Privacy fence styles, seen from both sides of the line

The full-privacy builds: solid and board-on-board

Solid privacy is the default: boards butted edge to edge on one face of the frame. Full block on day one, but cedar boards shrink as they dry, and by the second summer thin sight gaps open between them. It also has a good side and a frame side, so someone gets the view of rails and posts, a detail worth settling with the neighbor before the build.

Board-on-board overlaps each board on its neighbors, so shrinkage happens behind an overlap instead of opening a gap. Privacy stays total for the life of the boards, the shadow lines give the face some depth, and it reads as the more finished fence. It uses meaningfully more lumber, which is what you are paying for. Both builds are bread and butter for our cedar fence installation crews, and both come in vinyl versions where gaps never open at all.

The shared-line builds: good-neighbor, lattice-top, horizontal slat

Good-neighbor, often called shadowbox, alternates boards on both faces of the rails. Each side sees the same finished fence, which ends the good-side argument, and straight-on privacy is solid. Stand at an angle, though, and the alternating gaps open a sliver of view; from a neighbor's upstairs window it is a screen, not a wall.

Lattice-top puts a foot or so of lattice above a solid lower section. You keep privacy at eye level, gain light and a view of the trees, and soften the wall effect on a small patio. The lattice counts toward your total height in every city we work in, a detail our permit rules guide covers city by city.

Horizontal slat runs spaced boards flat, reads modern, and looks identical from both sides. Its privacy is honest but partial: the tighter the gap, the more it blocks, and it never blocks everything.

Side by side

Relative cost only, because footage, height, and terrain move every real number more than style does.

Read the wind column twice if you live east of the airport. Out there it decides more fences than the privacy column does.

Wind is the tiebreaker east of I-205

A solid 6 foot panel takes the full push of every gust and hands it to the posts, which is fine in a sheltered inner-metro yard and a genuine engineering question out toward the Gorge. East of I-205, and especially in the east-wind funnel around Troutdale and Camas, we have replaced plenty of solid fences that a good-neighbor build would have shrugged off, because spaced styles bleed a share of the wind through their gaps instead of catching all of it.

That doesn't mean solid privacy is off the menu in the wind zone. It means the build changes: posts on tighter centers, deeper footings, sometimes steel posts behind cedar boards. If your heart is set on total privacy out there, we build for the wind and price it honestly rather than talking you out of it.

Cost order, and what fits a tight lot

From least to most, the usual order runs: solid privacy, then good-neighbor, then lattice-top, then board-on-board, with horizontal slat at the top because it wants premium straight boards, closer post spacing, and more fastening time. Where each lands for you depends on height and footage, so treat the order as the map and the written estimate as the survey.

On tight lots where both households look at the fence every day, the choice narrows fast. Good-neighbor and horizontal slat present the same face to both sides in wood; vinyl privacy panels settle the question another way, since front and back are identical panels out of the same mold. What we steer people away from is putting the frame side toward a neighbor unannounced. The fence lasts decades; so does the conversation about it.