Designing the new house

One of the advantages of having an isolated plot is that it can give more freedom with planning permission. There are no neighbours to upset and there is no street scene to conform to.





The first intention was to knock down the house on the plot, allowing us to build over the original footprint (many local councils insist on this) whilst continuing to rent a house nearby.

However, it made a lot more sense to build the new house alongside the existing one; we would save a large portion of our budget by not paying any rent for a year, have the added convenience of being on site at all times (better than living in a caravan) and would also gain a far larger south facing garden, once the existing house was demolished. Luckily the planners were happy for us to do this.

We started with a rough idea about what kind of shaped house we'd like and where to position it (as well as what our budget allowed).





Living in the existing house allowed us to take into account the environment around the plot - for example the position of the sun throughout the day, seasons and weather patterns during the year, surrounding farmland and the track leading to our house.

The layout of the rooms was also very vague at this stage. We thought about all the homes we'd lived in through our lives - what aspects inspired us and what problems day-to day-living threw at us.


 


The design changed around a few times before we settled on a final design.






The final design.

Cutting down the Leylandii tree

The Leylandii tree at the back of the garden was very pretty and a welcome evergreen sight especially in Winter when everything else looked bare and miserable. However, it had grown quite large and was blocking the sun from shining on the house and garden throughout the day. Unfortunately, it had to come down.





Not too keen on using a big chainsaw whilst perched in the tree on a windy day, Alan used a pole-pruner (a mini chainsaw on the end of a long pole). This was safer, though it took several cuts to get through the larger branches.

The chopping begins...





The view from halfway up the tree whilst cutting it down. Note Blenny supervising the proceedings from his vantage point on the roof of the house.

 





Whilst Alan chopped the tree, I cut the chopped branches into more manageable pieces ready to be dried out and eventually burned.





We managed to salvage and store the larger branches for future fuel should we choose a wood burner for the new house. The amount of wood that the tree produced should give us at least a few months worth of fuel. There is more wood stored further on in the picture, behind the black metal oil tank. We want to do away with using oil for heating in the new house as it is costly (and the cost will only continue to rise).





The remains of the tree stump (left) and a clear, bright view.