Dear Santa, for Christmas I'd like a build cost that's on budget...

And as the year draws to a close, Peter the Architect is sending out a note to our prospective contractors to expect the tender pack immediately in the New Year and Mike the Quantity Surveyor is counting bricks and roof tiles.

Alan and Liz most heartily wish our readers a very Happy Christmas and all the best for 2015. We hope you're enjoying the blog - if things go to plan, this time next year we will be posting a picture of a much bigger tree in a much bigger house. Happy Christmas!!

How much?!??

I took all our quotes in to the Quantity Surveyor this morning; the revised tender pack came out to us all from the architect this afternoon, so in a couple of weeks we'll be able to answer that key question...

Milestone achieved... fizz going into fridge

From the Test Valley Planning Dept website - permission!

Building pack received today

The draft final (if you see what I mean) spec/building drawings pack plopped fatly onto the table today - so our homework tomorrow is to go through them all and make a list of any changes we require... Rather disappointed that we haven't heard from Planning yet - contrary to my earlier post, it's actually Tuesday when the statutory 2 months are up so we hope to hear maybe on Monday. Today we've been taking advantage of the sunshine to get outside - Alan's wrestled the last bit of the front hedge into submission - or possibly the other way around! Even more importantly, I've put some hooks up so we can mount the fairy lights on the front of the bungalow. Next door has set the standard - as Dan is director of a lighting company who design and install lighting systems for shops such as Harrods, we're not going to beat that, but the trusty twinkly lights will go up shortly. Meanwhile the other next door have invited us round for dinner tonight so we're off to don our party frocks.

If you can't stand the heat...

...stay away from trying to commission a kitchen, as the saying goes. This is the big area which doesn't quite have a tick in the box yet. Not because we don't know what we want! But there are some contributory factors. Firstly, as is the way when you know exactly what you want, you can't quite get exactly what we want from any of the kitchen providers we've found so far. Secondly, and more interestingly, we have a range of quotes for the units which vary from under £3K to over £13K, which are all basically for similar construction decent quality non-flat-pack painted wooden shaker-style units. There are some frills - some are oak and some are just 'wood' - but the cheapest is oak and as far as I can see literally the identical units to one of the more expensive ones. The worktop quotes vary by a similar factor - but the expensive worktops aren't matched with the expensive cupboards, of course. So now I'm going through the process of trying to get genuinely matching quotes, and it's proving ticklish. I was amused yesterday talking to Peter the Architect when he said we needed this complete so that the builder could calculate his margin:'He needs to know if it's £40K or £15K'... I pointed out that a) our error bars were narrow and b) all were set below his bottom level... This is what one of the suppliers thinks it will look like:

Tomorrow is December...

...and at the end of next week we're due for a decision from the planners. Oh I do hope they say yes! - we're waiting for any comment from the tree officer after we responded to his concerns. We've sent the schedules of all our proposed internal specs to Peter the Architect. OK, not everything is sorted but we've done all we can from here pending some clarifications from him. Oh, apart from kitchens where we're still wrestling with trying to get two suppliers to quote like-for-like. We've found ourselves a quantity surveyor who's waiting for the building drawings to drop through his postbox. Budget panic time is imminent... #adoptsKevinMcCloudvoice "Will it really come in on budget or are they going to have to make some compromises to their dream?" Guess we'll know within the next couple of weeks...

Where are we now?

Perhaps it's an appropriate time to remind ourselves where we are in the whole process. Our Planning Officer is beavering away on our application with a completion date of 9 December for a decision - the Tree Officer had some queries about how we will protect the trees which are to remain, hopefully he's happy with our response. Peter the architect and his team are likewise beavering at detailed drawings and we're trying to tie down as many elements of the spec as possible. Big chunks not yet finalised are the heating system and the windows. The heat calculations suggest we need between 2 & 3kw to heat the whole house when it's freezing outside - which is roughly the two heated towel rails in the bathrooms plus a little heater in the ventilation system. So we'll have to open the doors when we run the logburner... The average boiler and heating infrastructure generally is set up to deal with old-tech much less well insulated houses. Oil, wood pellet etc don't make small enough boilers to match our heat needs - the only units small enough are LPG. Windows are of course part of this sum - you need good windows to retain the heat. Aside from the big ones, ours are small (!), so we really need to focus on getting the big north windows heat- and draught- proof. Although the payback period for triple glazing is huge, there's a suggestion that by minimising any convective draughts triple glazing actually does rather better than the direct heat loss calculations would suggest. So we'll probably go triple on the big windows and take the cheaper option on the small ones. We're tempted to go tilt and turn for the bedroom windows, anybody got any comments? In particular any experience of Jeld Wen t&t which seem to be very 'sensibly' priced - but are they any good? Oh, and did I say? Stainless steel for the gutters - contemporary and stylish, huh!

