickets so you keep privacy as the wood moves. Horizontal reads modern and needs more structure behind it, because a horizontal run has nowhere to hide a lazy frame. Cap-and-trim finishes the top and takes the raw edge off the skyline.

Then there's the line itself. Lots here are rarely flat, and a fence built straight across a grade leaves gaps at the bottom or steps that look like an accident. Racking the panels to follow the ground is slower and it's the difference between a fence that fits the yard and one that sits on it.

The part that fails is the part you can't see. Buy that part.