Brick and Tile Match the Sequel

We were told last week that the brick and tile we chose was not approved by Tony Evans the council conservation officer ! Mark suggested we look at a house he is building in Epsom.. and we did and liked the brick. We cant have the tile though because Tony Evans wants plain concrete. Anyway we think we have some options so our architect is going to get these approved. Needless to say we put the previous brick order on hold.

Piling work starts

The piling started on schedule on 5th October in the pouring rain but all seemed to proceed well. Half way through we were told the step had to come back but only 350 mm rather than the previous 500 mm. We can do this by grinding down the piles at the front.

Work Starts !!!

Work finally started again at 9am on Monday 5th October. We all met on site in the pouring rain for the architect to check and finalise the levels. After that we had a short meeting at home to discuss changes needed to the drawings and pricing for stage 1. The architect suggested asking a quantity surveyor to comment on the pricing and provided a recommendation. I later made an appointment to see him.

Later the same day the architect called to say we no longer need a step in the house - so it can all be at the same level - good news - but am confused about why this was such as issue before.

I am expecting a full new set of drawings to be produced this week. Have also asked for these on cad format.

In the meantime my new contractor is away on holiday so nothing will progress on that front for a while.

Also was told we cant have an air source heat pump so we are back to solar panels. More research needed.

Had a chat with Andy Bull who we met at the house renovation show about the network and cabling. Am waiting for some information from him so we can finalise the designs.

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.