Ferdinand

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

But we love toys.

Welcome.

hope you are insured. What is that worth ... 60k or so?

Was that one post? Consider me awed.

I think I can help with this one. I think the BBC are being somewhat trolled, or perhaps lazy. I have already answered some of this elsewhere a couple of days ago. I wonder if they read the site? We have MPs and at least one member of SAGE who read it, so they may. The linkage about "Brexit VAT Changes" is not real afaics - those are to do with preventing VAT fraud on Ebay / Amazon etc by Chinese suppliers. Professor Murph said back in 2018 in an EU Parl enquiry that it was of the order of billions a year, and he was about right imo. https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2018/06/28/the-scale-of-eu-tax-fraud/ I believe the EU themselves will be following suit on this. No idea what overall implications would be when it pans out. Dutch Bike Bits is a garden shed firm run by a very good UK expat bike blogger David Hembrow (A View from the Cycle Path), who is also viscerally passionate on the politics. I think he'll find a way, since much of his custom is here. Major bike sites (eg bike24.de) seem to be up and running with things like a one euro surcharge on delivery, which is sensible. On the VAT for microbusinesses I think HMRC need a separate VAT threshold of say 10k for small importers. Note sure on the beer site. So yes potential issue, but other stuff going on. F

Someone jumped the shark. Having to warn people he's not stirring. Happy Days.

The various ones are different in eg weight and quality though, so choose an appropriate one.

Wickes call them Geneva. Others Cottage Oak. They are not far off being the default. Though most are a lighter oak rather than brown. If you are patent and work at it, imo you could be a little below £100 for each door and all the fittings, without fitting. Depending on very recent price rises. Or if you have a heavy, post handle like that one ?. The last lot I did came out at £85-90 or so, but it was 3-4 years ago.

Here, for example, is a Siemens $£""%$£^$^$^$&&^%*&(*)_()&*&%^%%$£%$£%* with a Flexinduction Zone from Appliances Direct at £750, at 15% (already taken) off. https://www.appliancesdirect.co.uk/p/77641460%2f1%2fex879fvc1e/siemens-776414601ex879fvc1e-iq700-5-zone-induction-hob-hob F

Swap it for a bigger sink so you need a bigger hole, and do it with the proper gloop ?. What you need is to be really concerned about something that won't totally fit to wash in the current one (eg oven shelf, stove trivet, BBQ something). It is for the boss's benefit.

Mr NIMBY needs to learn from Teddy Roosevelt: "speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far." I think if you had decided on the spot that you were not going to speak, they would not have been able to either.

I obviously watched too much Trumpton...

Um. To me that looks like a scale model of The Bishops Avenue, with a bit more space in between. No likee. But then much of gorgeous desirable Georgian London was poor quality thrown up speculator boxes, anyway.

Paragraph 55 is now Paragraph 79 ?. They should have called it Appendix 1, then it wouldn't get changed every time the NPPF is redone. Planning to do a short blog piece about the planning factors that aligned to get it through - a lot of them.

Dunno. It's in Bristol - does it?

It was posted at Christmas - Buildhub's answer to Die Hard. ?

Thought this was your house.

Having checked - I was wrong. The piccies above do seem to be the finished thing. The extension on the RHS is a garage, and I expect that the stone does have to dry out. It is built in ICF with the sandstone as a cladding.

Not sure. I think it will end up white (or offwhite) render and stone.

Congratulations. Looks very good.

The detail of MVHR is not my knowledge area, but contingency planning may be slightly. I think the large airing cupboard provides you with a space reserve, into which you can expand if you find you need more space for the MVHR. If the airing cupboard is for drying not storing linen and clothes, then you have a Plan B available in the form of eg a Pulley Maid in the body of the utility area, which is what a lot here do and find it very satisfactory. If you provisioning for a pulley maid you probably want an MVHR outlet directly above it to suck out the humidity. If that is all inn one room, I would have a think about noise from the MVHR. One of our members currently on furlough, @Jeremy Harris, also spoke well of the benefit of placing an MVHR outlet in the ceiling just outside the door from the kitchen to the hallway as a way of controlling permeation of kitchen smells. ATB Ferdinand