It's all in the Design

With a building plot in my possession the next step was to produce a house design that would compliment and fit proportionally in the surrounding area and obtain the all important full plannin permission from the Local Planning Department.  As you will have seen from previous posts the local area is made up of mixed housing stock - bungalows, post-war semi-detached and detached right upto to newly built specifications so we had a good range of design options to choose from.

Despite what you may think you don't need to appoint an architect at this stage providing you have a keen eye for technical drawing and are familiar with the local UDP and Planning Regulations which govern compliance regulations concerning proximity to nearby buildings (more importantly windows) etc BUT IT HELPS AVOID WASTED TIME AND COSTLY MISTAKES if you do.  Again feeling out of my depth I appointed an architect to work with me on interpreting my design brief and specifically with budget and plot constraints in mind reign my enthusiasm back at this early stage in the design approval process.

I used a retired architect who had spent many years designing for the local council offices so whilst his regulatory knowledge was a little dated he was none-the-less more than able to refresh his knowledge.  For me though it was about trusting someone to guide me through the process.  I will post details of his works later for prosperity and so he can see his works on the t'intenet.

Whilst I managed to get his professional services for what accounted to pocket money, with hindsight this decision by his own admission cost me TIME!  He is a traditional old-school archtiect whose time was served well before computers - basically all drawings were pencil and paper so corrections were painful - there's a saying you can' teach an old dog new tricks - no more so was this the case here!

With any professional services you employ it always helps to have a clear idea of what you want BEFORE you engage them otherwise you will spend valuable time and money documenting your requirements so my advice is take some time out and get down to the library - there are plenty of books detailing hundreds of different house designs.  I referenced Narrow-Lot Home Designs which contained hundreds of house designs for houses between 17ft and 50ft wide - these would fit nicely within the building plot I had.  Look at as many different designs as you possibly can and take as long as you need at this stage - your time is relatively free in comparision to an architects who if I'm being honest will probably take the same approach.

I must have photocopied approximately 50 different designs that appealed to the whole family and met our criteria for what we wanted from the new house - namely four bedrooms, large kitchen-diner, large living room, study, garage, utility room with access to the garage (so we didn't get wet and believe me this is important when it's pissing down with rain and you need to get into the garage).  We also wanted a large rear garden with plenty of space for sunbathing and a front drive with enough room to park upto four cars - I don't expect my children to flee the nest that quickly in light of the current housing market.

We then started narrowing the list based on the "look and feel".  Our main criteria here was simply "is the curb appeal sufficient that we would buy this house ourselves if it came up for sale?".  My wife has a good eye for this sort of thing and has built up good understanding from search Right Move on what sells quickly and what doesn't.  Resale potential in any design as far as I am concerned is the number one critical success factor - which normal family could afford (let alone would want to buy) a Grand Designs foley?  We ended up with ten design layouts but none of them were particularly nice to look at so we included a number of other designs in the architects brief that we particularly liked the look of - features such as mullioned windows, natural stone facing, quoins (the cut stone up the outside corners of the building), shape and materials of roof.  We also specified a number of Eco options for consideration including solar panels, rainwater harvesting, underfloor heating etc.  Size was not a critical factor - after all the bigger the house, the more money it takes to heat and the more time it takes to keep clean.

Some of the draft designs can be seen below...

...after many months spent backwards and forwards to the architect we finalised on the design below...

We had the option of submitting an outline or full planning application.  Outline is much cheaper and involves less detailed drawings but is only worthwhile if you are unsure how far you can push the Planning Departments guidelines and want to test your design ideas out first.  It is also useful for those who don't intend going through with the build themselves (e.g. if you have a plot of land that you are thinking of selling off as a going concern) - after all land without planning permission is, well er, a field! 

We had no intention of letting someone else profiteer from all our hard work to date let alone the risk we took when buying the semi without planning approval to build - so we went straight for full planning application which meant full public consultation and a drawn out process - let alone the suspense of whether we would get everything approved.  I will cover more on the planning application process in my next post.

Thanks for bearing with me whilst I frantically post to the blog to give you a potted history of progress to date.  Once we get upto current day then the posts will get shorter and focus on week by week progress of the build itself.

Stay with me until next post...