Absolutely gutte[re]d!

Today's free samples - alu, copper and stainless steel guttering, and two different sorts of limestone tile... if we get enough samples from enough people maybe we can do without actually buying anything??

Have we seen the light?

I've been instructing today but Alan's been scratching his head over the lighting & electrical scheme. What lights where? What sockets where? What switches where? And where do you put the light switches when it's all open plan and so you have no walls?!!!??? Anyone done this and got any advice? Meanwhile, the big budget question - should we rely on the market giving us a competitive price or should we commission a quantity surveyor to tell us how much they should be quoting?

Upstairs Downstairs

I don't think I've posted the floor plans yet - here they are:

The Sun Always Shines on Tytherley

(did you see what I did there?) One of the locals from the rookery on the hill on this lovely sunny frosty morning. Meanwhile we have solved the bath conundrum (how to get a bath that's big enough to submerge yourself in but still fits into the bathroom and doesn't cost a packet) and are now moving on to rainwater goods. It seems you can have plastic, steel, GRP, copper, cast, extruded or pressed aluminium, cast iron or zinc gutters. Copper and cast iron look lovely and cost a packet; plastic is cheap but I think our architect would hang himself if he thought we were going to specify that - any great thoughts out there? And rainwater harvesting - anyone done any calculations of how much you need to store for garden irrigation and carwashing purposes (we won't be using much on the latter, that's for sure....)

Sliding or folding? And is bespoke more expensive?

Decision time - are the two big windows going to be sliding doors or bifold doors? Heat/ventilation performance seems to be about the same. Bifold are slightly more expensive. Sliding doors have less in the sight-line when they're shut but don't open the space fully when they're open. Bifold doors open the space fully when open but have more bits in the sight-line when they're shut. Anyone out there have views or better, experience, as to which it should be? - if so please share it. Alan and I are evenly split between the two options! Would one of each be a compromise or would it look silly? Also can anyone recommend a good cabinet maker? We've been wrestling with the bathrooms & kitchen - when you know what you want, often that doesn't seem to exist so I'm wondering if it might actually be cheaper - or at least no more expensive - to go the bespoke route. Indeed, there's a suggestion that it is in fact cheaper to get someone to build it for you. Again, anyone got any advice?

Stone Love, or how to choose your kitchen worktop

Apologies for the silence - a post seems to have gone missing somewhere. Kitchen worktop choice is fairly wide and the options seem to be as follows. Laminate - cheap but is there a place for it in a splendid new-build?? At the other end of the price scale Corian - moulded sexily to fit and include the sink etc but apparently not terribly heat resistant, and very expensive. Various cheaper Corian-alikes. Granite, somewhere in the middle price-wise. Quartz which is a tough resin composite. We thought we'd go for Quartz which very stainproof (red wine may be a particular issue in our household, although not much actually gets away!) But then.... we went and looked at the local granite suppliers and both fell head over heels in love with Ivory Fantasy granite. It has a large-scale swirly grain and is more an artwork than a worktop. Now we just have to choose the kitchen cabinet colours to match!

It looks like this...

Specification Creep

In our case it means we're creeping oh-so-slowly towards a specification... How on earth do you decide how much (how little!) you need to spend on eg a thermostatic shower unit? £300? £500? £1000? I can find the same size shower screen for anything from £96 to £576. Why on earth does a 900x300x600mm unit which is just a box of MDF without even a top surface appear to cost £504? And where on earth do you go to get impartial advice? I am ploughing my way round the various suppliers and showrooms seeing whether any of the advice overlaps. Today is lay-out-the-utility-room day. But the view from the window this morning reminds me why we're doing it:

PP and various other Ps

We have submitted our Planning application! So the clock is now ticking for a decision within two months. Next P is Progress: now we're full steam ahead to specify everything after getting the build schedules from Peter the Architect on Friday. I think we've decided on our woodburner (anyone out there use a Morso?) We fought our way round Grand Designs Live Birmingham yesterday with a particular focus on the bi-fold / lift & slide door manufacturers - although we surprised various kitchen suppliers and designers by clambering all over their stands with our measuring tape looking for elements that are the same size as our plans and seeing what they look like in the flesh... Today we've been considering the bathrooms and here for your amusement is the final P of this post.

