We’re finally on track to build our dream home, and although it’ll mean living in a caravan for four months or so while we project manage the build ourselves, we know itʼll be worth every minute. We’d pursued various sites over the years but for one reason or another, they fell through. It wasn’t until a local developer advertised a former pub for development in Barnet, near to where we live, that we heard about this land – the old pub garden.

As we managed to find out where he lived via the land registry, we popped a note through his letter box expressing our interest, and he rang us back that afternoon. We met the next day and within a week had sealed the deal.

We wanted to build with a package company, because it enabled us to see exactly what we would be buying and looked at a few before choosing Kingspan Potton. Weʼre fans of Georgian architecture and were impressed by the homes in their Heritage range, some of which give a smart nod to this enduring style. We liked two of their designs, and worked with the team to tailor a set of plans for our home, cherry picking our favourite features from the two we liked.

We worked with a local architect to get the plans accepted as we are in a high profile conservation area. Potton then worked very closely with us to fine tune the design, they help in all ways to get the home you really want. For us, it’s all about family, and although our four children are all grown up, we wanted somewhere we could all relax together when they came to visit. Weʼve also included a useable space in the roof that Gill can use as an art studio.

Initially we submitted a set of plans that were quite conservative with regards to the look of the house, thinking they’d be more likely to go for it, but they weren’t totally happy with the symmetry, so we produced the full Brandham B design we had our heart set on, and incredibly they loved it. Because it’s a conservation area, the plans had to go through various committees but fortunately jumped through every single hoop with flying colours. This was back in October 2009.

With planning achieved we could finally order the timber frame, which had a lead time of a couple of months (this could vary, depending on the self builder’s timeframe). In the meantime we had to prepare for the ground works, erect fencing and start a tree planting programme to the boundary of the site, so we were kept very busy through the winter months. Kingspan Potton gives you an invaluable guide to building your own house which tells you what to do and when to do it and that’s become our bible. It includes a recommended list of tradespeople, too, which we’ve used as we wanted to know that the people weʼll be working with are used to working on timber frame builds.

We had to sell our previous home in order to fund the site purchase and the build cost for our new home. The site cost was £400,000, our build budget is £200,000 and allowing for fees etc; we expect the total finished cost to be around £650,000. Both our sale and purchase were conditional on obtaining planning permission for our new home and with a flexible purchaser and willing vendor the whole exercise was quite straight forward. When we had completed the sale of our house at the end of October we took a 6 month rental on a small flat in the same road as our build. We found a bargain caravan on e-bay for £257 and 9P! which we decided would be good to live in on site both from a security point of view and to be constantly on hand for the various trades. Barry made a call to the Council to check the caravan would be OK and they were fine. At least the weather will be warmer while weʼre roughing it, although the lack of a shower is a little daunting – thank goodness our eldest daughter lives close by!

As we have had running water and electricity connected to site we are self sufficient and Barry even managed to persuade a very helpful BT engineer to link up telephone and internet to our caravan.

The first stage of the work – clearing the land and laying the foundations – has just finished and we have to say that building in a pub garden is full of surprises! The contractors discovered an old air raid shelter and remains of a stable while clearing the site and excavating for the foundations. It must have been a pretty big shelter, although all that’s left is a reinforced concrete wall. But we had to get the building inspector in to give the go-ahead to demolish it and hire extra machinery, which cost a couple of days delay and of course the cement required increased dramatically. But that’s building for you – you have to make allowances for the unexpected.

In all, the site clearance, trench foundations and getting the block and beam floor in has taken about four weeks. Now the contractors have finished, the next stage is for the scaffolding to arrive, then the kit for the timber frame, which will take two or three weeks to put up. The whole build is scheduled to take around 16 weeks – although I’ll be wanting to move in way before that. The way I see it, we’ll be in as soon as we can get a foam mat and sleeping bags in there!

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