A Start at last - An Introduction.

Having never done a blog I'm already worried I simply won't have the time to keep this up to date, but as I sit here on the start of a year of potential heartache and hard work I'll try my best to keep family and friends up to date. The whole reason for this blog is to hopefully chronicle our plans to develop a huge (fairly ugly) grain barn into a pair of houses for ourselves and for some dear friends. Today Friday 10th August we finally exchanged on a fairly torturous process of let downs, gazumping and false starts. It all started on the 8th of May when I gave a lift home to a contractor who was working with me on a project. As we drove along he (another Rob) mentioned he was selling his barns for development, my ears pricked up, but I did remember that on my last visit some 10 years before I could only remember an enormous hangar full of lorries. What I did remember was that they were on the edge of a pretty hamlet on the Rutland/Leicestershire border, flanked by fields. My memory served me correctly, one enormous barn suitable for two semi detached dwellings and a single barn well suited to a single story conversion. I looked at the big barn, ludicrously enormous was my first thought, unconventional for a conversion was my second thought, that's my new home was my third.

The problem as I saw it was convincing Kate that this carbuncle could be a fantastic spacious house (eventually). The other problem was that the owner wanted to sell the whole plot consisting of two barns to make three properties, and was not considering a split. Part of the first problem should not have been a problem, I had already been looking with a good friend Paul Scott for a large rural house in a state of disrepair to buy, do up and sell on. I remember my text to Paul now 'Found Barns near Uppingham. They are enormous!'

The next evening I found myself standing outside the barns with Kate, Beth and Tom, and Paul, Cathy and their children Megan and Grace. 'This is where it goes Pete Tong' I thought. Unexpectedly the girls were positive, 'We need to sit down and do our sums' said Kate, in that 'Don't start getting exited just yet' tone.

The first start was speaking to my Builder Dave Ardley, (even as I type the word builder it doesn't fit) this is someone I've known and worked with for 9 years) the sort of person who really genuinely does what he does because of the pleasure of the finished project. I'm lucky to start with, in my industry I know and work with a fair number of builders, all of whom are good, but its a different thing to work with someone for a year. I think the word we need to be using is building artisan. Also as I have intended not to use an architect (officially, more of that later) and do all the plans and building control drawings myself, I needed to work with someone who actually is happy on that basis. To quote Dave 'In 20 years I've yet to have a plan which actually agrees with the site/or works out first time'. This clearly is good news for me, if Dave can work from a fag packet drawing, he won't mind mine. Literally after getting the agreement from Cathy, Paul and Kate we need to find out if this whole project is feasible, then we can make an offer on the barns. A quick call to Dave bursts my bubble, he has 18 months worth of work booked in, as he has a years work on a large development. He's gutted too, I can tell.

Two hours later Dave rings back. His had a think and long talk with his wife. 'A barn conversion you say?'