Project timeline

Those who have not built a house may not be familiar with the various steps along the way. First you need a concept design for the house - our earlier posts explain how we went about that. If you live in a conservation area, the next stage is usually a thing known as a pre-app which gives you informal pre-planning- application advice. It's a very cut-down planning application - you supply a sketch of the house, idea of floorplan etc, list the likely materials, and in return the planners hawk it round the various departments for their initial view. It's not mandatory but a useful way of finding what the planners, tree conservation team, highways etc think of your approach. Our pre-app came back a couple of weeks ago with all parties broadly happy, however they'd missed the fact that we want to take down the huge ash tree smack in the middle of the plot (see the earliest pics). There ensued a couple of nervous weeks while we chased them up on this and the tree-man cogitated over its loss, but they've come back saying they are happy so long as we plant some sort of replacement. So while Planning are not beholden to this, their initial view is that they are ok with this approach. On this basis we've gone to the next stage which is to submit the full planning application and it went in on Friday. Pics will follow. We have been sorting out detail of the internal plans and the next step is for us specify all the materials and fittings - everything from bricks to electrical points to bathtub, doorhandles, etc etc and this week we're meeting our architect to get schedules and start on this. Meanwhile he gets on with producing the building drawings. The planning application is due to be decided in 2 months which takes us to the start of December. Once we get approval, - which hopefully will be within that timescale but who knows? - then we can put the drawings out for tender. It's over Christmas so may take a while to get quotes in, analyse them, wrangle with the suppliers/revise the design if it's over cost (big worry!) and choose our builder. Only then can we start demolition - February at the absolute earliest. Oh and of course before we swing that wrecking ball, we need to move ourselves back out of the bungalow and into... who can say?! Then it's around a 9 month build, so we should be in the new house late next year. ...we will doubtless look back at this post at some point and see what happened really ;)

Change of address!

You would think that by 2014 addresses would be fairly well laid down. But you'd be wrong to think that - and we are a case in point. The 'official' address that goes with our postcode is The Village - which takes in all of the village street except the little bit north of our road which is North Lane. However, our road is clearly signposted Rectory Hill so it's fairly clear that we are not The Village. Our council tax bill arrived addressed to us in Old Rectory Lane which is what Test Valley had down as the road name, even though they are the people who put up the sign saying Rectory Hill. I know we're in the middle of nowhere, but I didn't think it was terra so incognita! So Alan spoke to the council and the Royal Mail and eventually they concluded that we do live on Rectory Hill and that they would change the official address. We were most amused then to receive a note from them saying they were about to do this but it would require a postcode change and was that ok? So now we have our very own personal postcode - feeling a bit like royalty here! - and we can finally send you all change of address details.

Site under maintenance

And here we were last night at the end of several days of hard work demolishing the falling-down-but-still-quite-structural lean-to at the end of the stables, starting to get the hedges back under control, removing the ivy smothering the walnut etc etc. As you can see, the last bonfire was good but this is going to be the Mother Of All Bonfires. Party, anyone? Alan is sat in the evening sun in the paddock contemplating it. The G&T in his hand is adorned with ice and a slice from our very own lemon harvest. The birds are singing in the trees. It's the end of September and still warm enough to sit outside and enjoy it all. Perfect!

Not bats - and that's official!

Firstly, a celebration that just over two weeks after we moved in we have internet again. Hurrah - and it's amazing how difficult it has seemed without it which must be a lesson in some way, but not necessarily a good one?! Next, to start to catch up on what's happened. We had the ecology survey done and the Bat Lady says we've officially not got roosting bats. The survey has to be done all evening from just before twilight through to dark in good weather - apparently bats can sense pressure drops and don't fly. The day she was originally scheduled to do it we'd been flying and there had been virtually no bugs to clean off the leading edges. I queried whether this was why she had cancelled ie the lack of prey activity, but apparently not, it was due to the pressure dropping and potential rain forecast. She was very interested to hear that some days are buggy and some not - hadn't considered convection/insect flight and how that might affect bat activity. So the sport of gliding may just have contributed something to ecological intelligence...

