Are we there yet?

We're almost ready to start building.  The Building Regs application went in on  Monday, and in theory we can start within 48 hours, although we haven't quite got a builder yet.


Mind you, the scheme we've submitted for approval is the one with the higher floor levels, and Misan is not convinced that this is a good solution.  She's still concerned it contains too many compromises on headroom, gallery height, etc to be worthwhile pursuing, whilst I maintain that any design that avoids underpinning seems right to me.  We need to discuss with our builders to get a better feel for the relative costs and merits of the 2 schemes.


Raising the floor levels has also required a new Listed Building Consent application, and a Minor Material Amendment application to the planning permission - which attracts extra fees.  And of course we've had to pay our designers more to develop this alternative, plus the building regs application fee ... it's never ending.  A word of caution here for any prospective self-builders - all of the costs we've incurred so far have exceeded the allowances suggested in the various self build magazines.


We also saw a house for rent that fits the bill for us.  We applied straight away, but the landlord has apparently chosen someone else who wants a longer term.  We've offered a higher rent to convince them otherwise, but haven't heard back yet.  We need to get somewhere soon, as the buyers are keen to complete on our house in late July.


Then I re-dug the trial holes at the barn by hand on Monday evening so that the architect can get levels on the underside of the stone walls and relate them to other existing and proposed levels.  I still can't believe they haven't done this up to now, as to me it's the most critical piece of information about the existing structure, but at least we now have it and so can be more certain about the proposed design solutions.  We live in hope.

Let down by Kiwis

There I was, in line for a maximum 10 points in our World Cup Predictions competition, when New Zealand get an injury time equaliser!


And just before our Warwick house was surveyed yesterday by the purchaser's surveyor, the Kiwi plant against the back wall was blown over by a gust of wind, nicely exposing a crack in the brickwork below the kitchen window.


We're now waiting nervously for any feedback from the survey, hoping he didn't find anything serious enough to put the buyers off.  Should find out tomorrow ...

Back to the drawing board

Six weeks after we asked the architect and engineer to proceed with the Building Regs drawings, which should have taken 1-2 weeks, we've had to get them round the table and have a radical rethink.  As the details were being drawn up, it became apparent that horrendous foundation works, including underpinning, was needed to build the scheme that's been approved by the planners.  So we've suggested the designers now look at a higher ground floor level to avoid undermining the existing stone walls. This will mean pushing the bedrooms further up into the roof - which can't be raised any more than the 500mm raising allowed on the approved plans - but which we think can be accommodated because there's enough headroom between the trusses to do this.


The frustrating thing is that we've had to address this at such a late stage - we've got builders waiting for these drawings to give us quotations.  And again it's our ideas and our initiative that they're now going to develop.  Why don't they come up with these in the first place?


Oh, and it's 7 months since we bought the barn, and we're still a month away from starting building work ....