Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Advice Needed - sacrafice backyard space for more living 4Apr 10, 2012 10:39 am Some people apparently have nothing better to do than comment on other people's sigs. Re: Advice Needed - sacrafice backyard space for more living 11Apr 10, 2012 4:20 pm kyton 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. 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 Re: Advice Needed - sacrafice backyard space for more living 12Apr 10, 2012 6:23 pm 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 Re: Advice Needed - sacrafice backyard space for more living 13Apr 10, 2012 7:26 pm 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. http://lindeman28.blogspot.com - Our building blog Re: Advice Needed - sacrafice backyard space for more living 14Apr 10, 2012 7:27 pm 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. Re: Advice Needed - sacrafice backyard space for more living 15Apr 10, 2012 7:38 pm 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. Advice Needed - sacrafice backyard space for more living?? 16Apr 11, 2012 7:46 am 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. We built the Wisdom Majestic 40 - moved in! Our blog - http://ourwisdommajestic40.blogspot.com.au/ Our H1 thread - viewtopic.php?t=54156 Re: Advice Needed - sacrafice backyard space for more living 17Apr 11, 2012 10:25 am 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! Onewheel 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. 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? Re: Advice Needed - sacrafice backyard space for more living 18Apr 11, 2012 11:03 am PolkaDots kyton Where abouts are you building - state etc? we are building in Greenvale (Victoria) Providence Estate. 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. Building a Delta 21 at Craigieburn - http://homeofzero.blogspot.com.au/ Deposit: 26/02. Contract: 22/05. Settlement: 29/05. Site start: 18/10. Re: Advice Needed - sacrafice backyard space for more living 19Apr 11, 2012 9:09 pm PolkaDots 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! Onewheel 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. 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? 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 We built the Wisdom Majestic 40 - moved in! Our blog - http://ourwisdommajestic40.blogspot.com.au/ Our H1 thread - viewtopic.php?t=54156 I would be wary. Is you site demilished but nothing else done? Sounds like liquidity problems to me. Our builder did the same. Got hundreds of thousands of dollars of… 2 15485 i think option 2 is much better with easy access to the garden without having to walk through the new sunroom which makes it a better room for guests and TV .a simple… 2 8306 Hi All, I engaged a tradie to install concrete retaining wall 600-800mm high over 32 meters in Victoria. Sleepers are 200*75*2000 mm installed over 17 steel posts. I… 0 7018 |