Browse Forums General Discussion 1 Jan 29, 2011 3:56 pm I'm after some advice on what to do with our side yard, and will appreciate and value any opinions. When we were designing our house and deciding how to situate it on our block, it was very important to me to allow enough space down the side of the alfresco to the single garage we have in the back corner of our yard. Not that we use it as a garage, it's just for storage of outdoorsy stuff, and I haven't even got a trailer to put in it - but to me it would be a good selling point in the future if the next owner required the shed to store his trailer, boat or small caravan, and to have access to maintain the gardens. There is enough space between the alfresco and fence to get a car down there but it is narrower than a standard driveway (an old Land Cruiser just fitted once) and is not designed to be a proper driveway. We have only used it a few times to get a ute full of mulch or dirt closer to the back garden etc. Our block tapers slightly too which is why I notched in the deck behind the second column of the alfresco (see pic). If you had a garage in your back yard, would it be imperitive to maintain some sort of vehicle access to it, or to the yard itself? The reason I ask is that I would now like to expand or improve my outdoor area. It is a sparse area at the moment; even putting a small garden or a water feature or a barbecue along the fence would make the space too narrow for a car. Ideally I would like to extend the deck to the fence and put seating or a garden or a water feature or a barbecue there but if I did it would end vehicle access to the yard. I could step the deck down and put the decking boards directly onto concrete for strength but that might create drainage issues and it would still be a barren area without putting something against the fence. I could step down to pavers but I haven't got a clue on how to aesthetically tie it in with my existing paths (it would be an isolated island of pavers - I wouldn't want pebbles in the extended area). If I did solidly pave there, how odd would a small circle of grass (foreground in the pic below) and a rectangle of grass beyond it look? And it would still be a barren area. Grass is hard to grow against the deck now not just because of wear and tear, but because it doesn't get much rain due to the eaves. Maybe I could level it all and put synthetic grass down to make it a bit more usable, but I'd have to do the whole yard and I don't think the dog would appreciate it. So, I either do nothing, create a paved desert, or bite the bullet and build the outdoor area of my dreams at the expense of vehicular access to the back yard and shed. Help! Geoff - Decophile. Re: How important is car access to the back yard/shed? 2Jan 29, 2011 4:10 pm I think being able to at least get a trailer to the side of the house and a wheelbarrow to the rear is enough. The Harder You Try - the Luckier You Get ! Web site http://www.anewhouse.com.au Informative, Amusing, and Opinionated Blog - Over 600 posts on all aspects of building a new house. Re: How important is car access to the back yard/shed? 3Jan 29, 2011 4:23 pm We have a large block but have no backyard access. We blocked it with a pool! To us the pool was much more important than being able to get a car in there. The only thing is that when landscaping you have to use a wheelbarrow to get soil etc out the back. We do however have access for a dingo etc by taking out the pool fences. Good luck with your decision. Re: How important is car access to the back yard/shed? 4Jan 29, 2011 4:28 pm Everyone is different. We are the opposite - extremely important to have access to the rear of the property. Each of our last 4 homes we had access and it was a deciding factor in purchasing / designing the houses. Even with our current 3800sqm we have an access roadway from the street right down to the rear of the property. DH has trucks / ride on mower / bobcat - so need the access to get to every bit of the yard. Maybe not so important to those on smaller suburban lots but IMO for a normal sized block I think it is important. Some things are worth waiting for. Re: How important is car access to the back yard/shed? 5Jan 29, 2011 4:31 pm Quote: If you had a garage in your back yard, would it be imperitive to maintain some sort of vehicle access to it, or to the yard itself? Yes. Absolute pain if vehicle cannot access back yard IMO - my parents house you cannot do so - only via narrow path at side of house - when they were doing something in garden, adding topsoil or such - had to wheelbarrow load by load from (borrowed) trailer at front Our own house has garage roller door at back for this, this leads onto pergola area which is open at back to garden, we just move table/chairs out of the way if bringing something through. Not often though as we also have back gates at rear of property and bring trailer or garden deliveries in through there. Obviously only works if you are on a corner block or an old area like ours with lanes Incidentally we dont actually keep our trailer in the shed, just in the open space behind it. However, not sure how to do this and solve your dilemma at same time - except maybe doing to match the stone and paver look at the front of the deck (as shown in foreground of