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Blogs

Lucy Murray

Planning Permission Granted!

We now have planning permission - Scottish Borders Council Planning Reference Number 16/00648/PPP.    Scottish Power wires still to move but we're hopeful that this will happen within the next few months...   Shortlisting main contractors at the moment. Should have tender documents ready to send out by the end of April.   Quietly hoping we'll be on our way with the build by October....................watch this space.   Lucy 
Blackmore House

Tap, tap, tap, tap......

Can you hear that?  It's the sound of my fingers tapping as I find myself waiting for the wheels of bureaucracy to turn.  This time, it's the turn of Natural England and their (hopeful) approval of our bat mitigation strategy and licence to remove the roof from the old bungalow.  It takes around 6 weeks for them to decide on a licence application but they are behind by a week or two right now, so that means it could be anything up to 2 months.  2 months! Unbelievable!  I've come to the conclusio
Blackmore House

Windows

A boring title, I know, but it's succinct and to the point.   I find it hard to get excited about windows, to be honest, which has surprised me given how much they cost but slogging through different window systems and deciding what's best hasn't been the most fun thing to do.  I guess one aspect that takes any joy out of the process is the lack of uniformity in windows where each company does their own thing and has their own systems which, I'm sure, are terribly important to them and
Scooby Cottage renovation.

Finished at last!

Well, at last we have finished our renovation and have had an offer that we have accepted.   It took longer to get here than we ever thought, over 17months, but I think it was worth it.  After Christmas and our little party, we had the estate agent in who had already sold one of the neighbours houses and before we knew it, the photographer was there and the next day it was online!  we still had a few snags to sort out but we soon had those done, apart from the wooden mantle for the lou
Rose Lane re-build

MVHR Balancing

Apologies I didn’t take many pictures of the process.   Initial Frustrations: Due to a delay in the First Floor (FF) Micro Screed, couldn’t access the house as planned (Thursday after arrival) but had to wait until the following Wednesday, I would have had the balancing complete by the Monday and had a week to do other small jobs, as it was I got the job finished, bit nothing else.   First of all I fitted the ground floor vent terminals, this involved trimming the termin
caliwag

book/e-book

Howdy, I'm just exploring the implications/costings of selling my book 'Self build...the last thing you need is an architect' as an e-book......any help or assistance/experiences gratefully received.   (Price link removed by moderator)
Blackmore House

Does anyone have a potter's wheel?

....because we have clay, and lots of it.   A soil test was carried out on the site today as MBC need to know what they're building on to do their sums for the foundation.  I used a firm called Mini Soil Surveys (South West), run by a chap called Martin Shirley.  My selection of which firm to use was detailed and exacting - they were the cheapest.  Or should I say, least expensive.  Actually, I had no idea what was involved in this other than punching a few holes in the ground and look
Wee Hoose on the Croft

On the home straight

It's starting to feel like the finish line is in sight now. Since my last entry, I've largely finished the interior including all the flooring, the doors, most of the kitchen, the windowsills, and the huge and daunting task of the bathroom (big thanks to @Nickfromwales for answering my hundreds of questions on that one!). I got a plumber in to install my UVC (sorry Nick, forgot to get a photo of that).  I've also done a bit more of the cladding, but the exterior work has been on the back bu
Blackmore House

Reality dawns

After feeling like I've had dozens of different plates spinning in the air at the same time, they are gradually starting to come down to earth and some more gently than others.  This relates to how much it's all going to cost or at least getting an idea of it.   We started out with our budget and a target price per m2 but there's been a lot of theory around that.  In fairness, I had my quote from MBC but that was about it.  More costs are becoming clear now and it's a little intimidati
Blackmore House

South coast inflation

The background plotting and scheming continues as I tick items off a never-ending list of stuff whilst I wait for the bat licence to be granted and start demolition of the bungalow.  Much of this has involved shopping around for various services that we have to have, such as a soil survey (MBC requirement) and SAP calculations.  Other items are for big ticket expenditure such as glazing and cladding.    I live in Bournemouth but the new build is at the other end of the county, in north
Sips and stones may break my bones...

