Why we chose ARTIFICIAL GRASS?
As a family of 4 and with very active children, it is super important to us to be able to have a backyard that they can safely play, kick a ball, have a trampoline and just generally be outdoors.
Unfortunately, our piece of land really didn’t have a lot of usable space in the first instance, so dreams of having a big grassy backyard and garden have had to be slightly altered. But the compromise we feel hasn’t been all that bad.
This is our backyard… I’m standing on some very realistic artificial grass.
We shared that we have gone with Artificial Grass on Instagram and there has been a few questions on our choices, and a few criticisms which we expected.
Originally, the backyard looked like this below, it was a very steep and a very unusable slope. Behind Corban in this photo, that clay cliff was the only space that we could create a backyard from.
To make it a usable space, we carved out 700 tonnes of dirt and clay to build the ground floor of the house. With huge retaining required, and then we had to safely backfill.
Instead of trucking dirt/fill back on to the site, we instead used a recycled polystyrene block from a supplier who collects all old fridge and television packaging and recreates these large blocks. These are used for under our motorway on-ramps in New Zealand.
The reason we used poly backfill was to help stabalise the site in the event of an earthquake. This is not a requirement from the geo-tech engineer, but we really wanted this house to be safe.
Before everyone gets all judgey mc-judge face about why we used polystyrene, it is important that we tell you we HATE polystyrene with a passion and wish it didn’t exist!!! But the fact that someone is taking the already used packaging and putting it to good use instead of it ending up in our oceans, we like that it actually has been put to good permanent use here.
The reason why we then had to use artificial grass then is self explanatory. However let me explain. Water drains through this polystyrene really well, which means to grow a lawn on it would be really difficult, almost impossible. So instead for a permanent back yard we looked into Artificial grass options.
We did have our doubts, and of course there are always pros and cons to cost of our product decisions, but we feel that the pro’s outweighed the cons. Backyard or no backyard was the decision we had to make- and we absolutely wanted a backyard for our family and kids to be able to play as they grow in this home.
We worked with a company called Teamturf, who had the best selection of realistic grass to choose from.
Teamturf has selections that will look great all year round, with a long list of pro’s
Free up your weekends
No watering
No fertiliser
No mowing
No mud
No weeds
No allergies
Always dry
Always usable
Looks perfect 24/7
8 year manufacturers warranty
Since we have moved into the house, we have spent every afternoon in the backyard. Playing, having picnics, or just sitting and enjoying the outdoors without any worries.
