Ferdinand

That last sounds like one thing that Sarah Beeny did albeit called "environmntal protction scheme"; they planted a few thousand trees under a Section 106 "Planning Obligation" agreement. What it does is alter the perceived "harm/benefit" balance to change to application from "hmmm. no" to "hmmmm. yes" ie "make it acceptable in planning terms". You need to take advice from the council as to what form that should take. It may be a Section 106, or a Unilateral Declaration (which is like a Section 106 but a binding proposal you make - can save time if you know what they want already), or a simple Deed, or whatever they have set up for this scheme. Take brief advice from your solicitor. We are all assuming that your Appeal established the principle that hosses were agricultural use, and that is now out of the picture. Obvs any new app will need to reference this F

We still need North. Do you intend to spend your time in a N-side kitchen and lounge? (if that is what it is). F

There is some very good thinking here, but you have lots of very different options and they need reflection. TBH I think that it is important to take time upfront to get this right - plan 9-12 months, not 6, in toto. And give yourself several weeks now to think carefully about layout, and then 1-2 weeks away from it for it to steep in your background head. I agree it is good to forget a front extension - means you need no PP depending on close-to-boundary at the sides. I think looking at the loft extension too, that a priority should be to avoid a perceived rabbit-warren house; keep it uncomplicated for layout.

I take it the Appeal means you are now out of your "free second try on refusal" period? (Is this still a thing @DevilDamo?)

You probably ended up alright. Occasionally on here we get somone for whom risk has not worked, and it can be very painful.

Wishing you all the best. Who knows there may be a 350k house out there with a big garden.

Can you post a plan of the upstairs, and an orientation sketch or map with adjacent houses, roadway, plot shape, and North arrow. And a bit more about your approach - is this cobbled together bits do-the-minimum, or a particular budget (25k, 50k, 100k?, 150k?). Won't be a cheap project. Do you plan to lose the garage? Are you happy just turning the existing dining into a study / office / spare bed? I would also like to know which internal walls are stud / block / structural. That will get you far better comments, as I think there are fundamental questions here. For me the existing hall-shower-kitchen-closet area is a core blockage, as it is very subdivided. I don't think turning several rooms into corridors is necessarily the best way ? . Also worth considering what is very difficult to move, such as soil pipes. Moving stairs can be done, but will add a general 6-10k to the cost, once you have buggered about with the upstairs as well. If you are happy to lose the garage, I would be looking as the start at putting the office and bathroom semi-detached in the garage, accessed by a lobby from the hall, so that when you are in your dotage you have a more private set-apart bed-bath area. Ferdinand

Somewhere in Peru there is a series of books about a Bear exiled from Somerset....

Klotzen nicht Kleckern That is, concentrate and do not disperse your efforts. In self-building, it is often best to decide on a couple of things and do those - rather than pfaff around over bits of everything. You won't learn 10 trades in a year, so do no try. You can decide to get a couple of skills deeply, or perhaps provide dogsbody type skills to enable you to exploit your pros effectively That might be tidying up the site and labouing for a brickie, or making sure that materials are all in the right place so your £30 an hour whatever does not waste their time. Or becoming an Ebay-sniffer to get high quality things at a low quality price. Or indeed realise that you may add more value by working because you are paid more than you save by doing brickwork slowly. Or spend your time building a knowledge of what you want so you can avoid building it 10% bigger than you need. There will be a collection of things that nobody except you can do - find out what they are. One is to be the keeper of the copy of Spons. (I see that Buttercup has not mentioned the wall that blew down ? ? .) F

Pargetting, of course, can be applied to parapet walls. Even if the pattern is a row of fingernail trails leading to the edge.

I mean in a recessed doorframe. It could be that one or both walls continue straight. (He said, convincingly.) F

If the door is in a doorway, might be tempted to bring the level change forward to the front edge of the alcove.

Is this upright or flat?

Further note: Do I calculate correctly that your 1 year guarantee (if it is) still has another 3 months to run? And that they are acknowledging that by offering the replacement.

The other part of the equation is to reduce the heat needed by the house - which is insulation, airtightness and all the rest. Let me point you in a couple of diections: 1 - One of your members built a heat-modelling spreadsheet which is straightforward to use to build a heat model of your house. See this thread: 2 - I have this piece on my blog on the site had 10 steps to reduce your energy bills - simple but relevant, and really the same thing as reduction. 3 - Remember that the biggest impact on energy bills is to get into a regime of regular switches. 4 - And don't forget tariffs such as Economy 7 and Economy 10. They help as you are helping balance the network.

The 2m fence is something that anyone can do on any boundary at the back, subject to covenants in the deeds etc. Anyone is free to object.

Sellers to reject what? (Or do you mean object?)

(** For the record, it has to be a trombone not a trumpet. Trombones are far more fun.)

