A good game of poker

When Tom the architect begins his email about the recent planning meeting last week with "Well, I wish I was in a position to say that they were in full support of the scheme.... They played a good game of poker and revealed very little."

My life! I thought just maybe that they might actually be able to point us in the right direction or be vaguely helpful rather than giving nothing away or was I asking too much?

These were the points from Tom: -

Position

-          They still have strong concerns about the north boundary wall site.

-          They understood our argument about all the houses on Higher Backway being road fronted – but his argument was local to the gap between Provender Mill and Tolbury House.

-          They would prefer to see the house positioned closer to the telephone exchange.

-          They understood the reason for the desired position and the reason for maximising the garden and south amenity.

Design

-          They thought the design looked compromised.

-          They felt the house needed to be either reflective of contemporary design and materials, or reflective of period housing stock found in the vicinity. I hate to say it but they were swaying more for the former.

-          If we were to go down the period housing route, they would want to see the majority of the house in stone.

-          They did not dislike the house behind the wall features, but felt the wall would become too high and dominate for the street scene.

Use

-          They mentioned that the only reason why they are considering this application is because of the certificate of lawfulness on the previous application, otherwise they feel it would not be fit for development.

-          They are not opposed to a four bed house in this location.

Access

-          They will be consulting highways to see whether it is feasible to have vehicular access as we have positioned.

-          It might be worth appointing a highways consultant to fight our cause – I’ll get a quotation for you.

I which point I sent a despairing email back saying something like "bugger, why can't the county council cuts happen any faster and should we just rip up current design?" See below.  Luckily Tom and Flora is an amazing stroke of positive behaviour both said don't worry it's not that bad rather just the first round or put it another way it's not considered a sprint more of a marathon .... so lets just wait.  Saying that Flora thinks we're going to start the build in 2012 whereas I'm more optimistic and suggest late summer 2011.

This is not the final design but it is getting there.

We also went to the Home and Renovating Show on Saturday which was pretty interesting (also met Tom the architect) but nothing spectacular.  Masses of window, solar panel, oak frame builders companies mixed into the pot a couple of ventilation stands - Mechanical Ventilation Heat Units which we are now pretty certain is a good thing especially as it costs about £60 per year to run and ensures you don't have condensation in the house.  Our current rental cottage was pretty good when we moved in but now it all seems like a howling gale is blowing through the small hallway right into the living area.  I know it's pretty cold outside -2 so this is spurring me into action giving me a good feeling that someday we're be in a warm house that takes a small amount of energy to keep it a pleasant temperature.  What is a pleasant temperature?

Planning meeting tomorrow, should we lose sleep?

Having phoned Tom the architect three times in the space of 7 days without an answer I really want to know when or if a planning meeting had been set up, I finally received an text.  "I'm on holiday this week but have set up a meeting for Wednesday 24th will go it alone for this one" or words to this effect.  I keep reassuring Flora that Tom is the professional and we're paying him to design our house and get it through planning.  So why do we feel we would like to go in person and fight (sorry) explain our thoughts in a calm and rational manner?  I think I might have just answered my own question!

We are both funding the lack of progress frustrating, but to keep us busy we met up with Tom the expert wall man.  Just to make it simple there are now three Tom's potentially involved in the Ropewalk house build.  Tom the architect, Tom the oak frame builder and now Tom the wall mason.  He was recommended by a neighbour who had to have some work done to her wall also in the conservation area and luckily used Tom to not only build the wall but far more importantly deal with our local conservation officer!  Last Friday we met up and talked walls which was pretty interesting.  I liked the positive in the manner of how he went around carefully explaining what could be acceptable and how we might appease the powers that be at the same time.  It's my finger in the air estimate that the walls will be around £15k (hopefully less) but I may be completely barking mad (it's not the first time) but at least we will know.  Some of our ideas may just have to wait a while after the house is finally complete, the only trouble is that we could just get used to having that wall up to the height or what we might have to wait for.

So he hasn't said but I get the feeling that Tom the architect has put all drawings on hold until this meeting tomorrow.  It may mean that we can't have a second storey or something of this nature (Tom also designed this house in a conservation area for a disabled client).  I've got to say that this sort of curved sedum roof house appeals with the slight niggle that I don't completely trust the warranty life span of the roof membrane.

Is the paint dry?

No we haven't suddenly built our house in the last couple of weeks.  In fact I think we've hit the doldrums of the house build waiting for the planning officer to actually be bothered to set up a meeting sometime in the next decade.  I may be sounding cynical, ok I am just sounding cynical there is no doubt about it.  We're in limbo not knowing if our carefully and painstakingly detailed plans are going to be dismissed by this person so we've come up with a strategy.  Get everyone you know in the local area to write that they like our general building concept.  It makes us feel that we are doing something useful or correctly speaking Flora has put in at least 95% of the energy doing this but it may prove useful in the planning stage.  So the whole few weeks have in my view been a little like watching paint dry.

I should be concentrating on monitoring the plumbing markets for possible discounted baths but I just can't get fired up when I don't know when we might just be able to start in 2011 or could it be 2012!

Bonfire party and Eco bling

From last weeks doom and gloom 'we're never going to build the house we actually want to live in' to lets invite our neighbours around for some mulled wine, sparklers (thank you for those guests that actually supplied them) and a large pile of tree cuttings just waiting to go up in smoke.  An apparent perfect opportunity to show our ideas to those who are going to be looking at our creation for years to come.  I think the saying goes 'If you want to be friends with your neighbour let him choose the colour of your front door'.  I hope this isn't in a literal sense?  "You can choose anything as long as it's the wood we like????"

