Stand Well Back

We hand delivered a letter to our project manager on our way home this morning. We only instructed him last week, and after a conversation Darran had with him on Friday, we're already not happy (and that's an understatement).

We wait to see what tomorrow brings.

Light the blue touch paper and stand well back.

To Pick Up Our Pieces......

Look at our new toy! After much deliberating over whether we bought a trailer to help with the transportation of materials to and from site, or a small pick-up truck, we decided on the truck.

One of the key factors was the access to the plot. As we've mentioned before, this is narrow and has a dog-leg turn; not something easily negotiated by a van and trailer, so the truck it was.

We bought it from ebay, picked it up on Saturday from Penrith and drove it back to Mum and Dads where it will stay. The journey back was good fun (even if we were overtaken by a caravan on the M6!), Darran now has the hang of the steering too so roundabouts should be better executed next time!

Mr & Mrs D. C. Macdonald, The Plot, Shropshire!

I called our mortgage lender this morning as we hadn't received the correspondence from them that we were supposed to receive shortly after completion.

We hadn't received it as our correspondence had been sent to the plot!

I was a bit bemused by this as before completion we had to verify our full name and contact details for all future correspondence, which we did as our current address in Oxfordshire. For some reason, they thought we had sold that one, and our new house name was The Plot!

When we're there on Saturday we could find all our post neatly piled in the bottom of the trench along with the service ducting!

Water, Water Everywhere......

You will have heard the term 'getting blood from a stone', well today's version is 'getting water from the water board'. Who would have thought it would be so difficult? Or perhaps that is just my naivety showing and our learning curve getting steeper?!

Many minutes of explaining to a representative of the New Connections Team that I would like to arrange for a new connection, and I hadn't selected the wrong option, I really do want a water connection, I have an application form! Result!

There is still gas, electricity and eventually telephone to go.....

Onwards and upwards! Resilience and perseverance are key characteristics of the self-builder!

Here it is!

So here it is. Photos of our (almost) 1/4 acre of the world.

The first three photos were taken in May 2008. The plot was still a forgotten garden.




































The photo below shows the access way to the plot from the main road.



















The following three photos were taken today, 7th March 2009. Some of the trees have been cleared so the true shape and size of the plot is starting to materialise.

So Why This One....?

So what's behind the name of the blog you're probably thinking? And why this particular plot?

Well, the plot was once the garden of a very old, listed building, a landmark house in a market town in Shropshire. The house had stood empty for many years and was auctioned off for renovation. The building firm who bought the property have been converting the house and out-buildings into four apartments. The garden was sold as a plot with planning permission for a bungalow.

We were familiar with the town driving through it every time we visited Katie's parents. When Darran first said he had found a plot in the middle of the town with planning permission for a bungalow, Katie's immediate reaction wasn't favourable! We had been focussing our attention on somewhere closer to the welsh borders with more land (so Katie can grow vegetables, rear pigs and keep chickens) and with no immediate neighbours. This plot has a modest garden and is surrounded by other houses (no pigs or chickens allowed!), and is as close as you can probably get to the centre of a busy market town.

So why this one? We went to see it and had a 'this is it' moment. We were both surprised at how much we liked it, and even though it didn't resemble what we thought we wanted in the slightest, it is perfect for us. Apparently this often happens to self-builders, what you think you want isn't actually what's right for you in the end! The bungalow design is very modern and light, we have made some changes to the interior and have now got planning permission to extend the garage to a double.

This building project, relocation and life change is something that we are both very excited about.