The housing development around my own home has been in place some 25 years and when the houses were first built, they were considered to be almost luxurious. They are mostly four bedroomed, all detached and for the first part of this century were considered most definitely executive quality. The developers were one of the country’s top conglomeragtes incorporating various other building groups to make one big heavy hitting mega group. They designed village style enclaves so that each one contained 8 dwellings in a set of 2, and two sets of 3. Each enclave has a nice little green area and lots of trees and shrubs marking the outer boundary of each house. Every back garden would be good enough size for children and pets to play safely and happily. There were patio areas on the more deluxe A1 grade of house and the A2, slightly less expensive had just a pathway around it with a small paved area near a convenient patio door. In fact all the houses have two patio doors – there is one leading from each dining room out to the rear garden and depending on the design, the others either have a side on patio door out to the same garden, or directly from the kitchen/family room. No one can say there’s a shortage of patio doors here.
What many of the house owners have done in the intervening 25 years is to knock out the back of their house and have it completely open plan with a back wall of bi fold patio doors. Some of the transformations have been spectacular. They are mostly the houses that alreay had a good view point, over the fields to the village beyond. And let’s face it, if you want to enjoy such a wonderful free benefit, then having any obstruction to that view is a nuisance and makes the time and expense of converting standard windows to a wall of bi-folds absolutly worth the time and expense!
