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Backyard Landscape Plan - Think
About Your Family's Lifestyle First
by Jeanette Joy Fisher
If you've been considering changing you're home's landscaping, don't
forget to consider your family's lifestyle as you create your initial
plans. Everyone's routines and daily activities need to be considered
before you make any significant changes.
For instance, if you put a flowerbed or shrub in the middle of your
backyard, will that hinder your children from playing various games? You
want to encourage your kids to play at home and to invite their friends
to join them, so it's important not to do anything that will adversely
affect the space where they usually play.
Another example would be planting a shrub along a route that someone in
the family likes to walk on a regular basis. It can be something as
simple as the route to the mailbox, or something as elaborate as a path
that someone likes to walk every afternoon to commune with nature.
Either way, planting something that alters their enjoyment of that
simple routine wouldn't be a good idea.
Consider Benefits in Relation to Expense
You may also want to consider what adding a particular landscaping
element would do to enhance your family's living experience. Would
adding a hot tub to a proposed new deck be something the family would
use enough to justify its expense, or would it be enough just to add the
deck and use it for barbecuing and getting together with friends?
Plan Ahead
You might also think about future additions to the family when making
your landscaping plans. For example, even though your own children have
grown up and moved out of the house, you might think about adding a
sandbox to your landscaping project, so your grandchildren will have a
place to play when they visit over the weekend.
As you think about what you might like to incorporate into your new
landscaping project, it's a good idea to start keeping a folder where
you can stuff pictures or ideas. You might also want to keep a journal,
jotting down ideas of possible additions that come to you from time to
time. When you finally sit down to create your formal plan, you can dig
these out, and you may be surprised at some of the things that caught
your imagination as you mulled over your landscaping project.
Regardless of what you finally decide to include in your landscape
remodeling project, it's important that everyone in the household be
considered. It's their home, too, and they have the right to be given
the maximum amount of opportunity to enjoy it.
About the author
Copyright © 2006 Jeanette J. Fisher
If you've been considering changing you're home's landscaping, don't
forget to consider your family's lifestyle as you create your initial
plans. Everyone's routines and daily activities need to be considered
before you make any significant changes.
America's "Dream Home" Maker
Jeanette Fisher,
author of best-selling real estate investing and interior design books,
has researched the effects of the environment on emotions for over 15
years. She is the author of over ten books, including university
textbooks, and encyclopedia articles on color psychology.
www.LadyPens.com -
Awesome Articles by Awesome Women!
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