We're in - but not in-ternet..

Well that was hard work! We moved over two days - all the house stuff on Thursday and the garage/workshop/garden stuff on the Friday. Impressively it all fitted....just... Anywhere storage could be arranged, it WAS arranged. Lots more stuff got slung. A week later, we've tidied it all to the point that there are even spaces on some of the shelves. Everything seems to work. I've even uncovered the yard by the stables, formerly an inch deep in mud and moss. Alan's started on the marathon task of subduing the hedges. We've met most of the neighbours. And it's all entirely splendid. The one bugbear is communications which is why you've had none from me since we moved! They were due to install the phone the day after we moved in but it being a Friday, the technician decided to skive off rather than install it. We then had to wait over a week for the next available appointment. There is of course no mobile coverage so we've had to drive out of the village to the top of the nearest hill in order to make a call. And there's no 3G there. Finally they have installed the phone line but the broadband isn't working and they haven't sent someone to fix it yet. I will post some pics when it's all done.

Moving Day Eve

I'm on my way home from work to Digby House for the last time - tomorrow starts a new chapter as we move into the bungalow. We have a floor plan of where all the furniture is going...but...will the remaining stuff fit into the storage we will now have? Tomorrow/Friday we should find out... Last few bits to pack this evening or first thing tomorrow while they're loading the van. This has been rather more a move-house blog recently than a build blog as it's been somewhat squeaky to get the move organised on time - however we had a great meeting with the architect yesterday and once the boxes are unpacked we will catch up with what's turning into an stunning design for the new house. Although - there may be a slight delay as the phone is due to be connected on Friday - but will it? watch this space! - and even when it is, will there be broadband? Nobody will commit to this. The one thing we do know is that there is no mobile phone signal unless we go up to the top of the hill or down to the pub....difficult choice...

Honey I shrunk the stuff

We now have mostly empty cupboards. And only the one preserving pan. And a plan to fit everything that's left into the bungalow. What could possibly go wrong??? I'm not completely convinced that the dining chairs will fit although we're intending to dismantle and flat-pack the table. And will the piano fit past the door into the living room? Will we have a late change of heart this evening when the I-buy-furniture man comes round and add the dining table and chairs into the mix rather than storing it? We move a week tomorrow - so this weekend is for packing. I will update you on the new house design once we've moved.

It's official...

And after a hard day throwing out stuff here and cleaning the bungalow, we're collapsed with a G&T made with a lemon freshly harvested from our own tree. And my office is finished, phew - I really do deserve the G&T!

Fitting a quart into a pint pot

Everyone who came to look at our current house claimed they were 'downsizing' - and when we laughed, given that it's a huge huge house, they all said it was impossible to downsize which was why they were still looking at a large house. As we've sold to buyers currently living in their touring caravan after a previous purchase fell through, they were keen to move very soon and definitely before it got cold! So we now have two weeks to work out what will fit into the bungalow, what can safely be stored in the stable block and what needs to go into store elsewhere. And while it's not QUITE true to say that the bungalow is the size of our current garage, it's genuinely not very much bigger. Plan is that we'll stay in the bungalow until we're ready to knock it down and start the new house, then either rent locally or put a mobile home on site for the duration. So, led by Alan 'Sling it all' Sparrow, we are ruthlessly going through house contents and throwing or giving away excess stuff. As every room here at Digby House has large cupboards that are currently full, that's a lot of stuff. We may post a list... Then there's all the garden stuff - what plants do I need to take cuttings from? I've made a small 'parking' bed in the corner of the paddock to pop stuff into until we have a garden again, and all the pots are filling up. What it looks like now... ...and what we envisage when we see that space...

Normal service about to be resumed...

