Compact homes, compact yards, high standards
Deer Meadows offers D.R. Horton floor plans from around 1,156 to 1,892 square feet, three to five bedrooms, single and two story. These are efficient homes, and the lots match them. The back yards here are among the smallest of the communities we work in.
That is not a disadvantage. A compact back yard is the easiest to finish completely, the fastest to install, and the cheapest to get to a genuinely high standard. It is also the least forgiving of a poor job, because you can see all of it at once from inside the house.
Making a small yard feel bigger
There are a handful of decisions that make a compact Deer Meadows yard feel considerably larger than its dimensions.
Keep surfaces level with each other. A step down from concrete to turf visually chops the yard in two. Installed level, the eye reads it as one space.
Use fewer materials, not more. Two surfaces well executed look larger than four surfaces competing. Concrete and turf, with rock only at the perimeter, is usually the right answer here.
Run lines diagonally where the yard allows. A diagonal concrete edge or turf line gives a longer sight line than a straight run parallel to the fence.
Do not leave a strip of bare ground at the fence. An unfinished margin around the edge makes a small yard look smaller and unfinished. Rock it, edge it, and finish to the fence line.
Cost and value in a smaller yard
The practical advantage of a Deer Meadows sized yard is that a full quality installation is within reach of most budgets. Where a larger lot forces compromises or phasing, a compact yard can be done properly in one go: concrete extension, turf, rock perimeter, correct edging, correct drainage.
That is the recommendation we make here almost every time. Finish all of it once, to the right standard, rather than doing half now and never getting to the rest.
What is included by the builder
Front yard landscaped with irrigation. Back yard fully fenced. Covered patio included. Ground behind the patio bare.