pic) If you did this, you could still keep your BBQ there and some pot plants etc - non built in things that can be fairly easily moved on the occasions you need to access the shed. Re: How important is car access to the back yard/shed? 6Jan 29, 2011 4:33 pm once its blocked off from being able to be accessed by a car, it really becomes an oversized shed, and no longer a garage. If you are thinking of ever selling in the next X years, then it is definately something some people will look for, rear access to a garage. Those style colourbond garages are easily made larger for very little money (ive extended mine twice!), so if it still had rear access, someone looking to buy would know they could turn it into a 4 car wide garage to store cars/etc quite easily. i am building a house with a 4 car garage attached to the house, just so i dont need a seperate one in the backyard, but i have the setup like yours at my current home, and ive been told by a few real estate guys that it will be a very good selling point and will add a few $XX,XXX to the sell price as against a house with just a standard garage and no rear access. Like you said, a lot of people have jetski's, boats, trailers, second/third cars, motorbikes, and they need somewhere to store, clean and maintain them. Property with rear access to a big garage ticks all those boxes for people with any of those. I will be paving out the back of my new home, so it still has rear access also. All of my friends who are also 'car guys' all own properties with rear access, and would not have bought one without it. TOUGHEN UP PRINCESS Re: How important is car access to the back yard/shed? 7Jan 29, 2011 4:40 pm I think you should do what suits you now Eager. A future buyer will be able to easily dismantle the deck and/or water feature if vehicular access to the back is that important to them. "Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions." — Elizabeth Gilbert Living in our new house. Currently scaping the land. Re: How important is car access to the back yard/shed? 8Jan 29, 2011 4:53 pm Eager you could pave it and add a shade sail over it. Paving like you have with the white stones between in front of it to keep it the same if you wished. Portable bbq, some plants in pots. Then if you needed access everything could still be moved to allow a car and/or trailer to get down there. I'm sure you could add some "neighbour be gone" to the top of the fence to improve privacy to the area. Nothing wrong with having a step down paved area as part of your entertaining section of yard. Re: How important is car access to the back yard/shed? 9Jan 29, 2011 4:55 pm donuts I think you should do what suits you now Eager. A future buyer will be able to easily dismantle the deck and/or water feature if vehicular access to the back is that important to them. Well said donuts. Re: How important is car access to the back yard/shed? 10Jan 29, 2011 5:50 pm As Donuts pointed out, it is having the width to access the back shed with a car that is important to prospective buyers. So long as you make your outdoor area nothing too permanent for a future buyer to dismantle relatively easily you should still get the benefit of having rear access as a selling point. I don't know about down south but it is a definite selling point up here and worth maintaining. Re: How important is car access to the back yard/shed? 11Jan 29, 2011 6:03 pm Do what you like. We have a 6x9 shed and when i buit it i got it with two double roller doors so we could drive through to the back yard. But it helps that we have 2 street access so we don't have to worry about getting past the house. If it was me I would leave so I could access the shed with a car. Re: How important is car access to the back yard/shed? 12Jan 29, 2011 6:05 pm Thanks for your replies so far guys - keep 'em coming! Again, it is not a proper driveway that you can reverse out of at 20 km/h. One has to deviate through the gates (not shown in the pics) and carefully manoever past the deck, and watch the mirrors against the fence. I think I'll contact an estate agent on Monday as well, to get his opinion. I've got no idea how long we will live here for but I would imagine at least 5 years so any changes I do now would not be temporary. trustno1, I understand completely about a garage becoming an oversized shed. All we had in our old place was a garden shed, but with access to the yard (which I used about twice in 10 years), but a double garage stands there now! Ours here is used as nothing more than a garden shed anyway so that's the way I treat it. but i need to consider prospective buyers when the time comes. My back gardens are finished and virtually maintenance free apart from very occasional mulch top ups which can be done by wheelbarrow; we've done it that way before when I had to get some delivered. I'm fully aware that having access to my yard and shed now is something very out of the ordinary for most suburbanites so if I lost that access, I would basically be just coming back to the average. I suppose then there is one further question: For those with a decent sized yard who currently don't have vehicle access to it, would you actually want it? Geoff - Decophile. Re: How important is car access to the back yard/shed? 13Jan 29, 2011 6:08 pm I hasten