Omnibuswoman

I’ve just learned that the field to the north of us has had a planning application put in by a developer for five large houses. On the plus side, the plan involves the property next door being half knocked down and extended backwards into the plot. That would really open up the view, albeit with a price of huge building works and a new cul-de-sac next door!!

No, ours are all grown up now, so those two spare rooms will be for the visiting adult offspring (there are four of these) and grandchildren (two of these, so far) plus my local ageing parents who may one day need some live-in care for periods of time. I can see the attraction of single storey living, but I really enjoy the light/ vista aspect of living upstairs. We live upstairs now in a flat, as I have done for 25 years. I love seeing over the chimney pots into the distance.

That sounds like an absolute nightmare to be stuck with. I wonder if anyone has successfully sought judicial review of a harsh decision such as this. The law requires authorities to make decisions that are fair, and not perverse.

? there's something I hadn't thought about... the inconvenience of stairs! Thanks for the idea about seeing the view - I think that's a brilliant idea and something we should do before we do anything else. Unfortunately with lockdown we can't currently get down there, but we're planning to visit just as soon as overnight stays are permitted. We can't stay with my parents who live nearby but are self isolating, but we could pitch a tent on the plot for a short stay. Getting a sense of the view, and therefore exactly where we should place the house and windows, is a top priority in order to be able to agree on the design. Very much appreciate your input.

Will do! Thanks Dan.

Looks brilliant. Such a clever use of a small space. We have the same bathroom sink and cupboard as you!

Thanks James!! I'm having fun at the moment playing with ideas and thinking about how our lives will be living down there. I hadn't thought about the stairs being open, but it's useful to hear your experience. I've never lived anywhere with a stairwell directly into a living space, so I hadn't even considered what impact that might have. We are not certain how good the views will be from the first floor - the architect designed house that has PP already in place on the plot added a mezzanine level above the living area with a large window. That makes me think that they thought that the view from the first floor would be restricted by the house to the east, so we need to look again at the roof height and the height of our first floor. I may look at having the ground floor with a 2700mm ceiling to raise the first floor a bit more. We live in an Edwardian property at the moment which has high ceilings, and I do enjoy the feeling of openness and space that a high ceiling creates. It is a bugger to clean and decorate though!

thanks @Ferdinand, those are all really thoughtful comments. There is actually a shower in the downstairs bathroom, but the shower screen doesn't really show up well on the plans. It is in the north-west corner that appears empty. I don't know a lot about the space requirements for stairlifts, but this is something we think we might need in the future and I would definitely want to plan the house in a way that enables us to make it accessible for us in later life. I also really like the idea of a small terrace on top of the porch - our budget is quite tight at £300k, but I think we could probably sacrifice a little bit of the overall footprint of the house in order to afford a modest outside space on the first floor that would at least give us a spot from which to admire the garden and sit with a G&T after work on a sunny evening. I love your accessible bathroom - such a clever use of a small space, and beautifully finished. ???

That's a brilliant idea @AliG, I wouldn't have thought of having the dressing room as a corridor to an ensuite in the back corner. It makes sense to have a separate visitor toilet so that guests don't need to encroach on our private space as much. I agree with you that the appliances are probably not going to disturb me as much as we fear, and I suspect the greater issue will be my husband penchant for radio 6 whilst in the kitchen. I'm lucky that I can switch my hearing off if I need to! I realise that the two spare bedrooms (for visiting adult children and grandchildren) are really generous, so I have stolen a bit of room 2 and a little bit of the bathroom to make the snug a little less snug. This might end up being a sitting room for my mother if she ever needs to move in with us for a period of time, and with the laundry converted into a kitchenette we could create a sort of private granny area within the downstairs of the house. I will revisit window sizes and locations to see how to bring light into the hallway downstairs - I think we will have as transparent a front door as possible to allow light from the porch to come in, and will keep the downstairs doorways open as much as possible to allow light to penetrate from each room. Very much appreciate your thoughts and feedback! M

Someone did suggest that we move the porch to the east side instead of the south, so as to make the best use of the views to the garden from the office and guest bedrooms, which I think is probably a good idea.

We are not planning to have a garage, but instead will probably move the house north a small amount and instead have a workshop/large shed at the back of the house where the garage is currently planned.

