Which house to go for?

LandyAndy

Lack of private parking would be the deciding factor for me.

petebeale

Has anyone ever had their garden excavated?[/QUOTE]

Hi There,

I leveled off my sloping garden using railway sleeper retaining walls - so I now have two patio areas and a lawned area in between. It is a lot of work moving around significant areas of earth. The easiest thing to do is to dig out for your wall, install wall, the remove the spoil on one side to create a lower area, putting the spoil on the opposite side of the wall creating a higher area - then turf/landscape accordingly.

The firm who supplied by sleepers (many others are available). Have an excellent foto gallery for your inspiration! (No connections apart from as a customer). Unfortunately, I cant link to it, but if you type the word railway, then the word sleeper and put dot com at the end you'll have the site!

Good luck with your endevours!

sunshinetours

We now have a more gently sloping garden by the sounds of it than you, but it sounds as though you will require retaining walls (structural) which can be pretty expensive to have done. Terracing your garden shouldn't cause subsidence if done properly, council planning will tell yu all the downsides without giving the specific information it seems these days unless you pay for a fee based initial application

View the house with a landscape gardener and see what they reckon is required and what could be achieved. Don;t forget these days any raised decks etc will probably need planning permission so all adds to the cost

The site mentioned above is http://www.railwaysleeper.com/ and i used this to get plenty of ideas when we looked before redoing our garden a couple of years ago.

As others have mentioned private parking would be an absolut non negotiable issue for me so hosue 1 would be out anyway. Picture pouring rain and bags of shopping and struggling to find a spot..... anyone buying your house in teh future would also be picturing same!

Fly_Baby

Thanks for everyone's opinions!

Regarding the House 2: I don't think I will ever have a problem with finding a parking spot because it is a residential area where parking is free everywhere along the streets. But I appreciate the inconvenience of having to walk to the door, with bags and kids etc.

Regarding the House 1: I have a feeling that the EA/owner will not allow yet another viewing because we didn't offer on this house before (had 2 viewings already).