to add, we have a normal double garage at the front, a double width driveway and space for 1 car beside the driveway in front of the gates, so prospective buyers are not lacking for car space. Geoff - Decophile. Re: How important is car access to the back yard/shed? 14Jan 29, 2011 6:21 pm Eager I suppose then there is one further question: For those with a decent sized yard who currently don't have vehicle access to it, would you actually want it? Nup. As long as there is some car lock-away-ability somewhere ont he block (which you have with your double garage), and reasonable access thru or beside garage for a wheelbarrow/lawn mower or similar, I would be happy with that. Only if I was still thinking about doing something different with my landscaping (eg pool, levelling out etc) then bobcat access would be a nice to have. But you can't predict what your next buyer will want. IMO you are just as likely to get a buyer who puts more value on a bigger entertaining area as one who values the shed access more. And while we are on the topic - unless you need it for storage, I'd prefer to have something else taking up the room in the back yard than a shed! "Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions." — Elizabeth Gilbert Living in our new house. Currently scaping the land. Re: How important is car access to the back yard/shed? 15Jan 29, 2011 6:25 pm Eager I suppose then there is one further question: For those with a decent sized yard who currently don't have vehicle access to it, would you actually want it? Re: How important is car access to the back yard/shed? 16Jan 29, 2011 6:26 pm donuts And while we are on the topic - unless you need it for storage, I'd prefer to have something else taking up the room in the back yard than a shed! Our shed is very useful but I'm hearin' ya - Have Space, Will Fill It With Junk! Geoff - Decophile. Re: How important is car access to the back yard/shed? 17Jan 29, 2011 7:47 pm I see your problem and looking at your alfresco extending would make it alot better. I have a small alfresco and extending it with a shaded area and bbq made a world of difference. Personally I would have found vehicle access to my yard invaluable while I've been landscaping but your yard is finished so really the only requirement is that you may need it for access to your shed. If it were me and I was staying there for a while I'd go ahead and extend the deck and put a shade sale over it (if thats what you want). Most buyers have a bit of vision and all a real estate agent would need to say is 'if you want vehicle acess to the shed the gates are there - all you need to do is remove part of the deck.' A deck and a couple of posts don't need to be a permanent fixture - they can be removed. I've been in this situation too of doing what a prospective buyer may want but you can't allways guess what people want and you need to do whats right for you. As it is I think it's quite rare to have yard access with a new property so if all thats required if you sell it is to remove some decking and a bit of garden to make it happen then thats still going to be a draw card. Re: How important is car access to the back yard/shed? 18Jan 29, 2011 7:57 pm Eager I hasten to add, we have a normal double garage at the front, a double width driveway and space for 1 car beside the driveway in front of the gates, so prospective buyers are not lacking for car space. That says it all to me...... go for it, build it how you want it. Any potential buyers (IF you sell) still have garage and driveway/parking at the front so it's not like the back yard/shed is the only access to those facilities. I think wheelbarrow/bin access/maybe bike access, is all you need to consider. We are in a similar situation - kind of. When we bought, the previous owners had ripped down the garage, so all we have is a colourbond shed out the back. But we still have wide driveway that access right down to the back yard. However, we are considering utilising that wide side of the house with either deck extension or paving/built in concrete seats/day beds etc. But we had to keep asking ourselves if we need to keep 'access' to the back of the house (not so much for a car, but we were thinking if we needed to get bobcats in or whatever - lord knows what for - esp if we have landscaped the back before we do the side). We recently decided that as long as we can get down the other side of the house (or that side) with a wheelbarrow, wheelie bins, bike - then that is all we need to worry about. Good luck with whatever you decide to do - but I reckon go for it. HHCIB Re: How important is car access to the back yard/shed? 19Jan 29, 2011 9:11 pm Thanks again for the further replies guys. Mozzie, believe it or not the alfresco area is already an extensioin of the original plan - the standard alfresco did not protrude from the house and we went an extra 2.4m - but we're finding now that it ain't enough, even though we don't do a lot of entertaining. Geoff - Decophile. Hi, Building a new place and I have limited space from garage to fence. 3130mm width, then opens up over 5000mm once I pass tmy garage. I need a fence that goes from… 0 3292 The worst thing you can do is sign a building contract without a pre contract review. 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