In our back garden we have a fairly sizable lawn area which takes up approximately half of our garden (the rest being patio, decking, shed etc). The grass has never been particularly great quality and mainly made up of moss, weeds, buttercups, daffodils, clover etc but I've never been particularly bothered by this. To me, the lawn has always just been a functional space where I can play with the DC and DDog and I'm not particularly bothered if it looks less than perfect.
Recently, however, we've had some building work done at the back of the house and in the process of the build the workmen completely destroyed our lawn area turning it into a mud bath. Again, I wasn't particularly bothered as these things happen during building works but rather than re-seeding and waiting for the grass to grow back naturally we decided to fork out £1000 and get it professionally returfed. The thinking being that we'd be able to use it again quicker than if we waited for it to grow back (oh how wrong I was!!!)
Since then however, DH has become obsessed with this bloody grass 😡When it was freshly laid he put a 'temporary' fence around it as no one was supposed to walk on it for at least 3 weeks in order for it to bed in. 4 months later and the 'temporary' fence is still there and DH is looking at ways to make it a permanent fixture so the grass 'doesn't get ruined again' 🙄
The DC are now not allowed on it and God forbid the DDog gets on there or shock horror tries to go to the toilet on it. He's out there every week rollering and manicuring it to within an inch of its life and it does look amazing (thick, green, lush, no weeds etc) but what's the point of having an immaculate lawn if we now can't use it?
My argument is, I didn't spend £1000 just to have some 'ornamental' grass that's lovely to look at but has now effectively cut out usable garden space by half because we can't use it whilst DH argument is that we spent £1000 on it so we need to look after it and there's no point spending that money if were just going to 'wreck it' again.
So:
IBU: £1000 is a lot of money to spend so you need to look after the lawn and protect it
INBU: what's the point of spending £1000 on something you can't use and effectively cuts your outdoor living space in half