You have not said whether you are committed to the purchase. I don't think "preventing you from doing the same" is sufficient to refuse in planning terms, as there is no other obvious major extant violation. But I think that that would fail to get PP because of the 8" clearance, if it had been objected to - they would have made them go back to perhaps 1m or 800. The sellers have been fools. However now it is built, I think they will assess granting PP as expedient as the loss to the neighbour is less in the balance than the cost of forcing demolition. In your case I would: 1 - Refuse to move further in negotiations until the outcome is known, unless there is a price reduction of 7-10% as a risk lack-of-premum. If you have already offered but not signed, then imo discovering this on visit is enough to gazunder them. 2 - Take into account that slowdown is expected when the Stamp Duty bung expires in April, and use that as a lever. 3 - Or walk away. Prices are generally expected to slump after April 1st, so there may be a better option around. Personally I think it is likely they did it deliberately, and they knew damn well they would struggle, but you have to evaluate them as you find them. You could put a full 2m high fence there, which would mitigate significantly. It is also to the N so will not cause extra shadow. I think your extension may get PP, but I would leave a bigger gap to the boundary. F

The guarantee may cover long enough that a dud would be expected to self-reveal.

Absolutely crucial point. As it is a one off for most, you never get to correct your mistakes.

I like the mix of materials - tying in with trad elements, whilst still showing off the more recent elements esp. at the back. It has a feel of fitting in, which I think is pleasant. I think the presentation gently hints at the scale, which is good. It looks comfortable in the immediate landscape. I can feel faint echoes of previous movements in the extra glass in a fairly trad frame, and the horizontal emphasis. And it is a substantial house (I make it 350 sqm or so). Larger houses are a balance between the same number of larger rooms, and a larger number of normal size rooms. I tend towards larger rooms on that spectrum. But I am not convinced that every sqm is singing for its supper here. I wonder if you could actually do everything it is currently doing, and make it 15% smaller, or perhaps build in a lot more options. I grew up in a large (5000 sqft), 4 bedroom house (a so-called "Derbyshire Hall" ie small ex-manor house) where the smallest bedroom was 15ft x 15ft, and my room had another spare bed and a full size table tennis table in it. It was wonderful, and we were able to repurpose everything several times - at one time three of us worked from home; another my mum ran a B&B for a few years; and we could create a 1200 sqft party space and still have another big lounge and a smaller lounge left over, as there were about 4 18ft reception rooms. I want to encourage you to explore your thinking on two things - flexibility and suitability for the different ways and arrangements for living you may want in the future, and the internal / external interface. If you have done this already - great. (Remember with my critique here that you can probably mess about with internal arrangements after planning - they are overwhelmingly concerned with appearance and effect on others, and internal arrangements are mainly none of their business - that is more for Building Control.) A few specifics. If you wanted to, I think you have plenty of space for all-ensuites plus a family bathroom. Or five + five if you wanted ?. Is there going to be a cloak room for visitors to put coats, boots and brollies, and perhaps for mobility scooters etc in the future? The hallway / landing will look very imposing, but do you want 10% of your house dedicated to looking imposing? What else can it do? Ramp access to the back garden (wheelchairs but also wheelbarrows and bikes) needs to be there and integrated. is there provision for a lift for the future, or perhaps to include now? I would add one now and use it to move heavy stuff between floors. Bearing in mind COVID, how will two people work from home? In a big house that should imo be possible without stealing lounges or kitchen tables. Is garage / workshop / secure garden storage covered in your plans? Hoping here that you have a sort of 'garage block' somewhere on your plans. A different lens. Can I encourage you to think through a few 'Use cases", to see what it highlights? These also apply to people you may sell it to in future, as flexibilty. "Two people working from home" is one. Also... Living here when older and getting frail. Parent coming to live with you needing something self-contained. Boomerang kids who want to be semi-detached yet present. One of you has an accident and ends up in a wheelchair. Overlap with older parent case. Child takes up the trombone. ** Space for biggish social events. (one way - our entrance hall was about 16x20 plus a galleried staircase so we had parties for about 20 around a big antique table there). Running a business from home, and receiving visitors. (needs semi-public space for office and eg loo, without invading the private family space. Reflecting the idea of public / private space hierarchy) Life with a dog or three. Briefly on the internal / external thing You have only given us immediate landscaping, so perhaps think about another set of cases - where will you sit outside / sunbathe outside / play boules / roll the dog / have a BBQ / entertain in summer. My top recommendation would be to see how other people handle garden design, and integration with the house. Tricky at the moment, but small early 20C country houses often do it very well / accessibility, as do modern architects who pay attention to that aspect. Lutyens was especially good. Orgs such as the Landmark Trust have modern houses where you can stay, and even the National Trust does modern now. I'll stop there, and wish you all the best. Stay curious, and don't stop thinking ? . Ferdinand * I have the orientation issue at my house - S faces the road. I plan to make the front more private and turn it into a sunny courtyard garden.

So what happened? Did the Swan Dive into the water feature in the winter garden take place? (reads thread) I see it was all routine apart from the cakewalk. I admire people who do things like that. That new roof ladder idea seems to me to be a little light on attachment at the top, for one relying on an angle which is only 50 degrees off a straight line. Not really sure how to fix that. Ferdinand

I've got the cartoon from the last one. (Except if I understand the physical jerks correctly, the ropes were attached to the tighty-spotty-polka-dotties, Wedgie Benn style.

@AdamJ Can I just do a spot detail check on your argument - I'm following along, but not in total detail? You say: And you are talking about annual heating demands of 320-350 kWh. As I make it, that is about 10x smaller than the passive house standard, which is 15 kWh per sqm per year, or 3000 kWh approx on that size of house. Is that what you intend? Cheers Ferdinand