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 ....