New Picket Fence Spruces Up Our Yard and Garden for Summer 2020

A Do-It-Yourself, New Picket Fence Install 

in East Hampton, Long Island

newly installed, but not painted yet

our sagaponack-style cottage in East Hampton

All this week the birds have been chirping in a sing-song chorus around our property in the East End of Long Island.  Our pergola is boasting blooming Wisteria, and promising that summer is only a few weeks away. Nature is causing quite a stir and it suddenly feels like the area is coming alive again after a long, cold and troublesome season. This year, it feels therapeutic to spend time working in the yard and garden, but there is real work to be done in our patio, pool, garden and our fencing is in need of a little repair.  We know that in just a few short weeks, the pool and beaches will be open and summer will be in full bloom. We have been busy planting our patio garden of flowers and herbs (keeping them safely away from the encroaching deer) and next we will add a few deer-proof shrubs and ground covers.  Along with the grooming of our lawn and gardening comes our annual yard clean up which is quite a feat.  This year, my husband and son took on a long-needed project to replace some of the aging and rotted picket and stockade fence around our property.  

father and son do it yourself project

They immediately noticed that the entire fencing did not need to be replaced, only select segments which may have been in the line of the sprinkler system over the years and wore down the wood over time.  To save on the cost of fencing panels, they embarked on this as a Do-It-Yourself project rather than hiring a professional.  After a few trips to the local lumber yard, they quickly learned on-the-job how to replace picket and stockade fence. They shopped around for pricing then measured and ordered all the fencing they needed, and had it delivered.  Once installed, they painted all of the fencing a nice, gleaming white. 

We immediately noticed there is a plethora of materials to choose from when purchasing fencing but for us wood feels right and we want to keep it consistent with what we have already. I personally like pre-treated wood because it offers sustainability, and it's important to note we originally put this picket fence in over twenty years ago. To make it all look pretty, we stayed with the same style fence post cap which works with our traditional Sagaponack cottage-style home of cedar shingles, a typical architecture style seen in the Hamptons. The wood is definitely more high-maintenance and needs to be painted over time, while the PVC or vinyl panels require only a simple wiping down year to year in order to to keep it in good shape.  In addition to the picket, they also replaced the stockade fence (then painted it white). The stockade is closer together and taller and provides more privacy. 

Of course they began by treating the area with weed killer, and they even needed to remove a small tree that was weighing the fence down.  I am in awe that they were able to do this without the help of a professional, but they asked for lots of advice, read up on how to install a picket fence and even watched Youtube videos to walk them through the process. It is surprising that installing your own fence can be pretty straightforward, however it certainly takes the manual labor of two people to get the job done.  They did their homework beforehand though, and made certain to choose and order the same picket style of fencing in the same height as the ones we already have to assure it all matched when in place. Luckily, in this particular project they did not need to dig many holes since they were simply replacing panels of fence and the posts remained in tact.  Otherwise, they would have had to dig a hole for each post at least 2 feet wide and three times the size of the post to allow enough room to hammer them in place.  They found it fairly easy to take the rotting segments of fencing off that needed replacement and add the new ones, which fit like a charm.  The fence posts are integral to the fencing as they are cemented into the ground.  They also replaced two gates on either side of the house between the picket, and now we all agree the fence feels brand new. We are summer-ready with our freshly painted picket fence. 

Happy Nesting

XO Tamara