Dog-Ear & Dowel Fence Co. · Picket & garden fencing · Grangeville & Tallow Creek · Since 1962
The picket fence, still the friendliest thing a house can wear.
Three generations cutting, priming and hanging pickets the slow way: cedar boards kiln-dried and primed on all four sides, posts in concrete below frost, and every gate tuned twice before we call it done. Grangeville and Tallow Creek, since 1962.
Every line signed & dated on the last picket · (555) 836-4719 · shop@dogearanddowel.example
The shop on Grange Green
Sixty-four years of the same address
Aldous Dowel started cutting pickets in the back of a hardware store in 1962, priming every board on all four sides because the edges are where rot starts. His granddaughter runs the saw now. The pickets are still cut in-house, still primed on all four sides, and still hung by a two-person crew that finishes what it starts.
A fence built right is the one thing on a property that gets friendlier with age.
What we do
The picket lines we cut
Dog-ear cedar picket — from $26/ln ft
The classic: 1×4 cedar pickets, kiln-dried and primed on all four sides — yes, the edges; that is where rot starts — on three rails with posts at 8-foot centres in concrete below the Grangeville frost line. Spaced to show the garden or butted for privacy, priced off the same walk.
Gothic & French gothic — from $29/ln ft
The pointed profiles the historic districts ask for, cut in-house and milled to the pattern your block already speaks. If the committee has opinions, we have usually built the fence they are thinking of — and we will bring the photograph that proved it.
Board-on-board & garden lines — from $38/ln ft
Privacy that breathes: board-on-board cedar with a trim cap, and short garden lines with gates wide enough for the wheelbarrow. The fence the roses get photographed against, which is a real line item in Tallow Creek and we price it gladly.
Services & rates
The price list, plain
Per running foot, installed, posts in concrete below frost and priming included. Our 1962 ledger is in the shop window — the arithmetic has not changed as much as you would think.
Dog-ear cedar picket, 4 ftfrom $26/ln ft
primed on all four sides, 3 rails
Gothic / French gothic, 4 ftfrom $29/ln ft
cut in-house to the block pattern
Board-on-board privacy, 6 ftfrom $38/ln ft
trim cap & post caps included
Garden line & wheelbarrow gatefrom $41/ln ft
the rose fence
Walk gate, 3 ft cedarfrom $690
hung, latched and tuned twice
Double drive gate, 12 ftfrom $2,700
welded-hinge, adjustable latch
Grangeville · Tallow Creek · 2026
From this spring’s book
Six lines photographed at handover, each with the last picket signed and dated. The book at the counter goes back to 1962 — ask for the one nearest your street.
The same four stages since 1962
How a picket line goes up
Slower than vinyl, straighter than most, and tuned twice — once the day it hangs, once a month later when the cedar has decided where it lives.
The walk & the pattern
We walk the line, match the picket profile to the block, and write the quote on the tailgate — fixed for sixty days, priming and posts to frost inside the number.
Posts & rails
Augered to 42 inches in concrete, rails crowned so the water runs off, and the whole line strung dead level before a picket is cut.
Pickets, primed
Cut in-house, primed on all four sides, spaced by eye to a pencil width and checked every tenth picket by level. The painter comes behind the hanger, never ahead of them.
The gate, tuned twice
Hung on welded hinges, tuned that day and tuned again a month later — free. Then the last picket comes off, gets signed and dated, and goes back on.
Proof
Signed on the last picket
Three from this spring’s thank-you notes — the notes live in the ledger with the dates.
The historic committee approved our gothic line at the first meeting because Dog-Ear & Dowel brought photographs of three fences on our own street they had built in the eighties. The pattern matches to the point of the picket.
Nine winters on the garden gate and it still swings with one finger — they came back after the first month exactly as promised, tightened the latch, and the pencil mark they left for the gate sag is still accurate.
They primed the pickets on all four sides and my painter friend stopped his truck to watch them hang. Two neighbours on this street have since copied the fence, and both used them. It is the friendliest thing our house wears.
Dog-Ear & Dowel Fence Co. · Lic. #RC-2207 · 15-year workmanship warranty, transferable · shop@dogearanddowel.example · 1 Grange Green, Grangeville
Asked over the counter
Do you paint or stain the finished line?
We prime every picket before it hangs and leave the finish coat to you or your painter — cedar primed on all four sides holds paint for a decade, and every painter in this county knows our lines are ready for them the day we leave.
Will the historic district approve your pickets?
Almost always, and usually at the first meeting: we mill to the pattern the district already knows because we cut the originals half of it is matching. We bring photographs of our own lines on your street to the hearing.
Picket or full privacy — what does this yard want?
A picket line says good morning; board-on-board says go away. Both are cedar, both are priced off the same walk, and the honest answer depends on what is behind the fence more than what is in front of it.
How long does a cedar picket fence last?
Thirty years and more when the priming was honest and the posts went below frost — our 1979 lines around Grangeville are the proof, and we will walk you past one. The fifteen-year workmanship warranty is transferable when the house sells.
Get the walk and the price list.
Call the shop or send the address — the quote is written the day we walk it, fixed for sixty days, and the priming is already inside the number. Grangeville, Tallow Creek and the parish roads between.