Advice Needed - sacrafice backyard space for more living??

Hi Everyone,

I need advice... Two weeks ago, we had decided on the Henley Emperor and we were going to have 8-9metres of backyard.

However, we had another look at our finances and due to affordability, we have now decided to build a single storey, we are looking at two M3tr!c0n (Fortitude 32, and Lumeah 33) and 1x H3nl3y (Lexington Lux Q1).

Our block is 16x32metres.

The fortitude and Lumeah are close to 24m long, when you take into account the 4m setback that gives us 4 metres of back yard.

The Henley Lexington is closer to 23m long + setback, gives us 5 metres of backyard.

We currently have a 17mth old and we are looking to have another soon. We would love to have 3-4 children.

I suppose I just wanted advice. Will we be able to fit a small shed, clothes line, swingset and trampoline on 4metres deep backyard x 16m??

Or does anyone know of any other home designs that have 4 bedrooms + study, theatre room and butlers pantry that is no more than 23metres long and fits on 16m block???

Where abouts are you building - state etc?

For me if you are planning on having a few children I would be wanting the largest backyard possible.

we are building in Greenvale (Victoria) Providence Estate.

I've searched all of the majors and haven't come up with any 4x2+study designs that are south of 24m in length.

You're either downsizing to the 28-30sq square mark (houses that are 13-14.5m wide and 22-23.5m long) or losing the butlers pantry and/or the study (which is what is adding to the length of the house in the long run).

(there are lots of other designs from all of the builders around the 29-30sq mark that weigh in at around the 23m long mark - Porter Davis especially has a number of styles that fit this mould on their house finder and it is easier to sift through as the filter has a "study" option you can tick)

I guess the moral of the story is that if you want a 32-33sq home then it is basically going to fill your block and you wont have much as much of a yard - beyond what the Lexi Lux offers you aren't going to do any better for a 32-33sq home on your block in terms of having back yard space (that Lexi Lux is pretty much the only design that I could find that crams all that into such a shallow footprint).

You should also consider "irregular" designs which are narrower at the back and expand out to the full length as you move towards the front - ie. "double backed" or even "triple backed" design (awful turn of phrase there I know but picture a double or triple fronted home and apply the same thing to the back of the house). This would give you some extra room in a "side yard" to play with as well as the strip along the "back".

eg. the Santorini from Big M

It's smaller house design but you have the sitting room at the front to function as a study, WIP and WIL - you could possibly nuke the WIL to make the WIP bigger and then maybe put in a linen closet on the passage wall in the bedroom area (not sure ifthis would cramp up the dining area though.

It would give you more space to work with out back as the living area at the back is offset a further 3 metres, which would give you a bigger 8m x 10m patch of yard out the back if you could manage a zero-lot-line build (garage on the boundary) as well as the 6m x 5m patch behind bedroom 4 (perhaps a place for the clothes line or shed?).

Like I said though Porter Davis has a bunch of 28-30 sq options on their 32-33 sq designs which do this sort of arrangement a little better without have to make so many structural changes.

Not trying to point you in this specific direction - more trying to explore possibilities for a house+bigger backyard combo...

thanks for the tips cmhamilton. I just don't know whether I will regret going for a smaller home with less storage etc...

oh decisions decisions

it is also important to keep in mind a lot of councils have a strict regulations on a minimum % of land that must be private open outdoor space. We have some 60m2 of outdoor space and have no children. TBH if we had children I do no think it would be big enough to give them a decent play area. You may want to go down the path of having a custom house plan build that way you can design it to incorporate clever storage solutions to try and be able to maximise your backyard without having to sacrifice storage.

Our three girls barely use the backyard. the dogs run around a bit, but honestly, a big back yard is overrated. Our dogs are largely inside dogs anyway, and I am sick of mowing the lawn. Kids these days for better or for worse seem to play inside more anyway. We go to the park and have a good run around there or down to the creek and they play for hours there.

+1 big back yards are very much overrated. Unless your a farmer. Besides entertaining in the alfresco area, the number of times the actual open space gets used you could count on one hand.

Crikey my kids must be unusual then! We have a 6, 4 and 2 yo who would be outside every minute of the day if they could. We have 3400sqm so thank goodness it is being used.

Masterton Symphony has a lot of variations that would fit your block (providing you have checked what the maximum coverage of your area with Council).

I had the same issue as you PolkaDots about a month or so ago. We were all set to sign up with our builder when I realised when we took into account the setback required we were only going to have about 2.5 - 3 meters from the back of the house to the fence. This just didnt seem enough to us and so we ended up choosing the same house but went for the next size down, all we lost by doing this was the study and we gained a bit of extra room out the back. Its still going to be a small backyard but we were not willing to compromise any further on the size of the house.

I have to agree with Eve Dweller, the open space of a backyard rarely gets used. The only time we go out into the open space in our current backyard is to mow the grass, other than that we don’t go out there. Anyways a lot of the new estates have parks everywhere with plenty of room for kids to run around and play

My two girls are the same. They adore outside and run wild in the yard. Very glad it is a large one.