Still, the mad frenzy of activity 15 minutes before the welcome time i.e. lighting a large bonfire with your 10 month daughter on your back was interesting, or trying to hold a conversation with an neighbour while a small person is hanging off your arms, does make the whole process more stressful it has got to be said.  I completely forgot to print off any pieces of paper asking our neighbours to support our plans, anyway it didn't matter they could barely see the plans with our all so powerful collection of random candles.... ok give me some credit for perhaps a smidgen of journalistic imagination!  In truth we think around 20 households came and we think / hope everyone liked our ideas.  What was really nice was creating an opportunity to meet everyone.  We still do have quite a large pot of mulled wine if you want to pop around to our cottage?

On the actual design front -  what is in and what's out this week?

1) Having had good look at a lovely oak house last Thursday (same sort of size as ours) Oak is most certainly IN. Lets not worry too much about silly things like cost deter us at this point in time.


2) Eco Bling - according to a journalist in Country Life magazine if your house has either solar panels or a wind turbine or such paraphernalia at the detriment of the aesthetics of the house then clearly this is considered naff.  Oh well, we never really considered ourselves up with the times!  Yes we're definitely having solar thermal panels and if we can afford it solar photovoltaic panels too.

3) Balconies - are on the border line.  We both like them but feel that the house has got to stand on it's own before putting a beautiful balcony in.

4)  Sun porches made from oak and glass or in other words a outside inside space will always be on the agenda.

5)  Voids are out.  Voids in a house do add (let me use a architectural phrase) drama but I think it's a real luxury that we would rather have larger bedrooms..... or am I just being boring?

6) Extreme sand pit playing - the only two things we've actually done at The Ropewalk is dig the girls a sand pit and cut off branches from some trees.  Polly thankfully amused herself by playing in the sand pit lit by a small candle, that's my girl!

Don't put the champagne on ice just yet.

The good news is that we have had correspondence from our planning officer.  The bad news is that our idea has been completely kicked into touch.  Why?  Well there is a question!

In summary the points were: -

-          Either preserve or enhance the character of the area

-          Should not be located on the northern boundary

-          Retain gate onto Higher Backway

-          Trees and site strategy

-          Bulky mass & incongruous style

We knew that the whole planning thing was going to have it's ups and downs but the real point we don't understand is we not interested in 'making a huge statement' to residents of Bruton.  We don't consider ourselves brash or into heavy duty bling and effectively we're being told either recreate a style of olde worlde or go for some thing bold and contemporary.  What happended to looking at the past of different architectural styles adding a twist to use some modern day materials and hey presto you might have something that makes a statement about the people wanting to live in the house for a long time.  Oh arse!

Saying that I consider this to be round one or maybe the first punch has been thrown.  We've got time on our hands and we know there has got to be some compremises but I'm not living in either a glass box or something that looks like an airport.

Tom has suggested going more modern and using the north south side of the garden in a curve.  In the past he has understandably created ideas more to gauge our reaction (occassionally complete distaste) to then be able to rule out that concept.

-          A more contemporary style building to enhance the local character

-          Reduced elevation on the northern boundary

-          Retained gate – but still make a new one

-          The shape of the building has been shaped by the Monterey Cypress’ root protection zone.

-          More dynamic in styling

And now for a rather pleasing image taken from my iphone - well it cheered me up!

Oak wood - an honest days work

I think I'm going to ache tomorrow morning..... today I was chopping the last of oak wood we are going to burn to heat the house.  Is this forward planning to such a lengthy scale?  Once again I could be accused of getting slightly enthusiastic about things but this is really important!  So a very large oak tree fell down on the farm and for the past few months I've been going down chopping the thing up with some help of Mike the chainsaw expert and the wood pile is now complete.  Well when I said complete it's now rather large in fact at a guess two years worth of wood maybe more.  Which is all to do with what wood you burn and even more importantly what is the wood moisture % is when you finally try and burn it.  Why?  Yes it makes a huge difference if the wood is really dry which means less wood needed therefore less effort sawing and splitting from Matt, simple!

So more about oak, we might just be able to afford an oak frame house, possibly, just maybe.  It may be more possible as Hamish my brother in law has given us some large oak trees - see pictures.  Apart from that wonderful idea we're waiting for our 3rd planner to get back to us or Tom.  What this means I'll tell you when I actually know.  Flora thought that it would be a nice touch to replace Guy Fawkes on the 5th November with a person from the planning department which I think is quite cruel considering that we haven't even met the poor person!

Hemp and I thought it was for just making ropes

Now listen very carefully I shall say this only once, hemp actually is quite good stuff.  Following on from our visit to lets call it 'Hemp House next to a lovely vineyard' last Thursday my attitude towards this natural building material has begun to thaw.  What is so good about it?

• Great insulation both heat and sound. 300mm thick about 0.19 u value which is pretty good.
• It's natural and doesn't have to be transported half way around the world.
• With the right person in charge "most people" can have a go.... I have a cunning plan!
• Flora likes it because you have the ability to curve off the corners.
• Price comparison to other building products with the same U (thermal qualities) it holds it's own.
• Decent thermal mass making it retain the heat in the winter but is cool in the summer.

Ok I would like to say that I'm going to have to see some more examples but this may be good.

Other news.

We had a planning officer assigned to our build and then he wasn't.
But we've now got another one which I think is good.

Tom (architect) has a sleepless nights (bless) thinking about our house so he has showed us an alternative version which cuts out the necessity for the extension or sitting room as I liked to call it.  I'm certainly finding the whole notion of nearly starting from scratch just painful a little bit like Ground Hog Day.

Here's a short video of me giving a crocking narrative watching Dan pulling things up.