Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I'd certainly take the back yard, I lived in town as younger kid with postage stamp yard and it sucked. Luckily I lived right near the river which was kind of like my back yard.
My opinion on the ideal place to live and bring up kids was where my cousin lived. This was during the late 60/70's his parents put up a house on a lot that was within a subdivision with about 30 lots 2 to 10 acres that were all sold off at once. What made that special was you had whole bunch of new families with younger kids move onto a lot of those lots all at once. Too this day those friends are all still fairly close.
Great story, coal man. I pray that will become a reality for us. I hope we make close friends. I'm so missing friendships. It's difficult moving to a new town.
We just left with a house with large backyard and downsized to a house with a tiny lot but is right in the middle of town. it's been 2 months and everyone is so thrilled with the change. I have 4 kids, 10, 6, 3, and 1, between the school runs, sports practices, etc... we were never home to enjoy the massive lot our house sat on and I felt like I lived in the car. We were 7 miles from anything that we needed to go to though. We have a playground 2 blocks away, several other parks within easy walking distance, the river is across the street along with a rec center, the bus stop is 2 blocks away. Kids can walk to some of their schools, or ride their bike to gymnastics practice and while I am still a taxi service, my hours have been decreased! I do wish our yard at our new house was a little bigger, but the location has more then made up for it.
I watch several hours of HGTV per week and I don't think I have ever heard anyone on House Hunters complain about a back yard being too large; it's usually the other way around.
After 10 years of owning a sizeable back yard, I am more than ready to downsize.
I'm in SW PA and have had issues with compression (exposed roots that'll damage a lawnmower), drainage (had to install a french drain), pervasive moss, clay content that makes growing root veggies difficult/impossible, among other issues. Sure, there are fixes, but it's all considerable time and money to do so.
I didn't look at where you live, but you have to consider maintenance:
- maple trees with those annoying helicopter seeds. Late spring I'm raking the things up, but there are millions of them and I'm pulling tiny maples out of the ground all summer. I don't mind raking up leaves in fall all that much, but I do wish the three trees out back would coordinate so I don't have to do it every single weekend from Oct-early Dec.
- weeds. Because we try to grow our veggies organically and let the dog run free outside (fenced yard), I don't like using a lot of chemicals. Moss is a huge issue. Chickweed and clover also problematic. If I'm not right on top of those in spring, I'm stuck with them all year.
FWIW, my neighbor's home is situated toward the back corner of their corner lot. The kids were very active in the front and tiny side yard, where they put up a trampoline. I don't think they would've been any happier with a huge backyard.
Now that our dog has passed, I really hate having a big yard and miss being able to walk to stores. YMMV.
Ha, that more than covers it I think. Pretty much right there with you, including the necessity of drainage work.
But generally after 9 years of the house which is too far from everything, I would choose walking. Now, granted, two miles from something wouldn't exactly bother me...if there are sidewalks. But where I live, there are not. So walking to even the closest little convenience store (which is less than that, might only be a mile) is pretty much out of the question. The roads are not super busy but busy enough, and more importantly the shoulders are almost nothing. We've tried it a few times but it's hard to get into it with the conditions.
So I would definitely go with the closer one and smaller yard now. Heck I'd probably rather go to no yard at this point having spent a lot of time on what amounts to such a waste. I really don't like grass and the grass looks awful. But. This is without any consideration for children. I understand the less busy road in that case and possible appeal of a larger yard. Good luck with it.
Well, right now I feel that I made the biggest mistake of my life. Some days are good. Today, not so good. I'm feeling really isolated. At this moment, the backyard is not worth it. We're not even using it because its cold outside. Ugh, I thought this is what I wanted, the bigger house with the yard.
Well, right now I feel that I made the biggest mistake of my life. Some days are good. Today, not so good. I'm feeling really isolated. At this moment, the backyard is not worth it. We're not even using it because its cold outside. Ugh, I thought this is what I wanted, the bigger house with the yard.
If you're staying in your house because it's cold outside, how does the location of the house make it different? Sitting in a house in a city wouldn't be any different.
Put up a bird feeder so you can watch the birds. Then get yourself a Labrador so you have companionship as well as entertainment while it chases the birds.
We rented a house right in town for a while with no back yard to speak of, then moved about 2 miles out with 1 acre surrounded by another 5-7 acres of woods (for now).
We miss some things aabout living in town and enjoy being out of town for other things.
In town with a small yard:
Parades and other community events were right in our front yard.
Lots of neighbors walked by and said hello.
Stores, banks etcetera were right next door or across the street.
Deer left us alone.
The high school was a block away. We could hear the band and liten to the announcer during football games if we did nto attend them. In fact, we could even watch them from a widnow in garage loft.
On a biggrer lot:
Privacy.
Room to park all the cars.
I can walk out the the car in the morning wearing boxers and no one will know.
Room for outdoor activities and a pool. (Bonfires, frisbee, soccer practice, garden (except the deer eat everything), chickens, work on cars, wood working projects,
plenty of room for dogs to run
river in the front yard.
quiet.
somewhat less traffic.
We still get quite a few people who run or bike past and a few walkers. Not as many say hi because we are 110 feet from the road even if we are on the front porch.
Free firewood.
We can host more than 100 people for a barbque.
(Long driveway to shovel)
THe bigger yard out of town is a slight winner, but we miss a lot of things about living in town. For me persoanlly, I would probably prefer in town, but for the kids, out of town is somewhat better. Being ont he river makes it an almost overwhelming win for being out of town, but off the river, it might be closer to a push.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
