How it was built
Eight feet is a different job to six
A standard residential fence is around six feet. Two more feet of board is a third more surface for the wind to push on, and every decision below follows from that.
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Layout and planning
The run was set out along the boundary before anything was dug — corners fixed, the line walked, and the ground looked at, because the ground is what decides how the fence has to step.
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Posts
The posts were set and the fence was built off them.
On an eight-foot fence the posts are the whole job. Boards are replaceable and cheap to put right. A post that was not set well enough takes the run either side of it with it, and by then the fence is standing on top of the mistake.
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Building the run
Roughly 170 linear feet of fence, built on site rather than assembled as pre-made panels, so the run follows the ground instead of leaving the gaps underneath that panels always leave on a slope.
One straight run, following the ground -
The top detail
The posts run on past the top board, capped, with taut horizontal wire strung between them along the whole length.
It carries the fence line higher than the solid boarding without putting up an unbroken wall of timber. From inside the garden the boundary reads as a line rather than a slab, and the trees behind it stay part of the view.
Capped posts and the wire top detail -
Finished black
The whole run was finished black. Against second-growth fir it more or less stops being a fence and starts being the edge of the trees, which is the point of taking it dark rather than leaving it as raw cedar.
