Keys

I went to see Epsom Builders today to get the keys to the land and mentioned we had a concern about whether the house would fit in the space available. Mark very kindly offered to send Paul to the site so we could take some quick measurements - and put our minds at rest. We also made some copes for the keys to make site visits easier in future.

Bathrooms

We spend a few ours in Bathstore in Sutton to get a feel for the sort of bathrooms we will be putting into the new house. The highlight will be the master ensuite which will have a minimilistic wet room and a separate large jacuzzi bath and twin sinks. We are not going to fill the space with furtniture and storage but go for a less cluttered look. However we think having some shelf space around the bath for toiletries and decorative items will be nice. Alicia will be having a corner shower with a rain water shower head. The family bathroom upstairs will be a bath and an over bath shower and twin sinks again. On the ground floor we will just have a simple cloakroom - but it does look like quite a large room so we might think about how best to use the extra space.

Kitchens

We visited Magnet in Sutton and met a kitchen designer called Asria to help put our initial kitchen design together. We ended up with a complete design for the kitchen and utiity room. The kitchen came out a lot bigger than we expected - but the utility room was a lot smaller. Just shows how difficult it is to envisage scale when you just work to floor plans. We chose one of the most expensive ranges in Magnet - Java which is a light wood colour with black granite worktops. We have a nice 5 burner gas hob - 900 mm wide, some other more basic neff appliances and a huge american style fridge freezer which will have a built in water filter and ice maker. The whole process took a few hours to get the design done and we had to visit the shop again for pricing. The list price was £45,000 - but rapidly came down to around £25,000 with discounts etc. If VAT is removed and we push a little further we should have the kitchen supplied and fitted for around £20,000 which is expensive but inside the budget.

New Prices

Broke the news to Epsom builders on Thursday that we are going to get alternative quotes for the build so I can ensure I am getting a market competitive price. The situation now is that Epsom will do stage 1 which is the foundations and drainage and I will get some altermative quotes for the rest of the project. We think we can do a fixed price upto stage 4 and then stage 5 will depend on details of the internal finishes which will take time to work out. I am preparing a detailed spec defining all the elements in stages 2, 3 and 4 for pricing. I have Epsom builders to prepare details for Stage 1 - as work is due to start again on 5th October.

Alternative prices ?

I was getting more and more frustrated with constant changes in the build price and confusion over markups of subcontract costs. So I decided to send all the drawings to an alternative builder. His initial reaction was there was potential for some cost savings - but so far I have not received the figures yet. Changing will not be easy especially as we have now just been given the go ahead and the last thing I want is more delays. I might just need to proceed with stage 1 while I pin down the prices for the rest and see if I can change at a later stage. Will post again once I have the alternative quote.

At last a response from the council

After a delay of almost 2 months we received approval from the planning department to start work again !!! I dont have this in writing yet just and email from Mark Wilson from Epsom Builders saying he had spoke to Jacey Yates and have been given a verbal go ahead. Apparantly the tree officer was happy with the revised foundation design providing we made some changes to the surface water drainage at the back of the house. This may involve putting in an additional soakaway. The builders have scheduled the foundation company to come back on site on 28th September. Lets hope we get going this time.