Building a fence is straightforward. Building a fence that nobody makes you move is a paperwork problem, and it's worth solving before anyone digs a hole.
Know where your line actually is. The fence you can see is not evidence of a property line. Old fences drift, and previous owners guessed. If you don't have a recent survey, get one, or at minimum pull your plat and measure. Every year somebody discovers their new fence sits two feet inside a neighbor's yard, and the remedy is always the expensive one.
Check the rules in this order: city or county code first, then your HOA. Most metro Atlanta jurisdictions cap rear and side yard fences around six feet and front yard fences much lower, and they treat corner lots differently because of sight-line requirements at the intersection. HOA covenants are frequently stricter than the county and often dictate style, material, and even stain color. The HOA is also the one most likely to make you tear something out.
Have the neighbor conversation early. You're not asking permission to build on your own land, but a two-minute heads up about where the line is and which way the finished side faces prevents most fence disputes. If the fence sits directly on a shared line, agreeing in advance on who maintains what is worth doing while everyone is still friendly.
Then call 811 for a utility locate. It's free, it's required, and gas and communication lines run shallower than people expect. We won't set a post until the yard has been marked.
Once all of that is settled, the build itself is the easy part: posts set in concrete below frost depth on a strung line, rails and pickets run true, gates braced diagonally and hung with hardware sized for the weight of the leaf. The posts and the gates are what determine whether the fence still looks right in year five. Everything in between is just boards.