33 Wood Fence Ideas with Pictures to Inspire your Front and Backyard

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Ok, so wooden fences can add a certain amount of charm and a rustic look to your yard, but let’s face it there so much more than this. The wooden fence has seen a big return in the last few years.

A wooden fence can be seen in suburban yards all the ways to country back roads, they separate property lines they can even be used for penning livestock. Apart from the stranded wooden fence, there are lots of wood fence ideas that you should consider.

A lot of people think “Wooden fence” how boring!” But with the rise of the internet and people coming up with many different ideas people have started to experiment with wooden fences, transforming them from boring to stand out brilliance.

With design change so has the materials, when you talk about wood, all wood is not created equal. So you have aged, weathered, barn, reclaimed and many other types, there are many different ways to incorporate the wood you have or can get into a creative wooden fence. No matter what you have to have there are loads of ways that you can make your fence so much different and your very own unique design.

A lot of fences are used to be practical rather than their looks, but others are all about the look, so they complement their yard and adding a look they want that will not be able to achieve with something like a chain link fence witch is more a practical fence that a good looking one.

Some fences are tall and have no gaps to give maximum privacy to your yard and the added benefit of extra security were others go with something like an offset post design the give partial viewing thought the fence. The other will build a fence that will stand all-weather conditions and still be stood in years to come with the emphasis being on longevity.

As you can see above there are many different ways to approach your wooden fence build, the amount of option on hand can feel overwhelming.

The best advice I can give you is taking a breath and think of what your end goal is with your fence that you are planning. The first thing you should think about is your budget, and then what’s the size of your yard that you want to fence. With this right in your mind, you will be much better placed on choosing what look that you want to achieve and what is its main purpose functionality or aesthetics.

You may choose to get a builder in to construct your fence for you, but I must say if you were to tackle one fence to erect the wooden fence is got to be the easiest to carry out. Below we will cover 50 fence ideas that will hopefully get your designer juices flowing, some may be out of your price range or way beyond your skill level but this doesn’t stop us looking at them for ideas and inspiration.   

Excellent wood fence ideas for your front or back yard

Classic Wood Beam Fence

Classic Wood Beam Fence

Let us start of the wood fences of a classic it is used around the world to mark boundaries to pen in animals. It has a countryside appeal that would suit a cabin home or if you’re in the mountains, it has a multitude of uses like keeping animals pend in to stop them from wandering away. One of the biggest advantages is that it if a fast fence to erect so if you have a large area to cover this will be able to install quickly.   

Wood Wall Fence

Wood Wall Fence

A fence that is more common in urban areas where privacy is the main objective, it’s a fairly simple design with wooden posts into the ground and cross members running horizontally to the posts allowing you attached wood to give you a wooden wall.

Mostly used for privacy but doesn’t mean they have to be plain and boring a simple paint of color or multi-color can bring some real character to the garden witch you will see in the coming pictures this one was to show the simple design. 

Up Down and Around

Up Down and Around

You can get these posts in a multitude of heights so this design on fence can lend its self to the privacy category but normally is used as a low height to bring some character to a yard, The different heights has little practical functionality but is unique and will set your fence apart from a boring wood wall. This little change of changing the height will have a great impact on your design and it takes little effort.

Funky Pencil Up and Down

Funky Pencil Up and Down fence

This one takes the Up and down feature we have just seen and gone one better with this funky look shaping the ends to have a pencil shape with the added splash of color gives a fantastic look, a design where the right setting is a must but if the right place this will look cool. 

Up and Down with Character

Up and Down with Character Fence

Now we are looking at up and down fences with a little character, the pencil design may just be too wacky for your yard but how about carving the tops of each plank of wood to bring your fence to life. There is no paint on this one and I would normally feel it looks a little dull but not hear how cool, he is easily achieved with a jigsaw cutter and a steady hand.

Little Picket Fence

Little Picket Fence

A little nostalgic throwback to those glory days, a little picket fence with a lovely lush green lawn can give off a real nostalgic appeal. With an older house, it can set a theme and give the house a look of its historical roots.

Lining a Walkway

Lining a Walkway fence

Fences down always have to be to enclose your yard they can be used like in this case to line a walkway into another part of your yard, a simple design but bringing a rich look with the decals on the top of the posts.

