Anyone else built their own house?

[sovietspybob]

Has anyone else on here done so, thought it might be interesting to see what various people did as it's such a blank canvas to approach and i'm always interested in houses so thought i'd share mine first!

We finished ours just over 2 years ago, we started thinking about it years and years ago after watching too many grand designs episodes..

We probably started seriously looking in 2012 i think but it takes an age to find a decent plot of land which is affordable, has either outline planning or a good chance of getting it and is in a decent location. We finally found a plot in 2013 i think which had outline planning for a small bungalow.

We knew we wanted to build a proper house so it was a bit of a gamble but we bought it and found an architect to design a house that we thought we could get planning for, we got planning though in September 2013 then had the fun process of finding a builder to actually build it for us. As we both work full time we didn't want to project manage the thing ourselves so chose a local firm who were really good in the end luckily.

This was the plot before anything started, the rough shape of the house pegged out on the ground for us to try and visualise it

Broke ground in i think September 2014, this is October

We'd decided to go timber frame pretty early on, got a local(ish) company to make it for us. Had a very interesting day out at their factory as it's not often you get to see your own house being put together like that. Frame arrived first week in 2015 and the big benefit of timber frame is how quickly they fly up, this is first week in February after about 4 weeks.

With a timber frame you have a few choices but we chose a block outer wall to be rendered with K-Rend, this was all done by May

And was all rendered by June

We moved in in October 2015 a little over 1 year from breaking ground which we were very pleased with as you see and hear horror stories of these projects taking years with loads of unexpected setbacks.

This is how the house stands now after a bit of time for the lawn and garden to start getting established

Originally there were 2 plots next to each other and we bought the first, shortly after starting the build space was becoming a big issue so we came to an agreement to rent the 2nd plot behind the house for the duration of the build. When we'd finished we had several hundred tones of soil pilled up on the 2nd plot and a rather expensive quote to move it all so we ended up buying the land, building a retaining wall and levelling it all off to use as a nice big garden.

The house seems to work well as intended, hosted a few BBQ's

The wife got the walk in wardrobe she wanted

And i got the kitchen i wanted!

So there you go, as with all projects like this it cost more than you want do i ran out of money to build a garage but that should be sorted in the near future. I found the details really pushed the price up in the end, for example the flooring we could have done a lot cheaper but ended up doing almost all of downstairs and the landing in oak and having granite worktops etc, but the way i look at it is it'd have done a disservice to the house to cheap out on the detail when you've put so much effort into the design.

Someone asked me on a works Christmas do the other day if it was worth it and whether i'd do it again. If you'd asked me that in 2016 i'd have said a resounding no after all the stress of it but after a bit more time i'm changing my mind and while i'll probably never build another one it was worth it in the end.

So anyone else got any similar stories?

 

[wedrum]

excellent love these threads.

 

[Skillmister]

Awesome house in an awesome location

 

[gezod]

Hi sovietspybob I am currently in the process myself. I do have a few questions I hope you wouldn't mind answering?

How did you find the overall cost of the project, from building the house, connecting up the utilities etc? Was it more that you were expecting? Was your architect close to the overall cost?
Did you go the self-funding route or sell your previous property to fund your build?

I have a plot of land to build on, Im just not sure what the first stage is, to contact the planning office or an architect

 

[sovietspybob]

Hi sovietspybob I am currently in the process myself. I do have a few questions I hope you wouldn't mind answering?

How did you find the overall cost of the project, from building the house, connecting up the utilities etc? Was it more that you were expecting? Was your architect close to the overall cost?
Did you go the self-funding route or sell your previous property to fund your build?

I have a plot of land to build on, Im just not sure what the first stage is, to contact the planning office or an architect

It was more than i was expecting by say 25% or so and then we had to find the money for the additional land so it wasn't cheap for us. We didn't get the architect to cost it fully as we had a feeling he'd be way out which turned out to be true. Utility connections are very expensive, we needed 1 telegraph pole installing for the power and i think we paid getting on for £7k for that and connection. Water was a bit cheaper i'd say 4 or 5k off the top of my head but we needed to dig up the road so had to have it coned off which is expensive.

First step is to find a decent architect and then they will do the drawings for you to submit to planning, they should know what you can and can't get away with to save time and money by submitting stuff which will never get through. We had a meeting between our architect and the local planning officer which was very helpful in feeling out what we could and couldn't do.

As for funding it, we had some money which we used to buy the land and get ourselves started but then we used a self build mortgage with stage release payments. I'd highly recommend having a chat with Buildstore, they're mega helpful and they're a specialist mortgage broker for self build type stuff, i couldn't have done it without them. We actually lived in our previous bungalow for the build and sold it afterwards as due to the 2008 crash we didn't have much equity in it anyway, it did mean paying 2 mortgages for a while but the self build ones start off small and build up as you release more money from them. Not ideal financially but selling up before and living in a caravan on site wasn't really an option for us for various reasons which would be the sensible thing to do.

 

[gezod]

Thank you for this, very useful information.

I like the fact you lived in your previous property while building your house. I had visions of me moving in with the in-laws. Staying in my own property will be so much nicer.

 

[jsmoke]

We did in the 80's I was a young kid then. Inherited some land with an old small cottage and built a sizable extension onto that. Did it all apart from brick work, probably plasterboard also was done. Can't even remember about the frame. Good days, good fun. Remember helping with dwarf walls, putting up trusses, felt and tiles and the floor.

 

[Participant]

Fantastic. Buying the 2nd plot for a garden was a great call. A modest garden is the one thing I dislike about my house.