Q: What's in a name? A: £100-£50

Had to laugh yesterday as I got demand number 4 from our council for us to fill in a form for us to beg their permission to call our house what we want (there are no street numbers as there is no street) .  Their first attempt about a year ago when we started building was to try it on for £100 and when I ignored that another form was sent asking for £50. The funny bit was they addressed it to the house, and the form explains that unless we pay the bribe we will not receive mail or deliveries at
caliwag

Shipping container/office

I don't suppose many of you see the Yorkshire Post newspaper which is emblazoned with the banner headline 'Yorkshire's National Newspaper' erm!   Anyway this conversion is neatly handled, in my view, even with expensive steel doors   https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/lifestyle/homes-gardens/for-sale-shipping-container-that-s-now-a-stylish-office-garden-room-1-8992743 
caliwag

A Book Nook

Just a sort of screen grab (ignore other images until book nook pops up!). A nice idea A...if you've got book storage problems. B...a redundant closet   Could even be under the stairs with an open front and different lighting, or in the generous bay window...just a thought. Ignore the decor, that's just fashion, or not as the case may be!    
Sips and stones may break my bones...

A fire test.

Well my old back injury came back and bit me over the weekend (nothing I'd done, just a chronic condition for which I'm on painkillers permanently and which flares up worse occasionally for no apparent reason)  -  and I'm off work unfortunately, laid up, so this has given me an opportunity to post this. Our patio doors were fitted by a very efficient and friendly team, who left a couple of offcuts, and as is my wont with these things, I decided to fire test them (yes, I know I videoed it vertica
Sips and stones may break my bones...

A raging convection flow and a cold nose...

It has been a cold few weeks here at Todcroft, with -13c at one point, which saw us flee from the caravan when all water, toilet and even the LPG froze and no longer worked. So we set up in the house even though we only have temporary polythene windows.   But this bad weather (to be expected of course) combined with lack of windows and just (triple glazed ) polythene in place of glass, has meant running fan heaters pretty much 24/7 to even keep slightly warm, though that's a misnomer a
Blackmore House

Getting the ball rolling

The first big money was spent today - I signed my contract with MBC and paid the deposit.  I think I could use a menopausal hot flush about now, to counteract the cold sweat that comes over me at the thought of spending all that money.    I haven't been idle since getting our planning permission through, either, as I know that the clock is ticking on loads of things that would be done later due to the type of build.  Stuff like how the cabling from the internet satellite dish will run
Sips and stones may break my bones...

Warranty inspection woes.

Well rather than repeat everything here, this is the link to the issues we've had with our building warranty inspections. At it's most basic the issue is that our inspector has not dealt with SIPs before and both he and his boss appear to have objections to anything other than brick and block.  Those issues have taken up weeks of the time we should have been working on the house. In the end, although his boss claims he's been an inspector over 10 years, his behaviour/knowledge level makes
Blackmore House

Good news

To say I'm thrilled is an understatement.  Our architect gave me a call this afternoon to say that planning permission has been granted and with no changes to what we submitted.  I was fully prepared for the worst and even had a plan B in place so that we could deal with the summer bat roost in the roof of the existing bungalow before it becomes active again at the end of spring, so I can set aside that bit of scheming now.   I had some concern that the planning officer would object to
The House At Mill Orchard

Links to the blog

To enable BuildHub users to find things a little quicker, and in discussion with the admins, the blog has been tidied up to allow access to the links as below.  Also included are the links to the useful information such as the energy usage spreadsheet to download.   The current blog has also been updated so this should allow you to see the latest content as its posted.   Blog Posts    Part Forty Six - Over-thinking things - Part Two http://www.mayfly.eu/2017/01
The Fun Irish (House)

Standing on the Edge...

So I'm currently contemplating whether to pursue my 3 year old dream to build a home or skip it and plough the money into the second hand home I just bought. To explain, the house has the site attached to it, which I now own, so at least land isn't the issue. There's going to be other moments I'm sure when I wonder if I've made the right choice but now would be a good time to call it a day. The scary thing is not knowing how much this is all going to cost. Prices for materials and labour are goi

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