Feather Edge Done For You

Feather Edge Done For You fence

Maybe not the nicest wooden fence that you will come across but these done for you ready-made fence panels are becoming common in DIY stores, Fast to erect nails and a hammer is all you will need if you have a frame to attach them to and you have a fully built fence paint will be your only ways to create character with this fence.

Lets Bamboo Fence It

Lets Bamboo Fence It

If you have tropical and exotic plants in your yard a perfect complementing fence would be a bamboo fence. Bamboo will transform any yard and would be out of place but with matching plants it would look 100% better.

Reclaimed Fence

Reclaimed Fence

When people think fences 99.9% of the time they think brand new wood but sometimes with design it’s about thinking outside the box, using old reclaimed wood like this can bring character, flare and complete uniqueness to any garden but you must be careful not to overuse as it can very early look overpaying and cheap.

Wood Beam with a Twist

We have all seen wood beam fences and they can look a little boring but in certain circumstances, they just have to be used, but using round posts and attaching some horizontal beams to your cross members can break up the boring look, they will also give added support.

Contrasting Fence

This very elegant white fence is a simple design but adding the slope to your wood panels and the decals to the post give of a stylish look, but the bright white paint on the background of green makes it pop. A contrasting color doesn’t always work but you can always try it out on a small section of the fence before doing the whole yard. 

Textured Gap Wood

Textured Gap Wood

Finding wood that has texture can really break the fence up and make it less harsh on the eyes, also giving the fence gaps like this allows you to see the other side but can still fit a purpose of let’s say keeping animals in.

Wavy Fence

Again an up and down fence this time in waves so an actual paten, again they have gone with the contrasting color of white with the green background of the trees. Adding some features to the tops of your posts like this can change the look of any fence even a pre-existing fence.

Picket with a Point

Picket with a Point

A simple picket fence here and looks like only one objective here and that’s to keep animals on one side of the yard and not the other if you look through the fence you can see chain link fencing that gives me this impression but I could be completely wrong and they just like the pointy fence.

Tree Branch Fence

Tree Branch Fence

This one may be for more rural areas or someone looking to achieve that look, vertical post and nailing tree branches to them gives a great look here they are all nice and straight but using bent branches would give it even more of a unique look. It’s also a great design to use for when you want to keep animals at bay it also has the added benefit that it’s cheap.

Wood Wall Surround

Again here we have a very simple design but a simple design feature that makes it looks cool and different, painting the supports a contrasting color in the case black it brings out the browns in the wood and gives a really neat look. There is no real extra expensive been used here other than some black paint and in any project, the paint is more than likely to be the cheapest element.

Reclaimed Picket Fence

Using old wood in the right place will be fine and can give a cool look. Here we have a wild garden that is needed to be kept back out of the main yard and a simple picket fence made with reclaimed wood gives a nice look and fits its purpose of keeping the wildflowers out.

Keep it Simple

Keep it Simple fence

At times keeping it simple is the best solution and in the case, I feel it is, you already have a fence, in reality, the large well-kept bush is your fence but edging it with this very simple fence not only looks nice it can help you keep an eye on how the bushes are growth to keep it trimmed, so any growth beyond this fence you cut back.

Wavy Lap Fence

When privacy is your real goal in planning a fence you can’t go wrong with wavy lap wood, you nail this stuff to a wooden frame. Overlapping it gives complete privacy to both sides of your yard there is a little character in the wood with its shape but adding a little paint will help in making it look better.

Green Fence

Green Fence

This one is more about the color than the fence itself, people tend to shy away from different colors but as you can see here a green fence doesn’t have to look loud the key is to pick a light shade nothing too bright. Be brave with a color choice and you may just be the new trendsetting in your neighborhood. 

Cool Reclaimed Fence

This is a complete mix of all different types of reclaimed wood and just shows that anything can work, looking you have old reclaimed trees for the fences support structure and then a lot of different lengths of wood for the fence, shaping the top to give an even more unique look to this already unique fence.    

Red Picket Fence

Again this fence is more about the color than the actual fence a wall of green behind normally calls for white paint but this person has been brave and gone with a deep red and I must say I like the look and shows that there is on a one size fits all solution. I will always say this when going with something different try it on a small section of the fence before covering it all and then having to repaint it if you don’t like it.

