Monthly Archive for February, 2007Page 2 of 2

A long chat at the Long Barn

Published
by
Paul
on February 16, 2007
in Pre-Planning
. 0 Comments

Last night we (that’s the full we, not just Abi and myself) had a very constructive meeting with Nicolas Tye at their Long Barn studios/home.

Their place is also in Mid Beds, and they’ve recently had a lot of dealings with the local planning authority due an extension of their offices (read new building, as Nicolas phrased it, Telly Tubby style), and apparently even more controversially, a wind turbine.

We didn’t know what to expect from the meeting really. For a start Lewis had not met Nicolas before, and although I think we’d all pretty much decided he was the man for the job, based on experience, portfolio and the fact he seemed very likable and down to earth, if Lewis didn’t get on for some reason we’d be back to the drawing board. Fortunately I think Lewis was suitably impressed, not only by the talk we had (which went on for nearly two hours), but also by their converted barn.

Anyway, we discussed in quite some depth on how we were to start our charm offensive on the local planning authority. As already mentioned, the fact we’re on a flood plain, outside the settlement envelope, and have an entrance not to far from a junction (on a bend), are not in our favour. However, after we spent quite some time going through all the negatives of the site, it seemed Nic’s approach of selling the project on “betterment” of the area was getting stronger and stronger.

Quite frankly, there’s a lot left to be desired by the layout, and many aspects of Waterhall Cottage as it stands, and we really feel that not only by adding two new homes, but reworking, moving, or even knocking down and rebuilding the cottage we can vastly improve the atmosphere and practicalities of the site and surrounding area.

Nic spent quite some time scaring us (well, me for sure) by firing at us possible suggestions or compromises the planners may come back to us with. What was pleasing was we all seemed very laid back about what may become of our dream homes. I think we all appreciate that opportunities like this are really once in a lifetime, and we’re all happy to compromise, if needs be, to build our homes here.

It also became apparent that the planning officers aren’t quite the Ogres they’re often made out to be by a lot of the self build information and guides we’ve come across. It just appears that they’re over worked, under paid, under appreciated, and bound up by all sorts of legislations and guidelines. If we can get our proposals to play well with their guidelines, promote the fact we really do want eco-friendly houses, low carbon footprints, to improve access for services, then all of this could help.

We discussed design a little, and it’s clear that many of the aspects we love about some of the multi-million pound (or dollar, or whatever) houses we’ve discovered in our books and on the web could very well be scaled down and made to fit our far more modest budgets. Nic pointed out himself the amount of stained plywood they used in their barn, because it was cheap. But you’d never say the barn looked cheap, it’s an impressive place for certain.

Anyway, we left all feeling very reassured by what we had heard from Nic, and very excited about what lies ahead.

There’s still very much a fear that the planners will not only turn down the chance to meet us on site to discuss our ideas (apparently ideal, but about 90% unlikely), but will just give a flat “No” to the whole idea. We sincerely hope not. We cant afford to buy the type of house we hope to build (if to buy one at all in this area), and we really want to set up home in this village for some time to come. I feel it’s very important to try and give Alfie a settled home during his school years, and having experienced village life for myself as a child, I think it’s a fantastic place to grow up. I hope Nic catches the planners on a good day.

When he’s spoken to them he’s calling me with the news. It’ll probably be sometime early next week. I think the way I feel just now can best be described as anxious. Very anxious.

And so it begins….

Published
by
Paul
on February 14, 2007
in Pre-Planning
. 0 Comments

Actually “it” began quite some time ago, but the story is long and winding, so I wont bore you with that.

Tomorrow we have a meeting with Nicolas Tye to start discussions on our plans for our first ever house. Before now, due to one thing and another we’ve only ever rented, so it’s about time we joined the land of the seriously indebted mortgage owners. But rather than buying a house, we’re in the extremely privileged position to have our own “Plot on the Landscape”, where we hope to build our first, dream home.

We’ve spent many hours researching ideas for our new home. One of our main sources of advice has been my Mother-in-Law, who with my late Father-in-Law built two self build houses already. We’ve also bought three books, “Grand Designs Handbook“, “100 of the World’s Best Houses” and the cleverly titled “Another 100 of the World’s Best Houses“. I’m not sure how useful they’ve been, but the “World’s Best” books have provided a lot of ideas and inspirations that we hope could be seriously scaled down to fit our budget, and the “Handbook” has got a lot of solid advice, which I can see us returning to in future.

We’ve spoken to a few different architects after spending a lot of time sifting through the Riba Find website. We had good conversations with all, and it was amazing how differently some viewed the project and ideas we had. It was also amazing how little some seemed to listen.

“The Project” is, from what we can gather, fairly unusual.

We currently live and work in a property in Salford, Mid Beds. The house is on a large plot of land, and although originally one of a row of cottages (hence the inappropriately quaint name of “Waterhall Cottage”) it’s now an extended mish-mash of a home/office with not much character of it’s own. This is owned by Abi’s Mum, and she has very generously presented us, and Abi’s brother the opportunity to build our own houses on the land next to the current property.

So the project overall is to build two new homes, one for us and one for Lewis (Abi’s brother), improve the area in general, and modernise or update the current property to make it more in keeping with the general feel we hope to achieve.

The unusual part of the project is we all feel strongly that if you’re going to build your own house, you should build something unique. Don’t waste the chance to express yourself and build something you find truly appealing and interesting. However, it seems most people, for various (and probably very good) reasons play it safe, even when self building, and end up with houses that look like they could have been made on behalf of any development corporation in the Country.

The challenge here is, especially as first time buyers, our budget is limited. So we’re asking and hoping for a lot! We want houses that look and feel fantastic, fit comfortably with the rather ramshackle village of Salford (although we’re very much on the outskirts), and fits our moderate budget. Surely not too much to ask!

Initial enquiries have also brought to light some other “challenges”. The land where we hope to build has a restrictive covenant on it. However, no reason has been given, so apparently we can’t lift it, because we cannot argue against it, because we don’t know what it’s for (how’s that for logic!). Insurance appears to be the answer here. We’re also well outside the settlement envelope, access is going to be a challenge, and a large chunk of our garden is flood plain! Aside from that, we fully expect it to be plain sailing.

The reason for this blog is purely for ourselves to keep a track of how things go from this point onward. We also hope that it may be of interest to others, and even if it all goes horribly pear shaped can serve as a lesson in how not to do these things. I’d much sooner it turns into a demonstration of how to do these things, but time will tell.

“This point” feels significant as we’ve got our architect, tomorrow night we start to “talk design”, and I’ve actually got some proper mortgage advice so we realise just how tight our budget is going to be!

Scary stuff, but very exciting stuff.

Tonight we’re meeting with Lewis to go over photos and discuss things we like, how we feel about our homes, and prepare for our meeting.