Hi,

I recently moved into a house that has no fence or driveway gate. I have two small kids (3 and 1) and we are thinking about fencing the front yard. We initially thought about getting a driveway gate in the middle of the driveway so backyard is contained. Now that we moved in, it seems like kids like to play in the front yard often too and ride bike in the driveway. We have only two cars and we usually park one on the street and one in the driveway. I like the idea of fencing the whole front yard to keep the kids off the street but I don't like the look of fence around the yard. It just seem very uninviting. We live in a very safe neighborhood and most of people don't have fence around their yard or driveway gate. What would be an option for me to keep the kids contained without building up a high fence? I know kids will climb the fence easily or figure out how to open it if they really want to get out. But they will be watched most of the time and I just don't want them to dash out to the street. I came to conclusion that we only have option of picket fence since I am not fond of look of iron gat. Then what color would be nice with my house? We also have hedge like shrubh that creates a nice barrier but it's not really at the edge of the front yard. If we are building fence, should we move the hedge closer to inside/outside of the fence? Do you think having little green outside of the fence will soften the look of stalk white fence?

So far I came up with option of

1. Build vinyl picket fence(white/beige/tan?) around the front yard not including the driveway + add driveway gate to close backyard + move hedge to outside of the fence
2. Build vinyl picket fence(white/beige/tan?) around the front yard including the driveway + driveway gate as part of fence + human gate(?) as part of fence + move hedge to outside of the fence
3. Plant hedge around the yard to create a barrier
4. Any other suggestions or ideas?

Also how do I go about getting this done? Do I call landscape person/vinyl fence person/general contractor? I saw HomeDepot sells picket fence, can it be done by us without help from pro?

Thanks!