Checkered Fence

Checkered Fence

Using wood and changing the way you attach it can make a big difference in the overall look of a fence, where they have opted to cross the wood over giving a checkered look rather than going with the simple up and down look. It’s a simple design to carry out but one people don’t think of but can give a really unique look.

Blue Heaven Fence

Blue Heaven Fence

Not one for the faint-hearted this one, blue is not a color that you would first put onto a fence but used sparing can give off a great look as displayed here. I would personally go with this around hedging or something small this isn’t a color I would paint a large fence in my yard. Also putting this on an old fence may not look great a clean smooth wood would carry this color of much better like in the picture.

Don’t Hide the View

Don’t Hide the View

Again this one is a little less about the fence and more about the actual construction on the fence, if you look here rather than nailing the cross members to the support post they have made holes in the supports to put the cross members into this will give a much stronger construction in most cases.

Wire Wood Picket

Wire Wood Picket

You can buy this wooden fence in large rolls this is normally used to keep animals in or to mark a boundary, placing support posts every so many meters you then simply roll the fence out and nail the wire to the support with u shaped nails. This is a fence that can be erected very fast and when the design is not in your mind the added benefit is that it also a very cheap fence.

A Fence that Hides

A Fence that Hides

A lovely white fence with planters built into it and I must say a perfect flower combination with the tulips the white makes them stand out. However, look through the fence and you will see some ugly garbage bins there very hard to see but that is what I like about this design you have your eye taken away from them with the flowers. The closeness of the fence panels also makes it hard to see the garbage bins but with the gaps, you have a much more feeling of space when light shines through.

Clean plus Rustic

Clean plus Rustic fence

A lovely well-manicured lawn can be made to look poor by a shoddy fence, here they have used reclaimed old wood witch at times can be hard to get right, they have made a wood wall out of the reclaimed wood and made it look great. Giving the wood a quick whitewash has allowed the characteristics of the wood to remain but helped make your lawn look super green.

Strong Construction

When a fence is built to take all comers then you need to get the design right more than the look, sturdy support posts with cross member beams. But unlike a lot of fences that just board one side if you look here both sides have been boarded this gives a really strong construction. They have got a strong fence and a cool design all combined into one they have done well here.

Crisscross Fence

Crisscross Fence

We have already had a fence like this I know but this is to show how they can allow your shrubs and flowers to grow thought and be part of the fence. Over time the fence will be lost to the bushes and flowers if you allow but it can give a great look. You can grow less in little sections to still show the fence and this can also look really nice you just have to let your imagination see the final result.

Playing with Paint

Playing with Paint

Again the right yard and circumstances need to be in place here but playing with color can change a boring fence into something special. Don’t forget that if you are going down this route then you will need outdoor paint to get the best look and for it to last the test of time.

Conclusion on Fences

33 wooden fences to get your creative juices flowing, I hope that you found these designs inspirational and you can’t be stopped in designing and crafting your very own fence for your yard.

So I will put some key takeaways that I think will help you when you come to plan your fence the first thing you are going to want to work out is your budget and this will make everything else easy to work from, then you want to work out the type of fence you will need will it be to look nice or privacy getting this information now will help you down the line on design.

Once these two key points are covered you will move onto your design of the fence, this is the fun part of any fence project picking color and the final look that’s what we all want to move onto but doing the first two-point is key. Make some drawing of how you want the fence to look no one’s going to judge if you can’t draw brilliantly well it’s just to give yourself an idea of the final look. 

Don’t be afraid to change your mind on the color choice of your fence if you start to paint it and don’t like it stop and have a think, some paints when first painted look different from there dried color so let it dry then reassess if you like the color, it is best painting a little section letting it dry and reassessing. Trust me I have painted my whole yard and not liked the dried color it’s painful.

The same can be said about the way you will apply the fence if you planned to go straight up and down but on fixing the boards change your mind and go with a crisscross this is fine just sample one section see if you like it and then apply it to all the fence.

So there you have it, have some great fun doing your fence and I hope I have been able to help you make some key designs that you will be happy with for years to come.a