The Christmas holiday must have done some good or at least calmed us down. To summarise the conservation officer finally got back to us with his written comments. He thinks it better if we do the following: -
a) Not build near the wall boundary
b) Single storey with possibly a limited second storey element
c) Position the house towards the telephone exchange rather than in the centre of the garden
d) Either make the look more modern or very traditional which would have to be clad in stone
So in the other words he doesn't like our house design at all!
So we can apparently do two things
1) either get loads of written testimonials from surrounding residents or
2) start again or at least take on his comments in a view to compromise. After considerable deliberation we both decided that if they're not interested in the preservation of the trees then we would certainly have a better view from the corner of the garden rather than the middle.
I also have made a decision (I must be growing up all of a sudden) that I need to put my energy into getting the house built rather than getting frustrated and angry with planners..... which isn't to say we're going to build a house we don't want.
We had a meeting last Thursday with Tom the architect and he made the comment that our original house design might be called what his old lecturer would have called a 'sweat house'. In other words we thought about the design so much you could tell that something wasn't quite right with the final design. I must admit that I agree and we can use this opportunity to do something better.
We bounced around lots of ideas but we know the dimensions of each room so that's a good start. The key to the design is to minimise on the amount of hall and landing space as it's effectively dead space or transitory space. I think it will be relatively easy to design an upside down house, in an L shape with better views and less visual impact but still a house. It's never going to be ultra modern so we're try with a design of softened aspects (you're have to wait and see what I mean).
I think this all means that you should not be surprised if we don't start building until next year. It may be earlier but this is a long project as you might have gathered!
