Would you spend 30k on your garden??

[Subsidence]

....If you didn't think its was your forever home?

We moved to a nice detached house 2.5 years ago. It was the best house we could get in budget with all the craziness of the 2021 market. It is a lovely family home, massively practical for family life. However, I love period houses and this is a 90s new build. My DH loves the house and area, but I really miss the character of living in an older property and would like to move at some point in the future, maybe in 5 years or so. But I am also conscious that to get the same sized older house in a good condition, could potentially be out of budget and I don't miss the high heating costs we used to have in our 1930s house! So potentially we could be here a lot longer than 5 years.
Anyway ....

We have a 3 yo. The garden is relatively small. It is south facing and becomes unbearably hot in summer. It has a small patio area and a raised lawn area. Ideally I'd like new patio, new turf, new fencing as it's all tatty and falling apart. Also a gazebo built with a bbq area so we could have some shade in summer. Plus some nice planting so it's not just a bare rectangle of lawn.

All the above would cost circa 30k including vat according to quotes. Or, we could just redo the fencing and live with the dated gross old paving and tired lawn.

If it was my forever house, I would have no qualms doing all the work. But we wouldn't recoop the money if we sold. Then I think, it would make it much nicer and useable for my toddler if we did the work. He loves being outdoors, but I hate the garden so much I prefer to take him to the park over sitting in the garden with him, so feels like a complete waste of space. Our last garden was beautiful and we spent a lot of money getting it done, but tradesmen prices were more affordable back then!

Please help!! Spend the money and have an outside space to enjoy for the next 5 or so years, or just do the fence?

Personally I would as I couldn’t bear to live somewhere for 5 plus years that I hated. Most people want a lovely garden so you would make your house more appealing to potential purchasers when you do come to sell, also who knows what will happen to the property market and your own personal circumstances in 5 plus years time, would you really be able to afford the detached period house of your dreams?

Budget options to consider: a shade sail instead of a gazebo. Throw gravel on the patio if you hate the style of the slabs (but downsides: weeds will eventually grow in the gravel unless you maintain constantly, and stones get walked into the house - that decision comes with issues...) Get spare plants from friends, free cycle/ Facebook marketplace etc, or cheap online garden outlets and buy small and grow on in pots before planting out. Or buy bare-rooted in autumn - can be very cheap. Lawn: Hire an electric scarifier to demoss the lawn if necessary, and reseed the lawn, add fertiliser etc. There's a lot you can do without spending £30k.

If it was me I'd put that 30k in a high interest account to add to and grow towards my next house if I knew I was going to move in a handful of years.

You need to decide how realistic is your plan to move.
we spent a lot more than that, it was 50 k. Hard landscaping , gazebo etc, and soft landscaping, but it’s a big garden, totally worth every penny and absolutely it’s added that value to the house. We’ve been here a decade and don’t intend to move any time soon.

If you’re not going to recoup the cost I wouldn’t - although would if it was a forever house.

Do a budget version of the plan, mend or replace the fence, reshape the garden and planting.

fix the fence
pressure wash the patio to tidy it up
plant some trees for shade and get a shade sail for right now
buy some nice garden furniture
buy some big pots and put cheerful bedding plants in
gradually add more nice plants over the next few years.

if you spend £10K on that lot, you can make it all much better than it is now, and still have money over to add new plants.

it is often much better to do a garden slowly rather than an instant transformation (the TV shows are wrong!).

Yeah, this was my orginal thinking. To enjoy the space for now with our toddler. But then I started to think it was wasteful if we would move at some point.

Thankyou, some good ideas.

One of the key things to think through is what will change financially in the next five years. If you couldn’t afford it 2.5 years ago, why will you be able to afford it in 5 years. Will your earnings increase enough to allow it?

if you’re fairly sure you can afford it in 5 years then do something small to get you through. If it’s actually fairly certain you won’t be able to afford it. Then make this home as lovely as you can.

Yes, this is the problem. I don't see myself staying here forever. But with the toddler and childcare fees etc, we won't be moving any time soon. I would love to start looking next year but dh would live here forever if he could!

And i do think we could easily have the budget run away if not careful, despite it being a relatively small garden.

I guess I just love being outside, like my toddler, but this garden doesn't entice me to go out in it, at all!!

Then just redo the patio, forego the gazebo, and soft landscaping, do it yourself if you love gardening. The patio will be an investment you get back when you sell.

Perhaps you'd love your 90s house more if you made the garden both practical and beautiful.

30k I would only spend on my forever home. You can do a lot with less (but please no gravel it's awful to manage)

We spent a lot more on that on a house that we ended up putting on the market less than a year later. I don’t know if we directly ‘recouped’ the cost, but it certainly made the house more attractive to buyers so we got more interest in it. And we got a lot of joy out of our done-up garden for the year or so we had it!

