To paint my new fence purple?

[Ladysaurus]

I currently have two lovely fellas putting up a fence on top of my short garden walls out back. I'm excited for the privacy. It will need painting to protect it and extend its life. Given that being in a terrace means one face of the fence faces into a neighbours garden, would it be overly offensive to paint it either a pale lilac (I like rustoleum's lilac) or a deep purple (I like cuprinol's summer damson).

Unfortunately, there's not great neighbour relations so I'm not concerned about souring anything. But I also don't want to be completely 'that person'. I won't paint it brown or grey. I might consider a pale sage green if purple shades are considered really too offensive...

Wish I had known this years ago we're on the fence paint roundabout now lol

Painting a fence really doesn’t preserve it

If it were me, I would just treat it all in a neutral (so much easier, cheaper and quicker!!) and then just paint your side whatever colour you want. Painting both sides seems a bit unnecessary and sounds like a lot of hard work (with only 50% of the benefit - whilst also worsening relations with your neighbours).

Surely the wood has already been treated before it went up? You just need to paint your side whatever colour you want.

@FangsForTheMemory can I 'bagsy' you for my neighbour? Fences should be fence colour, not all colours of the Rainbow inflicted on neighbours.

Just read the thread through. OP it sounds like you're picking a fight here. Please don't be an asshole. What is there is gain from that? And what example is that to set to your kids?

I like brightly coloured things but id hate a purple fence and even more so if neighbours imposed it on to me. And how do you plan on painting it anyway, they'd need to let you on to their property.

I'd probably go for the clear preservative too, mainly because some of my climbers or tall plants are purple or pink and wouldn't show up well. Having said that, the lilac looks quite muted and inoffensive to me.

@BBNoM thanks for that heads up.

For those saying I should have painted before installation. I got professionals in to do it and they cut the timber to size as the went (an area of wall not in the picture was a funny shape).

My relationship with the neighbour is not as sour as some seem to think it is. I've simply had to tell them to back off a few times because they kept trespassing and also have a tendancy for begging stuff off me and it got too much, and they weren't happy about me saying 'no'. Whilst I would rather not make things worse I'm not looking to become besties. There's nothing wrong with cordial respect, which I try to be.

Those walls are lovely! I wonder if you'll have a bit too much going on if you paint the fence a colour, given how strong the colour of the brick is.

There is a new fence near us where one side has painted their side in a slapdash way, there are streaks of dark grey on the unpainted side where the brush has poked through between the boards.
It makes me sad to look at it, no matter who paid for the fence, the unpainted side looks awful.

Are you actually mad? You want to ask to go into your neighbours garden to paint your fence that they can see, purple? I have got that right?
They will say no. Or fuck off, who knows.

Just offer to do a clear wood preserver, it's the only way to treat all of the wood. As the colour will bleed through the slats. Which will look awful, whatever colour it is.

You could ask nicely to paint it with clear preserver, then when it's all dry very carefully paint just your side of the fence panels. Purple. Oh my days.

But hey, you are right, why have grey?!

I chose 2 different blues for our fence and bench etc
The lady next door immediately copied in the same colours!
bitch also bought the same pram as me, I was irate and took mine back

You can't paint a neighbours fence without their permission.
Equally you can't attach anything to it.

If the OP wanted to paint each fence slat a different colour on the neighbours side there's nothing the neighbours could do either.

I've seen plenty of posts on Mumsnet alone talking about how a neighbour has painted their side of the fence and it's showing through.

Yes, but your fence is not like the normal panel type of fence and it's that sort which suffers from dripping through the gaps. With yours, if it is painted with basic care, it won't.

Don’t be daft. Of course there is. They can prevent her accessing their garden, which she can’t do without their permission. What do you think you can just wander round yer neighbours and paint the fence as you fancy and they need to sit their on their deck watching you 😂😂😂

Your fence should be pressure treated meaning you don't actually need to paint it to preserve it. You paint it cos you want a different colour.

If you didn't buy a pressure treated fence then well yes you will have to

Lovely fence OP....and wall, hopefully not a party wall or you'd have needed neighbours permission to put the fence up.

Am I being really dense or something? How on earth are you going to paint the neighbours side of the fence without their permission? I need to know what your strategy here is OP, I’m confused.

Isn’t it up to your neighbour what colour they paint the side on their garden? Will they even grant you access to paint it?

Read the quote I was replying to where someone wrote "it doesn't work like that" in answer to the OP owning said fence.

Neighbours or anyone else's for that matter, can't paint a fence that doesn't belong to them without permission from the fence owning neighbour.🙄🙄🙄

You’d have to ask them to paint their side now as you’ll need access to their property right? So they can refuse if they don’t want it purple? Honestly I wouldn’t be happy with one purple fence in my garden. I’d just take the chance of it bleeding through and if it did paint it a colour I liked. I don’t think you can stop them doing that op even if you paid for it, they have to look at it.

Only if they own the fence. Which they don’t op does. Legally is criminal damage to paint or attach anything to it without the owners permission.

@UndermyShoeJoe thats fair enough, but unless OP gets permission to be on neighbours land she can’t access their side of the fence so surely it’s much easier to agree to them painting it themselves?

As said before if it’s not treated already the neighbors can just do nothing, not allow access or put up their own fence to block the OP’s and let nature rot it naturally.

At this point the OP has unfortunately painted herself into a corner (pun intended) and needs to compromise with her neighbors.

I've got the same fence but without the walls, been up 10 years and I've never painted it😬didn't realise you had to as wood is pressure treated. It's aged kind of silvery and still going strong......guess too late to worry about it now. 😳

Exactly, thr whole thing is moot. It’s best she agrees a colour, as if they don’t want it painted purple their side . It ain’t being painted purple. They can just tell her to fuck off. And if she tries to force entry and paint they can call the police on her, she can’t even over hang into their air space.

literally she can only pain their side if they give permission.