Traceygj

Nope, completely British ?

Oh, not far at all. The countryside is the main draw for us, although I expect there won’t be a lot of time for exploring next year !

South is towards the bottom right. Garden is north east.

I’m working hard on get him trained !?

Yes, the area is lovely and we're very excited to be moving there. There is a meadow beyond our garden boundary, so we may need to take some measures to keep the deer in the meadow and not our garden!

Thank you for the welcome. We're building in East Hampshire, not far from Alton. Currently living just outside Basingstoke which is about 12 miles away.

Wow, 22k is a huge amount! Has it been numerous small savings or any biggies in there?

Thanks Declan. Floor plans now pasted below

Hello everyone Having spent time reading through the site I'm so pleased to have found such a helpful and encouraging bunch of people to share our self build journey with. A little about us: We purchased a 1960's built bungalow back in May which we intend to demolish and replace with a 4 bedroom, 2 storey house. Although there are only 2 of us as the kids have left home, we want plenty of space for them to come and stay. We sold our family home last December to fund the project and are currently renting. After spending the last few months jumping through planning hoops we expect a decision in the first week of January. Planning was complicated by something called H16, which meant that we could only extend the bungalow by half as much again. We've managed to get around that by obtaining a Certificate of Lawfulness to extend the bungalow using permitted development rights. We put in a pre app and the planners didn't have any objections to the design, they just advised us to get the CoL, so hopefully they will issue us with green light at the beginning of Jan! Very early on in the process we've found that nothing is straight forward! We have asbestos soffits (the bad stuff) and a pesky electric supply cable oversailing the front garden which needs to be relocated. The plan is that I will project manage the build while my better half continues working, although he's gradually easing into retirement with a 4 day week from Jan and then a 4 day fortnight from March. I'm not entirely convinced about his ability to take instruction though. I've already had insubordination from him on a couple of matters! We have some experience of internally gutting and refitting our last house, plus having a new garage and porch built but nothing on this scale. We decided on Potton for our timber frame, mainly on the basis of their good reputation and the hand holding they provide (we hope!) during the project. Dealings with them so far have been excellent. As mentioned above, we're renting so keen to crack on, and hope to be completed within a year! We're also keen to get the best possible value for money, so the benefit of other people's experience will be most welcome. I've posted photo's of the bungalow and what we plan to build below, and I'm sure I will be on this forum with numerous questions and calls for help as we progress.