Hagg Leys Farm

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First meeting with the architect

July 11, 2012 /

I have never employed an architect before, so this is going to be a bit of a voyage of discovery.  However, as with everything these days, a quick search on Google reveals some likely candidates.

Just looking at the architects websites, you are see that some architects specialise either in new build or major on commercial projects.  Probably none of these are going to be appropriate to the renovation of a 18th century farmhouse!  We might be wrong in doing our initial selection this way, but it does underline how important getting your website is if you are an architect!

We came across one architecture practice that we liked.  We had also heard good things about them locally.  They are also based not far away which also helps.  ONE17DESIGN (http://www.one17design.com) are based in Armitage Bridge about 5 miles away from the new house.

We met with Mark Lee from ONE17DESIGN on a rather wet Friday morning and took him through our ideas. We were due to meet at the property, but the rain was torrential.  From the ideas that we had pulled together – overlays on top of bitmaps from Google Earth – Mark seemed to understand what we were looking for.  After chatting for an hour, the raining had subsided enough for us to venture out and walk around the property.  This seemed to confirm Mark’s suspicions that what we want to do (including changing the position of the access road) was all very doable.

Mark suggested that we had a look at a couple of properties that he had just finished working on…..we arranged to view them the following day.

It is going to take how long!?!

July 11, 2012 /

18 months.  From start to completion.  That’s the architect’s estimate.  It might be a bit shorter – say, 15 months – but not dramatically different from the 18 month estimate.

So how does this stack up?
Initial designs 8-12 weeks
Planning permission 8-10 weeks
Building regulations 8 weeks

So that is 6-9 months before we can even start on the building work.  With the building work estimated to take a further 6-9 months, you can see how an 18 month estimate starts to look like a reasonable guess.

Until the designs are complete, it is going to be difficult to come up with a more accurate estimate in terms of the timing as well as the costs.  I must admit that 18 months seems like an awfully long time.

Our first visit to the Planning Dept

July 4, 2012 /

I rang the Planning department at Huddersfield County Council earlier in the week.  We made an appointment to discuss the property that we are in the process of buying.  You will find the pages for the Planning Department here.

Before we went in to see the Planning Dept, the feedback was unanimous – it would be a waste of time.

I must admit that I had a whole list of questions which I didn’t ask.  Questions about what was and what wasn’t going to be acceptable.  I decided that it was too early for these sorts of questions, but better to concentrate on finding out more about the property and the planning process.

Was the meeting a waste of time?  Absolutely not!  The naysayers couldn’t have been more wrong. It was a very useful session and, while we are far from being in a position of having planning permission, we did manage to establish a number of things.

Namely:

  • The property is not Listed;
  • The property is not in a conservation area;
  • There are no current applications for planning permission and there is no record of any planning applications having been submitted (or rejected);
  • There are no planning applcations on any of the adjoining properties;
  • There are no Tree Preservation Orders (TPO) on any of the trees on the property;
  • There are TPOs on the trees on woods (Hagg Wood) that encloses the property;
  • Before we submit our application, we can make an appointment and talk through the designs that we would like to submit.  In fact, it would seem to make sense to do this before the plans are too developed as this will save time and money in getting any amendments made.

So all in all, a very useful session.  I have subsequently read that some local councils charge (around £120) for these meetings.  So top marks to Huddersfield local council!

The way we live now

July 4, 2012 /

One of the things that has struck me when we were househunting is how much our lifestyles have changed over the years and how much this impacts the houses that we build.

You only need to look at large formal Georgian homes to realise that (while they are gorgeous properties) that they really don’t reflect the way we live today. Too big.  Too formal.  Drafty and expensive to heat. This ultimately affects the market for the property and it’s value – the market in our part of the UK already has it’s fair share on £1M properties that have been on the market for over 12 months and are struggling to find new owners.  On a number of occasions, I just got the feeling that the people trying to sell the protperties were trapped in their own homes.

So when I read that the RIBA had commissioned a report from MORI (yes, the survey folks) on looking at the way we live today and what that means for the homes that we should be building and buying, I was intrigued. 

You will find the report here: http://www.architecture.com/Files/RIBAHoldings/PolicyAndInternationalRelations/HomeWise/ThewaywelivenowRIBAIpsosMORIMay2012.pdf if you want to read it in full.  You can download it for free.

The major things (and there were a lot of minor ones too) that I took away from the report were:

  • Large open living spaces with high ceilings and large windows with natural light are seen as being very desirable;
  • Space for private time away from other members of the household and dedicated space for a home office was seen as being desirable.
  • Private outdoor space for socialising and for childsafe playspace;
  • Storage is seen as very important: both for short term storage (where do you put the vacuum cleaner or the recycling bin?) as well as long term storage (where do you store Grandad’s war medals or the family photo albums?). If you are going for open plan living, make sure that there is enough storage space to be able to put things away otherwise it will look messy;
  • Dedicated space for domestic tasks such as washing and drying clothes was seens as being important.

Surprisingly, a lot of the design ideas that we have for the new property ae consistent with the findings in the report.  Strange, because I thought we were unique!

The journey begins…

June 30, 2012 /

Well, after spending some time looking for the right property, it looks as if we have decided on a rennovation project.  Scary!

It seems to have happened almost by mistake – we have looked at lots of house, but it has been the usual story.  Nice house, wrong location.  Right location, house too small (with no scope to extend).  Beuatiful house, right location, but who wants an 8 bedroom Georgian mansion when there is only two of you? Tempting, but the heating bills would be crippling.  And as energy prices are only set to increase, this situation will only get more acute.

The property we have found is just on the outskirts of the village that we live in.  It is a farmhouse, with attached cottage and barn.  The barn needs to be converted.  There are a number of outbuildings including at least 4 chicken coups.  There are a couple of adjoining fields attached that probably amount to around 3-4 acres included in the price of the property.  The reason that I am vague is because we have put an offer in before the details have been produced (or the property was put on the market).  Given that the property has now been taken off the market, I doubt that we will ever get a set of property details.

It currently doesn’t have planning permission for any sort of development, so there is an inherent risk that we might not be able to get the permission that we need for the sort of property that we want to build.

The current plan is to bottom out as much of the details (and viability) of what we want to do before finally pass the point of no return on the purchase. We would not want to be left with a property that we couldn’t get planning permission on.

First stop, the local planning department……

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