We apologise to regular readers for the lack of updates in the last three weeks. I know there ARE regular readers because I got an email from one of them berating me for the lack of updates. Excuses include: gliding comp; main work project imminently going live; holiday in a place where there was no phone, let alone any internet. But there is lots of progress to report and here is a very brief taster of the two key achievements. 1) We have just about sorted out a concept design and have submitted a planning pre-app 2) We have exchanged contracts on the sale of our current house and so move into the bungalow in 2 weeks' time (yes, that's the week my major project goes live...) As you can see from 2), it doesn't look as if things will be any less hectic over the next couple of weeks. Watch this space!

Nuts!

How on earth do people who are not technical manage to build houses? Does the actual design come as a surprise when built? Alan and I can read drawings, understand specs, envisage things in 3D - and even so we're finding that we need to build little bits of the proposed design in our house to see how the drawings work... or not, in some instances... Central to the new house was the idea of one big light living space which is kitchen/dining/living. But now we've laid out all the proposed rooms over the weekend, we've concluded that you need a really really big space if you're going to have them all together - otherwise your chips will fall down the back of the sofa. So - do we go back to a separate living room or can Peter-the-architect come up with a large enough single room? Panic-ometer reading was full scale for a bit over the weekend once we established this, but a bit of rational thought has calmed us down somewhat - there WILL be a workable solution, it's just not the one we have on paper in front of us at present... By the way, our working title for the new house was originally Walnut Tree House, imaginatively named for the huge walnut tree on the front boundary. However just about every other house in Tytherley has bagged the walnut - Walnut House, Walnut Lodge, Walnut Tree Cottage etc etc so we had to abandon that. There are also many hazels on the plot so provisionally and appropriately at present the working title has become 'The Nut House'...

Archaeology suddenly becomes more important

Today the continuing excavations finally unearthed the patio. It's all become rather more relevant since the day before yesterday when we accepted an offer on our [other!] house from a lovely couple who are currently living in their summer-holiday caravan and would like to move in two months from now. So, fingers crossed that it all works out, but meanwhile we need to work out what we can actually fit into the bungalow and what will need to go into storage. In the next thrilling instalment we find out whether our bed will actually fit into the bedroom.

And here may be the perfect storage opportunity as all the horses appear to have bolted... We will also be reporting soon on the progress of the new house design - we spent some time this week with our architect visiting houses he's built and considering design features and options. They look splendid but {{adopts Kevin McCloud voice}} is what we'd like even remotely achievable within our budget? And if not, what will have to give? Life's too short to... spend two years creating an ordinary house... go bankrupt creating a spectacular house. Desperately hoping for the middle ground and trying not to panic. Of course, we don't have a concept design yet, just a set of somewhat conflicting ideas. We're expecting the first sketches for discussion early next week.

Lesson: new houses are not like old houses

One thing that becomes clear from any research at all is that houses being built now don't work like any house that we've lived in before. Just to meet basic building regs these days requires really high levels of insulation, and if you exceed those and head towards the so-called Passivhaus standard then you don't really need to heat the house much at all. In fact you have to limit the amount of south-facing window, or at least have overhanging eaves to shade the glass, otherwise the place will fry in sunny weather - technically known as limiting solar gain. New houses also need to be very much more airtight than they used to be, which further limits heat loss - but also means that you need to think about ventilation. The obvious answer is to have managed ventilation where you deliberately trickle fresh air around the house, and these systems have a heat exchanger on them so that the warm outgoing air preheats the cold incoming air. Simple, eh? Initially we thought we'd go for a ground-source heat pump and underfloor heating, as that seems to be the greenest way to heat a house, but Alan's been doing the sums and reckons that we will need around 3kw to heat the whole house - one plug-in electric fire would provide that. So there doesn't seem to be any reason to do something as complicated as a heat pump and a heating system. There are various options instead - you can do it with electric heaters, a small boiler, a log-burner, or a top-up heater on the ventilation system which will add a bit more heat to the incoming air when needed. All have different capital and running costs so there's a cost analysis to be done there... I bet you can't wait to see the results published!?!

Project timeline slippage already...

So our surveyor has gone off sick and the house we're going to look at for design ideas can't host us tomorrow after all - one week into the project and one week delay already... But are we going to get stressed about it? Nope, we're saving that for when it really matters...

England may be out of the football, but WE are just kicking off!

