Im no wood expert but i will tell you what i would do. Its a 20 year old fence, its amazing that its lasted this long. It is also pretty unique. I would probably power wash it and put a light stain on it, like you said, dark brown aint it. Between your home being freshened up by paint and the fence being cleaned up i think overall it will look much, much better and small imperfections that you are focused on now will disappear into the backround of the entire look. That my friend is my 2c. sometimes its hard because you want perfection, but a 20 year old fence will never give that to you. good luck

also. the color will most likely even out and lighten as the wood dries out. That old fence is probably soaking up the water.

Thank you, both for weighing in! Totally agree that a 20 year old fence cannot give us perfection. Also, we do know that this fence won't last forever, although it's in pretty good shape still. It has already been power washed, which already has changed the appearance consideraby.

I think we will take it down eventually, although i know that will be a hard sell with my husband. For now, I'm feeling that our instincts against going dark brown have been confirmed. I think we will let it age without doing anything else to it.....any stain, even transparent, will darken the wood considerably and bring out the orange, which we don't want. I think, M Riz, you may be right that the imperfections we see will recede once we get the area planted.

Any suggestions for getting the dark stain off? or is that something we have to live with, and just try to hide it with plants?

I'm including a "before" photo so you can see the fence before we cleaned it.

Rip the fence. Awful.

if it had NOT had been there when you moved in........would that fence have been your selection? Would any fence have been added? I doubt it. Low land scaping if you need a "barrier"

If you haven’t already, I would have the tree trunk that is going toward the house. To please hubby consider when time is right to rip out all the pickets and replace with updated look, easy DIY job.

Tree trunk going toward house removed.

Oh, I didnt see where she asked if she should just rip it out…. wait…she didnt. I am not privy to Marys current situation so I stick to answering the question. If I thought she should rip it out, I probably would have found a better way of suggesting it. Anyway, you could take the time to sand off the stain or find a pretty plant to put there. Sometimes husbands have to come to the replacement conclusion on their own. My husband has the opposite problem, he loves changing things.

White or remove it.

Painting would be a maintenance nightmare, Youre better off living with natural wood finish until you decide that you can replace it.

I have to agree either paint it white or remove it certainly not dark Not sure where you are plannng landscaping since it appears you have very little space for it. If you removed the fence then a bit of landscaping on your property would actually show IMO too much fence for such a small house What color are you painting the house? When you post a dilemma you always get info you can either heed or ignore but often others see things differently than you do. The fur your mentioned is from power washing and a light sanding would remove than before painting.

If you are set on staining, and keeping light, maybe its time to rethink the type of stain, and put on a solid color stain, in the color you really want.

Thanks to all. Yes, Patricia, I'm taking in all the suggestions. It's hard sometimes to be objective about things that we live with and have grown attached to. When we bought the house 6 years ago, one of the things we loved about the property were the unique fences and gates. But it IS a tiny front yard and does feel cramped to me with the fence there. So maybe it's time to start the conversation about removing it. Anything we do, staining or painting, will be a maintenance issue. We had a white painted picket fence on our last property and swore we'd never do it again.

Regarding the tree: Many of the plants, including the arbutus tree in the front yard, were planted long ago and have grown too big for the space. The tree probably never should have been planted in that space, but it's there now, and it's beautiful and it is thriving. If it starts to cause structural issues, we'll look at removal, but I think for now we will appreciate it's beautiful unique bark, the screen it provides from our living room window, the shade, the hummingbirds and butterflies it attracts.....

Thanks again to everyone for taking the time to give your input.

I'd do something fun and whimsical:

Get rid of it!! Your yard is so small!! Once you paint the house and landscape you will want to see it. Looks very cramped and old and certainly not worth the effort of painting, staining or whatever

The trees both need a really good trim as well. People are just suggesting removing the huge branch that looks like it could fall on your roof. Large trees on tiny lots require maintenance

I think it's an interesting design and I think it would look good painted white. If the arbutus cause some stains, keep some extra white paint aside and just dab it over. Although why bother - a white picket-style fence looks plastic -like if it's perfect.

Although I did like the look of the coloured fences shown above, and wonder if a pale sage green paint wouldn't look good.

Nope Partim it doesn’t

What color are you painting the house? I like the sage green paint idea or even a olive color. The tree does need the branch removed touching the house.