A fence can enhance your home’s aesthetic as well as provide enhanced privacy and security. Today, homeowners have many choices when it comes to fences that are both functional and attractive. Here are some tips for including an ornamental fence in your backyard designs in Oyster Bay, NY.
What’s an Ornamental Fence?
Aren’t all fences functional to some extent, meaning they aren’t purely ornamental? Yes, that is true. Even if their function isn’t to keep things in (or out), ornamental fences can be used to divide and define spaces, guide traffic, highlight a view, or add a touch of whimsy to your landscape.
Choose Your Look
The first place to start is by deciding whether you want an ornamental fence to be a feature or if you want it to use it to highlight another feature in your backyard design. For example, a glass fence can highlight a view, and a wrought-iron sculptural fence can become a view itself.
Know Your Setting
For best results, choose materials that complement your home’s aesthetic as well as existing landscape features. This can achieve the most unified look in your landscape.
Choose Your Materials
Next, determine which materials would work best to give you the look you’re after and match your home’s design aesthetic. Vinyl, wood, metal, and glass have very different characteristics.
Vinyl ornamental fences are durable and maintenance-free, but style choices are somewhat limited. The most popular vinyl fence styles include a Gothic picket fence (where the picket tops are arrow-shaped); French Gothic (slightly rounded and shaped picket tops); scalloped, which employs a gentle downward arc between fence posts for a softer look than if pickets were perfectly aligned across the top. Vinyl fences make delightful garden fences and are beautifully suited for beachfront, country cottage, or traditional homes.
Wood fencing can give you more design options and can be installed for less than vinyl fencing, but it does come at the cost of necessary regular maintenance including painting or sealing every couple of years. However, the warm look of wood can be desirable for rustic, country, or ultramodern homes. Wood slats can be oriented vertically or horizontally—with different effects—for a look that perfectly complements your home.
Metal fencing may give you the most artistic and style options. It also tends to be significantly more expensive than wood or vinyl fencing, and requires some maintenance if you want to maintain a pristine look. Wrought-iron fences enhance traditional or colonial homes, and they are also very common in ultramodern homes. However, traditional metal fencing such as wrought iron needs to be maintained (cleaned, painted and/or waxed) to prevent rust, which will quickly make a wrought-iron fence look shabby.
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By contrast, modern metal fencing embraces rust as part of the charm. Both traditional and modern metal fencing can be used as a backdrop for patio planters, as an outdoor “room” divider, as a garden fence and gate, or even as a backdrop for a fire feature.
Glass fencing tends to be used around pools and to provide unobstructed views. Today’s glass fencing is tempered for safety, and it is made to last a lifetime with proper care. As an ornamental features, glass could be the right choice for enclosing a sculpture or pond without blocking the view. Etched or frosted glass can be used anywhere you need privacy without making a space feel boxed in as other fences might do.
