It’s still all about footings and slabs at the moment. The big diggers have returned, we have more humongous holes on site plus our first concrete pour!
Continue reading “Foundations”Foundations
Holes
Lots happening below ground for the past week with diggers on site for the drainage trenches and foundations. As we’re a wee distance from the high street our arrangements for services are a little more complicated
Continue reading “Holes”A proper meeting and everything
A trip to very soggy Lake District means our flat is now full of wet camping gear reminding us that we really, really need to get this house finished soon! It was great therefore to have our first on site progress meeting this week. There were good discussions between the Design Team and Builder plus we also got to sit in the site office and leave mud on the floor which reminded me of going to work with Dad.
Continue reading “A proper meeting and everything”Quite a big mess
It’s fair to say the site now looks like a proper building site. Ground works have started and the first job was to strip back the top soil and lay temporary hardcore everywhere so the machinery doesn’t sink in the resultant mud. The rule of thumb appears to be “why lay one ton of hardcore when you can use three” so our idyllic bit of field is now sporting a new look
Continue reading “Quite a big mess”Loose ends
If you’re a fan of Channel 4’s Grand Designs as we are, you will after a while begin to spot some common show themes:
- things always start well but by the second ad-break someone has picked up a life threatening disease / got pregnant / ground to a halt by Covid or been made redundant;
- they always run out of money;
- things miraculously come good in the last 10 minutes, and most importantly of all;
- it’s all going to go very wrong if you don’t have a good independent Project Manager.
Wait … hang on a minute … but we don’t have a project manager?
Continue reading “Loose ends”Go!
Work on site has commenced which is off the scale exciting!! The next couple of weeks will be all about preparing the site, we need to have 550m2 of hard standing laid, so not exactly sure when holes will be dug or things actually built. We do have a digger on site now so hopefully not too long.
Continue reading “Go!”28th June
Well that took longer than expected. While negotiations are not completely finished, we have very nearly agreed build costs for our new house and this week signed a letter of intent which will allow ground works to start in two weeks (eek!)
Continue reading “28th June”The five stages
Value engineering continues.
The team have been brilliant, working flat out to drive down costs with cunning plans and practical suggestions. Some are no-brainers, others require some serious thought to make certain we won’t regret it later while a few have been vetoed to preserve our goal for this project.
Continue reading “The five stages”Oh … that’s a little unexpected
Finally the wait is over and we now have a cost from our builder! This is an exciting moment for the project. Less excitingly, while we always knew the budget was going to be tricky, it would appear we are miles away from being able to afford it which is a bit of a shock.
Continue reading “Oh … that’s a little unexpected”Inspiration Part Two
While we’re waiting for the build cost to arrive, the restorative alcohol is on standby, decisions on finishes and style continue to rattle round our heads. Here’s some more from the Pinterest archive on where we’ve got to so far.
Continue reading “Inspiration Part Two”
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