In the beginning....

6 Brookvale, Upper Stondon

This is the story of the house that Jan and Rog will be building in Upper Stondon, Bedfordshire. The Google Earth picture above shows the rural nature of the countryside. The plot sits in the middle.

Preamble

We had been looking for a plot of land for about three years, and had almost given up the idea until one day in June I idly searched for "plot of land Bedfordshire", and back came this plot in Upper Stondon. It looked ideal with detailed planning permission for a 3 bedroom Potton style house, and a garage already on the plot. The price seemed right too - what was the catch? There wasn't a catch - it was a genuinely good plot in an ideal position. We agreed to buy. That was in mid June 2008. It took the solicitors until almost the end of August to get the simple contract raised - hmmmmm.

July 2008

Whilst I had an idea of the likely cost to build, I thought it would be a good idea to get some quotes so I went to two local builders - one small with a good reputation, the other larger, but with an equally good reputation. I'm still waiting to hear from the first builder who promised me a quotation by mid July. The second builder quoted me a price so high I assume he didn't want the job.

August 2008

We had a pretty clear idea of the sort of house we wanted so I asked a good friend to draw up plans - and an excellent job he did too. However, we decided that we needed an architect to help draw up our ideas and submit them to Mid Beds Council, so I researched two local firms and approached each with a brief. Whilst one firm could produce plans and provide a high level watching brief over the project, the other would get very involved and act as project manager. For those of you who watch Grand Designs, you'll know how important this can be. So, J P Roscoe Milne of Campton have been appointed as our Architect and Project Manager.

Due to the fact that planning permission had been granted on a particular design we needed to try and show some similarity between that design and our requirements, so another plan was drawn up that had features from the original, as well as being basically what we wanted.