I doubt you would fit much toy equipment comfortably in that space, but just having lots of trees and plants is wonderful for kids too. My 5yo loves nature.

I'm no expert on plans but have you checked out Burbank? They had some great very large houses on display and from memory their prices weren't that bad. I'm not a fan of 2 Stories, but totally fell in love with one of theirs and it was around 42 squares. Just flicking through an old brochure the stoneleigh has 4 bedrooms, thatre, librarary and a WIP you could probably convert to a butlers pantry

Good luck

perhaps the kids aren't interested in the difference between a 6-8m backyard and a 3-4m one then? My kids love running around and about at the creek and at the park, but its not like we can have a sports field and creek with big trees in our back yard... I spose if we could it would be great

our block is about the same 16x32 house is 28 squares so we have like 4m to the back fence. Nice easy size to maintain, enough for entertaining and kids these days are technology inclined so a bigger house seems the good option. I rarely used the backyard at my parents was playing out the front or inside. We have a large decked out park 5 doors down so cant complain if we need somewhere to go.

a) get a double storey if u don't mind going up and down at the age of 80.

b) give kids xbox, playstation, ipad, and hometheater to discourage them from spending time outdoors.

c) get kids to visit nearby parks, but supervise at all times in case of pedophiles.

To be honest, I think children adapt to the environment they live in. We had over 1000sqm and we used all of our back yard but the front was a waste. Our new block is 520 sqm.

We are putting a pool in so that will leave us after extending the alfresco 4m x 10 of turf.

We have all boys and a dog, however after about the age of 4, we have found we spend more time using bike tracks, local parks, bushwalking and taking inexpensive day trips out as a family. My 4 year old is an outdoor boy and as long as we give him some dirt to play in, he is as happy as a pig in mud.

We are yet to move into our house, but the house we currently renting has a similar sized yard and the boys still manage to rumble and play with the dog. The dog is happy with the space.

We opted to go for less land so less time maintaining and more time living as a family.

If we had 4m x 16m we could utilise every inch of it.

I have also found over time some outdoor toys are fads and others are long lived. My kids seem to enjoy the swings at the park more than at home. The cubby house got a major amount of use and if you do one that is up higher you can put a slide and swing off it and then also if wanted a sandpit under. That will save space but will be lots of fun for the kids.

If you are happy to take the kids out exploring, then that size yard will work well.

Like others have said, if you find a home that is not all house at the back, that would work well too.

Wisdom have a house that is a single/double, the upstairs only consists of the parents room/retreat, which might work well as you could always set the retreat up as a nursery to start with whilst the kiddies are little. That might give you the best of both worlds...

Good luck and go with your instincts.

If you are worried about storage space, consider an attic storage system. We don't have much storage space in the current house we are in, so we have an attic system, accessed via the garage. Lots of things we don't use often, such as suitcases, Xmas decorations etc are stored there.

We currently live in a 3 bedroom house on a 425m block, so we also have a small backyard. When the kids were little the yard space was fine. As they get older they played in the front yard with the neighbors. Now they are a teen & pre teen, they spend more time indoors. We are only upgrading to a new bigger house now after 15 years.

Get the house you can afford and if the backyard is small, you can make use of parks etc. The kids will enjoy time out of the house anyway.

Thanks everyone for your views and thoughts. It really does help to hear from other people with children. I love the cubby house idea Lot927!



Do you have to do anything to the roof trusses in preparation for an attic if we wanted to do this further down the track?

My personal opinion, which if it were me I'd be doing, is to deal with having a small backyard and raise the kids to get used to using public park areas for play. That's just me *shrug* - others wouldn't be so happy with that as a solution. The backyard only needs to be big enough for a clothes line, maybe a BBQ, hosing down the bike after a muddy ride...

I'm building a 19.4m deep house on a 28m block. that has to be set back about 3m. That's barely leaving 5m at the back. But then, the most I plan to have running around any time soon is a puppy.

I don't think you need to do anything with the roof trusses unless you want the access to be in a certain spot, but then again I am not an expert. Ours is accessed via the garage, the pull down stairs went where the existing man hole was located, we had no issues with trusses in that location. We are planning to get attic stairs again for our new house, but we will have a 2 storey home this time and the man hole is in the hallway between two bedrooms so not sure if that is the best location, however the original man hole location was in my WIR, no way did I want it there, so we requested it be moved to the hallway. So check where the man hole location will be in your new home as that could be used for your attic stair access.

Anyway, have a look at their website, link is below. You could also ring to enquire more if you were keen so you will know what things you need to consider with building your new home and get any necessary changes to the plans to accommodate attic stairs if possible.

http://www.atticladders.com.au/

We LOVE our attic stairs, we store lots of things up there.......so when we move it have to go in the garage at first . I'm sure once we see how much space our stuff takes up in the garage we'll probably have to get the attic stairs again as soon as we move in, lol