Yes, that's the murky water I was paddling in. It seems that my local authority are happy to clarify that we would not be penalised for work done to comply with planning permission where the CIL does not apply, even if we later need to apply for full planning permission and need to submit an application to waive the CIL.

exactly!

@AliG No, the discrepancy is that the images are screenshots, and one has been taken at a greater height - the two rectangular floor shapes are the same dimensions, it's just that the pictures are not to scale

No, the ground and first floor plans are meant to be the same size - a simple box-shaped house with a two-way pitched roof (east/west). The porch would be on the south side of the house. If there's a discrepancy it's down to my poor drawing!

I've just taken a look at this and my eyes are bleeding!!! £600 for bedside table ? As I'm responsible for sticking to our budget, I won't be visiting Houzz very often - only now and again to steal some design ideas that can be done on a shoestring.

? Wow!! That's an amazing space. I keep having to remind myself that the long dry and sunny spell Cornwall has had, more or less since lockdown, is highly unusual and alfresco living down there usually involves galoshes! It is, however, a glorious place and I feel incredibly lucky to have found a suitable plot down there.

That's a good idea! A balcony outside of the dining area? I would be more likely to sit and eat or drink on a balcony than in a garden - I don't know why!

@ultramods I've gone back into the room plans and added the wall lengths - sorry this looks about as amateurish as it's possible to!!

Interestingly we had a comment from a designed this morning along the same lines - that we should reconsider the reverse living and have a large kitchen diner opening onto the garden with bifold doors. The idea came from the plan of the house that has planning consent - we wouldn't otherwise have thought about it! The hesitation we now have is that the distant view is not seen from the garden (the neighbouring house obstructs it), and we are not big on eating outdoors. Whilst I might enjoy a bowl of sugar puffs on the garden stairs from time to time here in London, I don't really like eating outside, and we don't expect to do a lot of garden based entertaining (not least because despite the glorious blue skies in the photos, it actually rains an awful lot down there). The garden will be more like a small holding - poly tunnels and raised beds, with a small summerhouse somewhere towards the south eastern aspect as there is a gap between the road-level houses and that distant view can be glimpsed from there. Husband and I had a long chat this morning about whether to change the plan to standard bedrooms upstairs and living downstairs - lifestyle vs saleability ... the jury is still out!

The local authority also explained that we need to keep our amendment to an equal or lesser size than the current consent, as an increase in size would trigger the CIL - I can see this rule set out in the article you kindly attached.

Thanks Newhome. I have emailed the council and received a very speedy written reply clarifying that as the arsenic clearance is under the existing PP, it would not count against us if we were to make a full planning application at a later date. But yes, you're right, we are hoping to get through an application as a minor amendment so as not to trigger CIL at all, and to make the process as quick and painless as possible ?

On the video above, the site for the house is seen at between 12 and 13 seconds.

Not without paying an arm and a leg - Roomsketcher's fee system is really opaque and I ended up forking out more than I had planned for the 3D views. I'll have a look at Architouch 3D, thanks. I'm also trying to master LibreCAD so that I can make proper technical drawings.

Thanks Ultramods. I have been umming and ahhhing about the size of the hallway and whether it is wasted space - on the one hand I'd like it to feel spacious and generous, but on the other I can see that a hallway is not a useful space. I'm not sure about putting equipment in the loft - I think I prefer the idea of it being easily accessible so that when we are old and creaky we'll still be able to change filters and access it easily for maintenance. But you're right that both the utility room and the laundry/plant are rather luxurious spaces that were on our wishlist but not our 'essentials' list. One issue we're concerned about is the noise of appliances in the open plan living area. I use hearing aids and find background noise very intrusive when trying to have a conversation. We're concerned that open plan may not work for us noise-wise, and that's one reason for making a TV snug - so that I can be banished to watch TV whilst my husband cooks and crashes about in the kitchen! The house orientation is: Master Bedroom window faces east (towards that Dartmoor view), the dining area and office look south onto the garden, kitchen faces west and bathrooms are on the north wall. The photos below are the plot looking from SW to NE (P1..476), East from the SW corner (P1..470) and looking South East from the North West corner (P1..468). Also attached is a short film of the plot (from January) standing under the westerly of the two oak trees and looking from east to west via north. 3__Looking_E_to_W_from_middle_of_S_boundary.MOV