1: Introduction, The Site and Plans
Entry posted by ultramods
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In 2009 my wife and I moved into a 3 year old developer built house in Kingseat, Newmachar which is 6 miles north of Aberdeen.
Kingseat was originally a farming estate, in 1859 Aberdeen District Lunacy Board required a new mental health facility for paupers and acquired the site. The hospital was constructed between 1901 - 1904, the various buildings were laid out in a villa format, with lots of green space including trees, a football pitch and tennis courts.
One of the old hospital building - our current rental accommodation is in this building
The hospital closed in 1995, due to the historical importance of the buildings the area was designated a conservation area.
In 2006 a house builder was granted permission to convert the old buildings into flats and to build new houses in amongst the old buildings.
Typical developer house
Another typical developer house
I have wanted to build a house since I was a teenager (I'm now 36), in June 2016 we finally decided to take the plunge and put our house on the market, with the intention of building a new house. Initially we were looking for a plot near our current house with a more rural location. However when we saw there was a plot of land available in the Kingseat development we decided that this would be a better option because our son (he is now 8 ) had friends in the development.
Our house was on the market for a while because of the fall in the oil price, we managed to sell in February 2017 (10% below valuation). We immediately made an offer on the plot, after some negotiation (on price and us agreeing to put in a mutual driveway at the back of the plot to neighbouring property at our expense) our offer was accepted, although the sale didn't complete until October 2017.
The plot is a corner plot approximately 950 square metres. The plot previously had planning permission for a 200 square metre house, however this had lapsed.
South
North East
North East
North
South West
South
In the meantime we moved out of our house in May 2107 and moved into a rented flat 100 metres away from the plot.
In March 2017 we started working with an architect, initially had a topographical survey of the site completed, Followed by a tree survey. All the trees in Kingseat were covered by a tree preservation order and we had 4 trees in the middle of the plot. Luckily all 4 trees were not one of the original species planted at Kingseat which meant we could remove them.
Next we starting to design the house, our brief was:
- Open plan living room, dining room and family room
- utility room
- snug
- master bedroom with dressing room and ensuite
- 3 other bedrooms, ideally all with ensuites
- attic trusses for potential future development of 2 further bedrooms/office
- Attached double garage
- 2.7 metre ceiling height ground floor and 2.4 metre first floor
The house would be traditional on the outside, similar to the other houses on the development. However inside wanted it to be very contemporary light and airy house with white walls, flush white doors and skirtings, cantilevered stairs etc.
The following Images are the style we were aiming for.
Our first planning application was rejected because the conservation officer thought the orientation of the house was wrong and the exterior was a bit too bland.
The architect and I had a meeting with the conservation officer and discussed the changes that she would like to see and what I would be comfortable with. I feel that we left that house with a better house! The interior was almost identical, however we added an extra gable to one end of the house to make it less symmetrical and broke up the building by changing the garage cladding to black timber.
The only thing I wasn't pleased about was reducing the roof pitch to reduce the ridge height, so that it's a similar height to the old cottage next door.
In December 2017 our second application was accepted. The following is the design:
Ground Floor
First Floor
Future development option for the attic space
Architect 3D render of open plan area.
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