Scalloped Vinyl Picket Fences, Custom-Cut and Installed

A scalloped top, and how the scoop is cut

A scalloped picket top curves downward, dropping to its lowest across the middle and rising to full height at the posts. Each picket stands under its own cap; the scoop comes from their stepped heights.

The boards run tall at the posts and are cut shorter toward the center, so the capped line eases into a soft dip. The Langford panel runs ten 7/8 by 3 inch boards under 0.875 by 3 inch dog-ear caps, over each 69 inch section. Picket basics and board spacing are common to every vinyl picket fence.

Why a scalloped top softens a picket line

A scalloped top is the soft, decorative pick: the scoop tends to read storybook and cottage-garden, a gentle curve where a flat or formal top stands stiff. It flatters a flower border, a front walk, or a garden gate, where charm beats a hard edge. It is the clean contrast to its mirror: an arched top climbs to a formal crown and reads grand, while a scalloped top curves down and eases, so the same white pickets usually feel relaxed.

Scalloped, arched, or a level top: which is which?

Scalloped is a run-line curve: the whole top line scoops down to a low middle, then climbs back to the posts. Arched is its exact mirror, flipped to rise to a high center. Dog-ear names a cap, not a cut. Our scalloped panels carry that same cap, fitted to exposed picket tops, and the line stays level when every picket runs the same length.

Other cap styles fit that picket too, so we can set a different one. Closed-top needs no caps, since a top rail crosses the picket tops and closes them off. Which way the boards face is a separate question, answered by the vertical and horizontal picket styles.

Top look	How it’s formed	Line across the run
Scalloped	Pickets graduated in height	Scoops to a low middle
Arched	Pickets graduated in height	Rises to a high middle
Dog-ear	Caps fitted to equal-length pickets	Stays level
Closed-top	Tops closed off by a rail	Stays level

Open by design, and the ‘scalloped privacy’ mix-up

A scalloped picket is spaced and open. The scoop only shapes the top line, so the gaps carry the view, and the low center opens it a touch more. Worth clearing up: a search for ‘scalloped’ also pulls tall, solid screens wearing a scalloped crown, the scalloped-privacy panels, plus scallop gates.

Those are a separate build. Want a private screen with a scalloped top? That is a privacy fence we make as its own project, not this open picket. And a ‘reverse scallop’ curves up at the center, the arched look.

The posts set the height; the scallop dips below

On a scalloped run the posts are the high points and the center the low one, so a front-yard height cap is measured at the posts, not down in the dip. Where a 42-inch front-yard cap applies, the post height is what must clear it.

The Langford scallops stand 3.5 and 4 feet; the governing cap is your city’s, so we mark it on the contract up front, and your city sets the final figure. At that height a spaced scalloped picket already runs below California’s 60 inch pool-barrier line, well short of a legal pool fence.

Cut to your run, gated and warranted to match

Because every scalloped run is cut for one yard, the awkward heights, tricky lines, and small jobs others pass up land on the bench. Langford stands 3.5 and 4 feet off the shelf, with taller and custom heights built to order. Where a scallop panel needs extra backbone, a metal insert rides inside the bottom rail: the Clay and Tan builds carry it, the White panels go without.

The gate matches, shaped to the same scoop and color, framed in metal under vinyl, taken as a single, double, or rolling unit, always hand-worked, never powered. Price follows the run’s size, its height, the color, and any gates, so the scallop is one factor in a free, on-site quote. The vinyl itself gets a transferable limited lifetime warranty; separately, a 5-year workmanship warranty covers the labor.

A scoop, three colors

The dip drops low mid-bay and lifts at each post, so the backdrop shows most where the panel falls away. Test a tone against that backdrop, a hedge, a lawn, a stucco wall, rather than against the front of the house. Two swatches on the ground settle it fast.

• White

  

• Tan

  

• Clay

  

Other work from the same shop

The same low, decorative line can be made in metal. Our aluminum runs from short garden heights up to 12 ft on a driveway leaf, made to order, and the same crews set it. Say what the yard has to do and we build to it.