Update Images 2

We had our first major site delivery this week, all the way from Germany, of course with German efficiency it was three days early. The delivery was our pair of water treatment plants. The basic gist is that all our waste water (and I mean all) goes in, and tap water comes out a few days later. That's what the rep said anyway, but I wouldn't drink it myself. Our driver was Gerhard who wore socks and sandals, a style faux pas we had to forgive him for. Paul made him a coffee with four spoons of sugar, no wonder he was early.He seemed quite happy to pose for our blog, saying that our neighbour (and vendor) Rob and son Charlie did all the work manhandling the things down.

Update Images 1

How to upset the new neighbours when the Pikeys moved in.

A small amount of skilled pruning.

This is when I asked if it was possible to get it right in the corner.

'What, like in the field' says Chris.

On Site At Last

NEW VIEW

This post comes two weeks late due to the unbelievable service one gets from BT. Now we are in the sticks there's no cable, and therefore no competition for BT, who kept me waiting 10 days for a telephone line, don't ask about Broadband, that's going to follow 7 days later. Actually the whole BT farrago has pointed out one thing, and that is so far if I had a list of Fame and a list of Shame, BT would be the only member of the Shame side, so I suppose now would be a good time to give some well earned thanks to the Fame side. The whole buying/selling procedure was made far less fraught by the attentions of both our Estate Agents and Solicitors, whilst their opposite numbers seemed to be intent on creating confusion and delay. We have only ever used one Estate Agent to sell our houses, James Sellicks who took a mere 3 hours to procure a sale on our last house, this sale took three days to get an offer we accepted, and they managed to get seven offers in those three days. I'd like to personally thank Sarah and James for their timely advice and help, and the way they nudged and cajoled others to bring things to a practical conclusion. Just to put our sale into some perspective, we found the barns the week before our holiday, offered on the Monday of the holiday week, had our offer turned down, made an improved offer on the Tuesday which was accepted the next day.

I rang James to say 'I need you to sell my house, quickly'.
He said 'I'll pop round on Friday'.
'Ah I'm in Italy'
'When do you go?'
'Friday morning'
'I'll see you this afternoon then'

He came, he took a spare key, he told me how much he'd ask for the house, and then how much we'd get if we were willing to wait a month or so for the right buyer to come along. He said all the usual Estate Agent things like, 'Its perfect guys, buyers will be fighting for a house like this' 'I'll get it in the paper the weekend before you return, we'll organise viewings from the day you get back. He was right, on all accounts. Except he got the month or so price in three days.

As with James its all about personal knowledge and recommendation, when it came to Solicitors I had no real indication of who we should approach, but Cathy had only one name she would be happy to deal with, Eric Roberts at Roberts Rose specialist conveyancers. We found Eric to be a man of great charisma, but with an underlying shrewdness and intellect. From the moment we all (the four of us, (squashed in)) sat down in his office we had the feeling that someone was really looking out for us, as opposed to simply doing a job of work. It would be unfair to point a finger at our buyers solicitor but in the end her motto we made up was 'What I promise today won't be done tomorrow' Cathy and Paul fared no better with their buyer opting for a 'Call Centre' style package. This was no worry to Eric, who like a pike chasing a pair of minnows pushed and prodded them into doing what was required. Unfortunately for Paul and Cathy our buyers solicitor caused a real delay causing us to have to put back our completion date after they had committed to theirs. Two weeks of borrowed flats entailed for them, for which I feel very regretful. It was better news on our vendors font, Eric had known his solicitor for many years so lines of communication were much easier. I'd like to say thank you to Rachel too for keeping a calm perspective whenever I had a wobble.

From a financial point of view we were lucky in Stephanie Heald's recommendation of Trust Financial Planning who have been incredibly proactive in all their efforts with the complications of a self build, its assurance, insurance and our liabilities. Poor old Dan, the proprietor had made an appointment to see us about pensions and life assurances the week before we found the barns, so when he did turn up he found a house full of prospective purchasers and us needing to talk self-build mortgages and public liability insurance instead. Once Dan had gone through a list of needs he passed us into the capable hands of James who has been tirelessly proactive in his research of the best buys for our needs. Paul and I still probably speak to him bi-weekly still, and it was great to know that one part of the build process was being carried out in someone elses capable hands, rather than our own.

It's suddenly reality.

I feel that there is so much missing from this blog already, that has happened between May and now, yet so much is happening day by day. Its a shame you can't fill in the gaps as you go along and end up in a structured chronological order.

However that's not to be.

This week then has been our first visit to building control, Dave (the artisan) builders first look at our proper plans, and the trip to buy our caravan! (Yes its official, I'm now a pikey).

Building control went better than could be expected, our inspector Steve was a constructive and proactive chap. Very aware that we are doing our own drawings* he was thorough in exploring all the areas that he knew we were novices at, fire protection and access, emergency escape, sound penetration and insulation. With the exception of needing a few extra internal doors for fire escape nothing seemed too far out. However we did leave with an understanding of how much legislation and detail there was for every single part of the build.

Dave likewise seemed happy with most areas, Paul and he wanted to see all ground floor walls made of block, 'All?' I said, Dave asked me if I was going to want shelves up? Ah, yes, all I agreed. The best part of this meeting was that we've decided to build all of the ground floor, plus the ceiling/first floor joists before taking the existing roof off. This is a fantastic idea in my mind as everyone can work in a dry environment, plus when Paul and I dismantle the roof, we can do so from the first floor.

As for the caravan... Paul has been a complete star and spent two and a half days literally driving round the country looking at all the mobile home resellers. Its a bit like a shop at home service, he's photographed the good, the bad and the ugly and reported back to us. The conclusions are that a) all mobile home designers have had a taste bypass, and b) the affordable ones have bits missing and smell. Armed with Paul's research we at least felt we had some idea of what to expect and what to pay, the ones we had budgeted for did indeed smell, and required some little bits of work (new toilets/carpets!).

The nearest dealer was just a few miles away in Kettering, it must have been fate that took us to Kestrel Caravans as when we couldn't find one we really liked at all (at least that didn't have a SOLD sign in the window). Just as we were leaving we saw the owner (Chris) working away on a large static. 'Is this for sale' I ask, 'Its just come in, it will be in a few days, you can have a look inside though' That was our big mistake, this one smelt fine, even pleasant. There weren't any missing bits at all. Someone had loved this caravan. Kate looked in the bathroom, it had a proper cubicle with a glass door and a proper shower. It had heaters in all the bedrooms. It was also £1200 above our self imposed budget. Despite the tasteless 'mahogany on every surface treatment' and the dodgy glass lampshades everywhere this one was clearly a nicer prospect, and on the basis its not what you pay, its how much you lose on it in a year, it was a done deal.

*I'm doing my own drawings basically means I'm the chimp with the pencil, Kate's the one with the flair and I've had the most fantastic creative help from three dear architect friends who happen to make glorious buildings for a day job, and some brilliant little ideas from friends, siblings and parents. I'm not wanting to design by committee but any good idea is worthy of consideration. Those details can wait for another post though.

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?'