We finally have both our planning permission and our building warrant through! As we had never submitted building plans before, neither of us knew what the warrant would entail, but luckily Alex found his way through and we are now approved and the site is moving on…we definitely saved money doing it ourselves, but maybe not time, as how can you know how a system works if it is the first time?!
The house Alex is going to build is simple and yet complicated. When we first bought the woods we inherited a steal frame from Brian (the previous owner). The frame was designed as a workshop. We decided instead of selling the frame we would try and use it in our house. So Alex turned Brian’s design for his workshop into a house for us. Amazingly, he did this (much to the amusement of me and others) using windows paint! ( you could never guess). He is perhaps the only person who could design and submit house drawings using paint and have them excepted and approved. Next came the building warrant, which was the far trickier part, as this was all about the engineering of the build. As we decided to combine steel and wood we did not make things simple for ourselves. We were asked, why we didn’t just build a timber frame house, as it would be much easier -but we couldn’t just waste the frame, we had to try and use it. It’s funny as using steel and concrete goes against everything Alex has previously done in his life, however, it is a good exercise in recycling!
So our house will have a steal frame and the rest will be wood.
It is a simple rectangle, with an open plan kitchen living area, an office, bathroom downstairs and two bedrooms and a shower/loo upstairs. We have such a tight budget, so we need to keep everything as simple as possible, no funny sizes, angles etc. The downstairs will have a polished concrete floor and upstairs will have wooden floors. The house will be clad in Douglas fir, with a tin roof.
So now we have the paperwork sorted next came the site..We needed to level and landscape it, ready for the foundations…