Our initial sift of architects was obviously fairly effective as we felt we could have worked with any of them. Three scored higher than the rest on our weighted criteria list (nobody who knows me will be surprised by this) and so we followed up by speaking to customers of all three. This was at the same time reassuring and unhelpful, as everyone we spoke to was really pleased with their relationship and the result. So, that didn't really help with the selection but encouraged us to go for our first choice who had the most experience of the passivhaus type of modern highly insulated construction. He was very challenging - in a good way - in our first meeting, and innovation is something that really matters to us. While we're not expecting to end up with something whacky or modernist, we don't want someone who will just build what we ask regardless but will suggest things we'd never have thought of and challenge what we think we want. So! Our first proper meeting was on Tuesday afternoon, I was quite nervous going in - it's a big commitment, have we made the right decision? Happily the meeting went very well which was a great relief! We'd done some prep around a loose spec and a scrapbook of like/don't like pictures of houses, features, looks which formed the basis for a wide-ranging discussion about what we're looking for and some really interesting new ideas. Main worry remains - can we afford what we really want? Given that we don't yet actually know what we really want, we can't answer this right now! But it seems likely that all of the things on our wish-list would result in a design exceeding our budget. Peter the architect offered a number of suggestions as to cheaper routes to the same end, and he's off to do some initial concept work before we meet again next Thursday, when we're also going to view some houses he's built recently for ideas. Meanwhile our homework is to go back over our initial spec and decide what rooms we really want and what sizes we think we're after.

Water load of rubbish!!

So on the day we completed, I duly spoke to Southern Water to ask them to put the account into our name but telling them we hadn't moved in and needed to keep our existing account in Chilbolton open. No problem they said, keep the bill where you are, no bill due for the new place, tell us when you start renovations. If only... They then sent us a bill for it. I called them. They had apparently processed us as moved in, in spite of knowing we hadn't. They promised to put this right but didn't ever send us anything to suggest they had done so. Then this week, they sent us a dd cancellation/final bill for our current house. doh!! I've just called them to ask why they did this and had to spend another half hour on hold until they admit they've got it wrong but say - 'oh, we can't reinstate the payment because Alan set it up'... Exit Liz through the roof demanding to speak to someone more senior... at which point I somehow get cut off... Finally re-establishing contact and after another 10 minutes on the phone they do admit that as they cancelled it, they can reinstate the payment and they promise to sort it all out and give us £20 as a gesture of goodwill. I icily said thankyou and now wait to see whether they manage to get it right this time. Don't think the local bookies will give me evens though...

Trip to Swindon II

This time they'd found the door-key and the Self Build Centre was open. The aim of yesterday morning's visit was to have a look at and compare some of the bits of technology such as ventilation systems. Which we did. But, as you wander round, it reminds you of all the countless things you have to decide when building a house. Not just big things like construction method, heat pumps, roof type and tiling. But... Door handles! Mains points!! Floor coverings!!! Light switches!!!! (We went into the Potton Showhome and concluded that we will NOT be getting clever programmable light switches as most of theirs didn't seem capable of actually switching lights on.) I think I'm going to keep a list of all the things we have to decide in the house-building process. The worry of all those decisions was quickly smoothed away by a very long lunch with cousin/aunt/uncle which took up the rest of the day... So today we have been working it off first at [current] home mowing the lawn, trimming the hedge and weeding the veg plot, then back at the bungalow mowing the lawn and paddock and spraying glyphosate on the worst of the brambles that prevent us getting to the north-eastern boundary. There's a lot of hedge there that's looking in dire need of trimming - Alan's parents have just arranged to come down next weekend so I wonder... Here's the lawn looking short and tidy - bit different to last time!

And here's the corner of the stable block/jungle - less tidy. Coming back to decisions, we've decided which architect we want to build the house, I'm going to speak to him tomorrow so I'll leave you on tenterhooks to hear who it will be...

A Story about an Exciting Trip to Swindon...

...home of the National Self-Build Centre. We wanted to ask people about various bits of the technology - heat pumps, ventilation systems etc. So after an exciting morning doing my VAT return in the thunder and lightning, we headed over there. Only to be told by a woman stood outside that it was unexpectedly closed today due to the keys not having been received from the new landlord. Hmmmm! So we drove home again. The End

Ow my arms ache!

now done about 1/3 of the drive way.... and there's a patio out the back to do once I've done this bit oh no...