 

[panthro]

Awesome, if give anything to build my own house but it's almost impossible around here.

 

[theone8181]

Looks nice, however with your solar panels could you not of had the tiles as panels or is that only certain types of tiles?

 

[the_r_sole]

Is that a fairly common way to build in Wales? House style looks pretty similar to Scottish details, with the storey and a half/ three quarters with pitched dormers...
One day I'll build my own, looking for plots at the moment but no one around here is desperate enough to sell yet!

 

[Sparx]

Love threads and build logs like these.

Random but what method and cost did you have for internet? e.g. did you have to pay Openreach or Virgin to wire to the house, if so how much was it approx? This would be a scenario I would be asking for full FTTP!

Would love to build my own house one day. Nice insight into the way self build mortgages work. Will definitely bear that in mind for future. I presume you can't buy a plot of land with the self build mortgages, only the actual development of the house?

 

[psd99]

Awesome well done mate. Looks like a dream home for you and your family!

 

[sovietspybob]

Looks nice, however with your solar panels could you not of had the tiles as panels or is that only certain types of tiles?

I did really want solar tiles but at the time they were about 3x the cost of panels plus they were only fitted pretty late on so we could get enough sustainability 'points' to get the house signed off, the plan was to have them fitted at a later stage to the garage roof. We've only got 2KW up there now and i'd like at least another 2, ideally 4 in the fullness of time.

Is that a fairly common way to build in Wales? House style looks pretty similar to Scottish details, with the storey and a half/ three quarters with pitched dormers...
One day I'll build my own, looking for plots at the moment but no one around here is desperate enough to sell yet!

Not really too many looking like this around here to be honest, we did it like that as we needed to keep the ridge line of the roof below the bungalow accross the road to get away with planning so it's technically a dorma bungalow, that's also why it's dug down a fair bit. We had quite a lot of back and forth with the architect at the beginning as they wanted to have a big flat roof instead of the 3 dormas with wood cladding which seems quite popular around here, we weren't keen at all and wanted it to look more traditional in a sense. 'Modern cottage' was the look we were going for.

Love threads and build logs like these.

Random but what method and cost did you have for internet? e.g. did you have to pay Openreach or Virgin to wire to the house, if so how much was it approx? This would be a scenario I would be asking for full FTTP!

Would love to build my own house one day. Nice insight into the way self build mortgages work. Will definitely bear that in mind for future. I presume you can't buy a plot of land with the self build mortgages, only the actual development of the house?

I did try for FTTP but no go Getting a phone line was an absolute nightmare, i have to deal with Openreach in work and was expecting it to be hard but my god 7 failed orders and about 2-3 months and i finally got a phone line with FTTC installed... was only BT's standard new connection fee of around £100 in the end but after the faff i still felt extremely short changed

It seems the way it works is there's a bundle of cables going back to the cabinet on every say 8 telegraph poles, you can see them if you look out as a bulging black loop thing which hangs down. There's always spares which run to the nearest cabinet so when they put a new line in they only need to run copper to the nearest one of these which for us was about 5 or 6 poles away in the middle of the village. So no fast broadband for me in the end, i get about 27mb which while not terrible would have been much nicer to have proper fibre!

With the mortgage my stage releases worked something like this:

But as they release money only after you've reached a stage you always need a fair bit in hand so it's quite a juggling act really but is doable. Our builder invoiced me every 2 months which means you can get cracking on a fair bit of work and get some money released before you actually need to pay. Just need to make sure the targets are hit, hence the stress of doing a project like this.

 

[psd99]

based on those prices, how much money did you actually save for going with the timber frame?

 

[sovietspybob]

I don't think you save anything it's more the convenience of it being a quicker process and they're inherently a bit warmer and a bit greener as all the wood for the frame was sourced locally and sustainable. I am aware of how much of an environmental disaster any new house is but anything i could do to offset that a bit.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

if i was building my own home i'd have to spend years getting all the details right.

for instance i would want old school plaster cornice however i don't think anyone does that any more and you can buy plastic fake one.

http://www.blalockcabinets.com/uploads/1/4/0/2/14024983/166022788.jpg

just an example not what i would go for but i think it's details like this that give a home character rather than generic new builds where everything is flat and rectangular rooms

 

[Em3bbs]

if i was building my own home i'd have to spend years getting all the details right.

for instance i would want old school plaster cornice however i don't think anyone does that any more and you can buy plastic fake one.

http://www.blalockcabinets.com/uploads/1/4/0/2/14024983/166022788.jpg

just an example not what i would go for but i think it's details like this that give a home character rather than generic new builds where everything is flat and rectangular rooms

That plastic cornice would look great in a mock Tudor home.

 

[jsmoke]

I grew up in a similar setting to this. You need a sun lounge though, really tops it off. Then start growing some potatoes and veg, get some chickens, pigs, ponies, cats and dogs and your on your way to living the good life.

 

[Skillmister]

if i was building my own home i'd have to spend years getting all the details right.

for instance i would want old school plaster cornice however i don't think anyone does that any more and you can buy plastic fake one.

http://www.blalockcabinets.com/uploads/1/4/0/2/14024983/166022788.jpg

just an example not what i would go for but i think it's details like this that give a home character rather than generic new builds where everything is flat and rectangular rooms

Go and get a quote for building a house to that standard and you'll see why people don't. There is a reason old houses often have an insurance reinstatement value higher than their value to buy, and new builds are often as low as 30% of the purchase price.