Modern Horizontal Vinyl Picket Fences, Built and Installed

What a horizontal picket is, and where privacy starts

A horizontal picket is the open version of the modern horizontal look: flat boards run side to side across the posts, with a clear gap of air between each one. Horizontal styles sit on a spectrum: a solid privacy panel closes the boards tight to block the view, a semi-privacy panel leaves a thin gap, and a picket sits at the open end, wide gaps with daylight and sightlines straight through.

That openness marks a boundary and lifts curb appeal without walling anything off. If you want a screen instead, that is a horizontal privacy or semi-privacy fence, which we also build. The full picket rundown and the exact gap between boards belong to vinyl picket fencing overall.

The woodgrain palette that makes horizontal read modern

Here is the real payoff for going horizontal: it opens a wood-look palette a plain white picket cannot carry. The flat picket comes in the full vinyl line. Standard solids cover White, Tan, Clay, and Slate Gray. Smooth Woodgrain is where the modern look lives, warm tones such as Coastal Cedar, Dark Walnut, and Weathered Aspen that read as real timber, and TimberGrain adds grain to the surface.

Every color is molded through the vinyl, so repainting never comes up, and painting it anyway would void the warranty. There is no black in the line; the deepest choices are Dark Walnut, Dark Sequoia, and Slate Gray.

Built to stay straight: long spans and the steel inside

A horizontal board spans the full distance from post to post, which is where a long low run can bow or sag if it is built light. That span is the one real engineering demand of horizontal, and it is where internal steel earns its keep: on the runs that call for it, a metal insert seats inside the rails and pickets to hold the line dead straight.

Each board is 7/8 by 3 inches, locked into 5 by 5 inch posts and 2 by 3.5 inch rails, with more boards stacked as the fence gets taller, and heights run 2 to 6 feet. The reinforcement goes only where the span needs it, so a short run stays simple while a long one gets the backbone it truly needs.

Where a horizontal picket fits, and where it does not

Horizontal reads modern, and it flatters low, wide, single-story fronts, mid-century lines, and clean facades. The honest limit is the trait that makes it handsome: an open picket gives you no privacy and will not screen a yard or hold a small pet, so if that is the need, a privacy or semi-privacy build is the right answer.

A vertical picket stands the same boards upright for the traditional look, so the choice there comes down to the direction of the boards. The dog-ear, arched, and scalloped styles reshape the top edge of the run rather than the direction of the boards, a separate branch of vinyl picket fencing.

Fabricated to your yard, installed, and gated to match

We build each run to your yard’s exact size, which is why the non-standard heights and smaller jobs other companies pass on often land with us. Every run gets a matching gate fabricated in the same color and finish, single, double, or rolling, on a metal frame under a vinyl skin; gates are not motorized, and you hear that before you sign. Vinyl will not rot, rust, or need paint, so upkeep is close to nothing.

City code caps how tall a front-yard fence can be, and that limit varies by city, so verify yours with your local building department; a spaced picket is not a pool barrier. Backing it are a transferable limited lifetime warranty on the vinyl and a 5-year workmanship warranty from us, plus Synchrony financing at zero down and a same-business-day estimate.

Grained or plain boards

Grain is the reason a horizontal run reads modern, and it arrives two ways: smooth grained tones, then the textured TimberGrain blends. Plain solids do the opposite job and let the boards recede into a fence line. Boards sit spaced, so what shows through the gaps counts as well.

• White

  

• Tan

  

• Clay

  

• Coastal Cedar

  

• Dark Walnut

  

• Dark Sequoia

  

• Weathered Aspen

  

• Mesquite

  

• Slate Gray

  

• Arctic Blend

  

• Brazilian Blend

  

• Sierra Blend

  

• Weathered Blend

  

The rest of the vinyl line

Horizontal boards turn up in more than one build. We run them full height for screening, pair a body tone with a contrasting frame when a job wants two, and match a gate to whatever gets set. Tell us the yard and we size it.