And this is the 'neigh'-bours

Like / Don't Like

Alan and I have been through all our house build mags, looked at architects' websites, taken pics of houses around here and scrapbooked some things that we like and don't like. Worryingly, there are far more we don't like than we do like... Encouragingly, of all the things that we have selected, there is one that we both selected and said we sort of liked a little bit... What could possibly go wrong???!

Complete!

Got the keys - about to enter our new house. Took a camping table, two chairs and a bottle of fizz along with a pizza bought from the bakery when I collected the keys at lunchtime - our first meal at Lanarkshire duly celebrated!

A RIBA a RIBA

How do you pick the perfect architect? We've looked at websites, sought personal recommendations, interviewed several architects and are about to speak to customers of the favourites. But how do you really pick the person to go share the business of designing and building you the perfect house? I've (no surprise to those who work with me!) done an interview comparison sheet and constructed an options appraisal matrix... Then as usual we'll compare gut feeling to the scientifically derived rankings and if they agree, great, if not we'll review the rankings to see whether the weightings are wrong or we're being led inappropriately by our hearts rather than our heads. But perhaps you have a better way? Please share it with us!

The Grey-Hair-Ometer

Baseline today - see how it progresses through the project...

How much is our house worth?

We have got market valuations from three different estate agents which vary quite a bit. Go on, guess what the spread is. Nearest guess wins a prize! Well - the answer is the agents clearly don't know - £175K variation... Susie wins a flight in the Duo at some point! Actually, two valuations were fairly similar and we're going with a Great British Compromise on those two.

Mowing the Patio....

As all the garden and paddock are down to rough grass, we asked the vendors if we could go in and mow the lawn before it got out of hand. Unfortunately by the time they said 'yes no problem' and we got down there, it was.... too late.

Most of Friday and Saturday were taken up with trying to retrieve the situation. Alan started off by mowing the patio... and then the 'lawn' and then the paddock while I commenced excavations on the driveway. How on earth will we manage two large plots while we're going through the process of design, planning and building? Only one thing for it, I will selflessly volunteer to do as few days' work as possible...

What are we buying?

This is it!

And the view from higher up the hill - arrow is showing the house:

And this is why - the view from the back garden:

The Story So Far... Chapter 2

14 March 2014 Went to view Lanarkshire – big name, small bungalow... The bungalow has planning permission to add a top floor. Superb location, splendid views, but... the plot faces north. Can we get a light sunny house that still faces the views? One comfort is that while we’re in the middle of the biggest floods since the Ark and the village road is currently a river, we are high enough up the hill that nowhere feels damp underfoot. I go and speak to the duty planner – he turns out to be the chap who did the planning permission for the top floor. Clearly he won’t commit to anything but in principle he’s relatively optimistic about much of what I suggest we might want to do – although of course there are no guarantees until you have the signed permission. 18 March – our offer is accepted. Oh my goodness!!! The vendors have tried a couple of times before to sell but it fell through for various reasons. They accept our offer on the basis of exchange within 28 days. We’re happy with this – if it can be done, we’d like it to be done. Over subsequent days it becomes clear that one of the things that caused ruckles before was an uplift clause in the event of redevelopment – happily this is now extinct. Instead, the concern is regarding the water supply. Southern Water are absolutely sure it’s on mains water – but have no idea where the supply is. Work that one out if you can! We poke around for a stopcock and meet several locals but fail to resolve the question. Trying to sort all this out means that we reach the 28 day limit and start to panic again – will they give up and sell to someone else instead? I’m away at the Pribina Cup in Slovakia and Alan is left panicking on his own at home - we get stressed as it slides over Easter and still doesn’t quite happen. It’s not entirely clear why it hasn’t happened – our solicitor assures us she’s talking to them and they’re happy but do we relax? No we don’t! 30 April Finally... after a few last minute hiccups, we exchanged contracts this afternoon.

The Story So Far...

Liz and Alan have been looking for a plot to build themselves a house for around seven years. Each time we found something we liked, someone else bid more for it. I (Liz) was starting to think it would never happen. What we wanted was around half an acre or so in a quiet scenic location somewhere local. And - and this is the key thing that has made the search difficult - it had to be better than where we are now, which is extremely good. Well, finally it looks as if we have found it. All will be explained in the next instalment...