£30k sounds insane.
You can get a huge wooden gazebo for under £2.5k https://www.waltons.co.uk/products/4m-x-4m-pressure-treated-gazebo-with-framed-rails

Turf is cheap and easy to lay.
Fencing panels are cheap and easy to put in, assuming the posts are ok.
£5k would get a nice patio done.

I’d expect to pay no more than £10k, sourcing your own materials saves a fortune.
We were quoted £10k for building a retaining wall and conservatory base.
We bought the bricks, sand etc. for £700 got a brickie to build the walls ( cost £1000) bought the hardcore / insulation panels - £500 and a delivery of ready mix concrete £500, total cost less than £3k.

Same with our garage base, cost us £1700 instead of the £4k we were quoted.

30k seems insane to me. I'd replace the fence I'd broken, or look at painting it if not. I love black fencing, shows off plants beautifully and disguises ugly fencing.

Could you deck over your patio?

Ask around for plants, don't rush it, a good garden always takes a little while to establish.

Look at white camouflage nets for shade, we saw them a lot in France last summer, they look great, let dappled light through and are cheap.

Look for reduces priced bulbs etc for pots, plant now for spring, they will come back next year.

Facebook for cheap pots. You really don't need to spend 30k.

Sort fence
Paint fence
Clean patio (I used biological washing powder, hot water and a stiff brush)
Try to improve the existing lawn (aerate, feed, reseed, get a gardener to help fir a few sessions yourself)
Do a bit of planting yourself and some pots
Buy a nice chair set and a fire pit, and even a stand alone gazebo.
I reckon you could do that for 10 grand ish, depending on how bad the fence is.

Then review the situation in a couple of years.
I wouldn’t spend 30k, certainly wouldn’t expect to get it back if you sell. Also bear in mind that laying a new lawn can be a bit of a nightmare- they often die if you’re not meticulous with care/ watering and with DC it will be especially difficult. Plus they’ll probably want a trampoline/ swing/ football net soon so no point in getting a shiny new lawn.

£30 grand? They are taking the piss, sorry. What you want shouldn't cost anywhere near as much as that.

No

Jeez I'd not spend 30k on a garden, unless it was huge and glorious.
You should be able to turf, replace / make good the fence, do something with the patio and get some big tubs of colourful flowers for 5k max. You could get an awning or sail shade to provide some cover.
I personally think having a safe, flat garden is a huge bonus with young dc, but I'd not spend 30k on it

The 30k is likely to include the costs of removing everything that is currently in the garden that won’t be needed in the new garden eg old patio, it may also include skip (but you’d need to check the quote).

The costs of landscaping really mount up.

Weve ummed and aahed about so many things in our house since we moved in 13 years ago. For a while we didn’t have the money to do much, so we did what we could afford. We’ve been able to afford to do more for a while, but haven’t, thinking we might move (for reasons out of our control). We haven’t moved, and I wish we’d done these things. None of them were necessary, and we’ve enjoyed living here despite them not being done, but it would have been so much nicer if we’d done them. And never I visit friends’ homes that have been improved in ways I would have liked, I’m massively envious.

A garden that you can really enjoy and relax in with young kids is fantastic. Your child is very young, you will have years and years ahead of you playing with sand, water, planting seeds, garden games, parties etc. If yo in can, I’d do it, but get quotes!

Your garden sounds a lot like mine!

I’ve had it redesigned and quoted for and the prices are horrendous.

Have decided to just do the patio area which the kitchen looks out onto. That cuts the cost in half, and is the area seen most from inside the house.

Im leaving the top lawn area. Just cant justify the cost. The next buyers will probably be a young family.

If I was staying I'd spend it. I like good quality materials and those cost money, especially outside where they have to endure all the elements and water coursing. Buy cheap buy twice. I presume those quotes are for fencing and paving you've selected? You can paint a nasty fence, as someone says above, to make it fade away a bit (Invisible green by little green is my favourite colour for this) but I'd rather have a fence in a nice material like larch that ages naturally if the budget allowed. It sounds like you really enjoy your garden so it would be worth spending some money on it. However, if I was planning on moving in a few years I would just try to make the changes with planting which is much cheaper. Put in a suitable young tree (maybe a birch?) to give some shade and get a load of perennial plants in.

Yes I would spend the money if (a) I could afford to without entirely wiping out our savings and (b) I thought it would mean I would use and enjoy my home for during the time I was there. 30k is a lot of money but it's not a life changing sum in savings so I would spend it if it would enhance my quality of life.

I was coming in here to say yes definitely based off your title but then I saw that you're not planning on staying there and that it's a small garden. I'd happily throw that kind of money at my garden but it's half an acre and we don't plan on moving until old age.

Could you DIY it? My husband and I totally redid the garden in our old house during lockdown, we literally dug up everything and put down new paving slabs, new grass, built a pergola, made our own garden furniture and large flower beds out of wooden sleepers. We had no experience, spent around 5k and honestly it came out beautiful. Granted it was before we had children and we had a lot more free time, much harder to do with young kids but even if you could do part of it yourselves?