Day 36 - Foundations are progressing

Some great news since our last post.  Our mortgage has completed and we have received the first stage payment.
 
When you watch house building programmes, funding and budgeting are both instrumental to the success and ultimately, the stress levels of the self builders and from our recent experience, we can really understand why.  It's taken us seven months from our first application to the mortgage completion and the bank and the broker, Buildstore,  have scrutinised every part of our finances.  It's up to us now to manage the budget from now on - spreadsheet already in place and being updated almost daily!

The weather has been very kind over the last few days with brilliant sunshine so the foundations are progressing well.  Our house is having a beam and block base - basically it's concrete beams with blocks across the middle.  This format works well when you have deep foundations like ours. The DPC bricks are then laid after this base is in place.

Mum and Dad are having a normal concrete base in their house.  This will be completed by the end of this week as well.

What's really exciting is that Sheldon, the builder, is hoping that both houses will be up and watertight by Christmas - that's only 13 weeks away.  I can't wait to open the front door on our new house - although Dave will probably beat me to it, the amount of time he spends on the site!

We have all the service plans back now so we know where to lay pipes and which type we need.  The digger has to come back to do this so I imagine this will be soon.  It takes 3 months for the services to come and be installed by the providers - but we need a meter box for this anyway so there is no hurry.

Oh - and we also nearly have our new addresses but I'll update you on this over the next few days when we receive confirmation of them.

Day 24 - The first bricks go down

The past few days, although with not much building activity, have still been busy.

The foundations on both plots were passed by the Council and by our Self Build Warranty auditors.

Mum and Dad's plot now belongs to them - sold for a complete bargain - £1.  Mum and Dad always owned it in principal, we just needed to sort it out legally now the land has been split into three plots. 

Our mortgage is finally completing next Friday - the only thing that might hold this up is the postal address - but fingers crossed, everything will be ok. 

Both sites are currently known as Plot 1 and Plot 2.  Again, I had a learning curve to overcome as to how to register an address and then Dave remembered he had kept a link on his iPad from many months ago on how to do it.  You have to approach the Street Numbering department of your local authority and suggest an address.  Our current number is 36 and the next is 40, so it makes sense for us to be 38 and Mum and Dad to be 38a.  The council agreed and now I am waiting for confirmation. It stays with Royal Mail as a non-live address and we let them know when we have moved in.  We also need to know this for the services as they cannot install a meter without an address.

Installing a meter seems a long time away at the moment.  We have paid the services company and have yet to receive the plans.  After numerous chasing, I am told they will be here on Monday.  The digger can then come back to dig the trenches and we can finalise outstanding jobs on the cottage.

The first is the driveway.  This is going to have lots of lorries going up and down and I desparately want to level it out and add some new stones, particularly where the cottage is.  The second is the front wall.  This looks so ugly against the renovated cottage.  Mum and Dad have done a fantastic job tidying the garden.  We need to confirm what we are going to do with the wall - but whether it stays and is re-rendered or is knocked down depends on the pipework leading to the existing electricity pylon.

Back to building work - it's very exciting as the first brick has been laid!  We've had lots of activity on site today with many deliveries - including my friend's husband, who is a driver for Travis Perkins.

The first level of the bricks that go underneath the damp-proof course are nearly in place on our house.  We had to make a decision today as to whether we had traditional or plastic air bricks - the plastic version lets more air in apparently, so we went with Sheldon's advice, (the main builder) on this and selected this one.

This is where our wood burning stove will be one day soon....

And the kitchen/utility room/family room will be here

We're looking forward to more progress over the next few days.

Our Plans

It's all quiet on the building site until the builders come back on site tomorrow.  We are hoping to have news on our searches as well by the end of this week, so that our mortgage can finally complete.

We've had a request to show our plans of what we hope to build - so here you go!  Our house will be a 5 bedroom detached with a double garage.  The boys, (including Dave), are most excited about the games room above the garage.  This will have a separate staircase, a pool table, large TV for the X-Box and sofa beds for friends to stay.

The design will be block and render, much like the extension on the cottage.

Let us know what you think!

Mum and Dad are building a 2 bedroomed house that will be brick and wood cladding.  It has a single garage - which is still a point of contention as Dad is convinced he still needs a double.  There is space to build one in the future if he does get his way eventually.

Our architect was Peter Thompson, who's based in Broughton Astley.  We really recommend him so if anyone needs plans, let us know and we can give you his contact details.

Day 15 & 16 - More footings & preparation work

Mum and Dad have been trying to work out the rooms on the plot.  I think they are still worried it will be too small even though they know from their plans, this won't be the case.

Yesterday saw the concrete lorries arrive for Mum and Dad's footings.  They are now all in place and drying out. 

I did think that the site would be empty today as the builders had told me that they were going to finish work at our friend's house.  However, at 7.30am, I could hear bleeping and it was an EH Smith lorry containing lots of black crates.

They were buried by the digger in the garden and used as a soak away for drainage.  The bases of both plots are now covered in grey mill waste stone ready for the next stage.  There will be no more work now until next week so no posts for a few days.

Day 14 - Mum and Dad's footings are in

Mum and Dad came back from their narrow boat travels yesterday, in time to see their footings go in today.

Having the footings dug out, always makes it look smaller as my Mum commented on when she saw it.  It isn't small though and will be a fabulous house for my parents.

The weather is being kind this week with glorious sunshine yesterday and today.  Let's hope it carries on tomorrow when the concrete is poured.

Day 11 - Mum and Dad's house is marked out

Now that the concrete footings are complete on our house, it's time to start on Mum and Dad's.

The surveyor came and marked it all out so we can finally see how their house looks on the site as well.

The builders also kindly parked one of the diggers in what will be their extra parking space - it's a similar size to Mum's polo so I am sure she will have plenty of room!

We also found out today that we have to have searches completed on our piece of mud before the mortgage can be released.  So frustrating as it will be another two weeks at the very earliest.  Yet again, my patience is tried and I am waiting for someone else to do their job before our project can move to the next stage.  It is extremely frustrating!

Day 10 - Concrete arrives!

8.30am and the first concrete lorry arrives to start filling our footings.    They're all complete now and drying out, ready for the next stage.

Day 9 - Footings ready to fill on our house

More hardcore today to further fill the drive - complete with child's toy?  I wonder who this belonged to once upon a time.....

All the footings for our house are now ready to filled.  The self build insurance auditor requested that panels be inserted into the larger footings, and these are the white boards that can be seen in the photos.