Size of garden versus size of bedroom, which would children prefer?

[denialandpanic]

We are looking at a new build estate in a village (Surrey). The two plots we can afford are

A) Three beds master and equalish size other 2, garage and car park space (you would have to park in garage). A 9m x 5 m garden :(

B) Three beds en suite master, decent second bedroom, tiny (2.2 x2.5) third bedroom, car park space and car "barn". Slightly bigger garden (12m x7m)

The village has loads of play areas walkable from the houses and lots and lots of easily accessible common land. These are the nicest sized three beds we have seen that we can afford in the area. But I'm worried about the garden in option A or one child being consigned to the tiny bedroom for life in option B.

The lofts have so much insulation they are virtually unusable and permitted development rights are removed i.e no sheds without planning permission so the eaves storage in option As garage is very tempting.

Anyway the question is which would kids appreciate more in the long term, more garden or more bedroom????

The local primary school has big ground is v close and even has an outdoor pool for the summer

I'd go for the bigger inside space if you're planning on staying there any length of time. Kids grow out of gardens as they get older and there will be fewer rows about who is stuck with the tiny room

Ah, I would say more garden but yes with two kids, if you're planning to stay there a while, 2 equal bedrooms will be more use.

Bigger bedroom. You spend more time in than out and kids don't need that much space outside. But teens don't leave their rooms. Except for more food.

Definitely option A.

When your children are small (don't know how old yours are) they can spend a LOT of time in the garden, it's a long time before they can get to the park on their own, and, them relying on you to take them really limits the time out there, even if you were superkeen and went every day. The garden they can use while you are getting on with MNing other jobs. Smaller rooms can still have floor space under raised beds, or you can fit storage high up. Will depend a bit on how much room you have for them to play downstairs too though - would they be able to set up a train track / build a lego castle in other rooms in the house ?

Deffo option A.

I also have garden size of postage stamp but with lots of park and play space nearby. Agree that toddlers don't necessarily need that much play space and tbh once they're older they need the type of space (ball games etc) that most gardens just don't have.

If your kids have unequal sized rooms you could be building up resentment for later

They are 5 (tomorrow!) and 2.5. We have only recently moved from a 2 bed flat with no garden into a small 3 bed rented small garden. When we lived in the flat we did go to the park every day but as you say it eats huge chunks of time up. Since we have had a small garden they have used it but its been winter so hard to judge. I grew up with much more space, dp grew up in hong kong in a very big apartment. We have opposing views re gardens ;)

As a mother of older kids - bigger room, smaller garden.

downstairs of the houses are main selling point, big open plan sitting room double doors into big kitchen diner double doors to garden. and they have gasp my greatest dream a utility room. I am so sad, oh yes and downstairs loo

The other thing that has struck me since dd started school is we aren't at home that often in daylight. I work school hours five days a week and ds is in nursery. DD and I often go to park / do messages after school then pick him up around five. By the time we've had tea its bedtime. Mind you it is winter and has been whole time we've been in this house. At weekends there's swimming and rugby and visiting. ds is going on to school hours in June when he turns three.

You live in the UK. They probably won't even want to venture into the garden for a significant portion of the year because it will be too cold/wet/dark. Go for the smaller garden.

option A

New build estates tend to have a lot of young families and IME ours always tended to play together out front or did a round robin of each others gardens.

having equal size rooms more important IMHO

{grin} at BoBoo. I grew up in Ireland and I'm living in the South of England it feels like the sahara compared to what I'm used to

arrghh no good at smileys..........I do know what you mean though

Option A.

Bedroom space deffo more important, and the garden of option B is not really THAT much bigger anyway - i.e. there aren't really any extra activities they could do in garden B but not in garden A.

We left a beautiful townhouse, very central but a courtyard garden to move right out of town with a whooping great playsystem, trampoline etc and they do play out in the garden alot. I think it depends how much exercise they get day to day, the answer would be not much without the garden for us as we drive to school etc.

Mine are 11, 9, 7 and 18 months btw

Option A if you can make sure that they can go to park/play areas.

Could you alter the "car barn"? Not quite sure what that is but am imagining a wooden car port type of thing?
If so I would say house 2 as you could possibly get permission to change that to a new garage with a playroom above? Then when they are teenagers it could be a cool chill out space for them.
If you think there is no chance of that due to funds or planning issues then I would go for the bigger bedroom.

car barn (exactly a wooden frame thing round a parking space)is in a block separate from house. We are leaning towards the bigger bedroom or maybe neither..........we seem to be able to find nice houses with nice gardens in areas we dont like or tiny houses with tiny gardens in areas we like. This is the only ok sized house in area we like but the tiny gardens as the dodgy bit.

the consensus certainly seems to be option A!

Another vote for larger bedrooms.

Twas one of the deciding points when buying our current house - Not the most exciting house in other respects , but all 3 DC have similar, good sized rooms.

I'm quite surprised just how outnumbered we are. Over the years (mine are now 15, 13, and 10) ours have spent hours upon hours in the garden, which is a godsend for their moods to get a bit of fresh air and exercise regularly. Mine have (more so when they were younger) also gone out in the garden in the colder months too. Now, they light a fire at the bottom or the garden and "hang" with their friends sometimes in the evening!

I would say any garden & small rooms over no garden & bigger rooms - but your choice is between a tiny garden and good size bedrooms or small garden and not such good rooms. The difference in gardens is minimal - so I'd go with the smallest garden & biggest rooms :)

BackForGood - I understand what you are saying, but in reality there's sod all difference between the two gardens in the OP - so she might as well have the bigger bedrooms IMO.

Fair point - I didn't take that much notice of the measurements (and can't "picture" in metres either), I was perhaps responding from my POV in looking round houses on 2 new developments recently, where they had lovely 4 bedded spacious family homes with a pocket hankerchief for a garden. It would be a deal breaker for me. Fine when you are starting out and moving from flat to first house or whatever, you appreciate having any garden, but if I were paying a lot of money for a bigger family home, I'd expect it to come with some outdoor space too. That's probably what I'm commenting on rather than the specific measurements in the OP