It's moving along!

With the impeccable timing normally shown by our family & friends, we have been busy! A trip to France, to buy wine for Duncan's & Katie's wedding, and to catch up with old friends. Before we went, we were privileged to be at the wedding of Simon Bowles & Hannah Pardon, at Whipsnade Zoo, including a trip on the train; it has all been lovely.

So was our visit to the Wolseley Sustainable Building Centre ( above) where we had plenty of time to discuss our particular issues, and see the latest green technology; some of this will be relevant to us; some is more relevant to larger scale projects. It was especially helpful to get calculations on the energy generated by solar thermal heating & photovoltaic cellso help us make decisions.
We also met Mike Wingrove of aca-apex at Leighton Buzzard, to talk about Smart Home technology, and were very impressed by his down-to-earth attitude.

Finally, Adrian, the planning advisor at Potton, has submitted our planning application. The link won't load here, but if you want to see the plans, you can go to: www.east-northamptonshire.gov.uk/PublicAccess and look for Application no: 10/00920/FUL. We should have a decision by early July

The blog has been neglected for a long time as we have been busy. We have been emailing plans backwards & forwards to Claire at Potton and now we are quite happy with them, Adrian has to submit them for planning permission.
I love the brick designs that characterise North Bedfordshire, and have succeeded in persuading Keith that we should have quoins ( contrasting bricks at the corners) and a diamond waistband down the side.
We have been to building exhibitions and asked for quotes for things like underfloor heating, ventilation systems, and central vacuums.
We have also been to Shona's & Phil's wedding, where we built a tower of cheeses ( to get into practice!)
More soon I hope!

Visiting the plot last week, the snowdrops were out round the base of the hazel trees, and were beautiful. 2 pairs of swans came to look at us, and a lot of ducks.
This is a lovely spot, and we are looking forward to having our house here.
We are meeting Claire, Andy & Steve later this week, to finalise designs.
The house will be simple: the main feature will be a full-width living room with glass doors looking down the garden.

Designs

This is the view from the bottom of our new garden at the end of January, with all the geese foraging.

We have spent a lot of January thinking about designs and sending e-mails to Claire at Potton. Finally we realised that our ideas were running away with our budget (this happens a lot apparently!)
We knew that we wanted a house roughly the size of our present one, but designed to work well for us. It has to be pleasant and efficient for 2 people, and open up for guests. Our present house is about 170 square metres (without the garage) so we knew that when we'd drawn up plans at 200 square metres that it made no sense!
We do want a house that is as friendly to the environment as possible and the first 2 rules of green house building are: keep it small and keep it simple!

We are due to meet next week with Potton and with Steve, our project manager, and we think now we have a good idea of what the house will look like, but who knows what other ideas may emerge in the next few days!

We were sorry to miss the annual Denford play. Our new neighbour, Peter, is one of the "resident playwrites" and has written The Ballad of Moonshine Malone with Will Adams. We hope to be able to enjoy their offerings next year.

More in a couple of weeks.

levels

This photo is of the team who understand the technical data:
Claire, Andy & Steve
Following this photo, we walked a hundred yards up the road to the pub where they gave us use of a table and cups of coffee.

We spread out topographical data, information from the Environment Agency, provisional drawings and Claire's calculator. She tapped on this every time a change was mentioned and came up with finished levels.

Visitors will be glad to know that we will build above the level calculated by the Environment Agency as a one-in-a-millenium flood risk (even factoring in climate change).

From a design point of view we have to decide on how to make sure that front access is level, and that planners will like the finished height of the building.
This plot has more slopes than Chamonix: it slopes along the High Street, it slopes up towards the river then down. Claire & Steve talked about how much earth will have to be moved, and where, to accomodate different designs.

We are re-thinking our "upside-down" house: Part M of building regulations says that we must have wheelchair access to the main living floor of the building, which would mean building up a lot - expensive and unsightly.
If we were to have the ground floor as our main living area, it remains a pleasant view, and means we can walk out directly in to the garden.
Back to the drawing board! Actually, it's the Grand Designs CAD package.
Luckily we are in no hurry.

designs and names

This photo is from the opposite river bank and shows our plot, bounded by the fence that Terry has just put up for us.
Keith has been drawing out designs, and now Pottons have made them into a first draft that we have been poring over all weekend.
It's difficult for some of us to imagine how a blue-print will look in real life, so Keith has made 3D images on the Grand Designs CAD package, but I'm not publishing them until we've made a few more alterations!
Our house must have a name, as there are no numbers in Denford High Street. Neither of us has ever lived in a house with a name (unless you count Keith's school).
We're imaging saying the name to call centre staff - but maybe any name sounds daft when you're spelling it over the phone.
Many years ago, our friend Lucy, who knows her art, gave us a print of The Bright House by August Macke, which we love. Is this just too obvious?
Keeping it simple, we remembered that in Suffolk, Keith used to work at The Surgery, The Street, Holbrook. If we adopted this approach, we could call it The New House. We probably don't need to worry about it dating - we still drive over the New Bridge to Irthlingborough (built 1936)
As a child, Keith used to play in a stream called the Minnehaha, and we wondered if we could call the house Laughing Water, although it is so sedate that Mildly Amused Water might be more appropriate.
I've been re-reading John Clare's poetry which I loved as a child, especially his "Proposal on Building a Cottage" but it doesn't help on finding a house name.
Anyway, we have until the footings are dug to ponder all the ideas!

This picture is taken from what will be the front of our house, looking across the High Street. Our plot will run from the centre of the driveway to the large tree on the right. Our new garage will be where the right hand white door is.
We hope to level the mound of earth, and plant bushes along the road boundary.

For a few years now, we have subscribed to Home Building & Renovating Magazine, and have been to their exhibitions, gathering lots of useful information.
Next weekend we are going to the latest one at Harrogate, this time with some specific questions about things that will affect the design of our house.

We know that we are going to have a heavily insulated timber-frame house, with a heat recovery & ventilation system.
We are considering a wood-burning stove.
We also have to think about the large glass doors that will open on to the balcony. An expanse of glass like that, with a low u value will take a good chunk of our budget.
We shall have to install a rain water harvesting system ( to meet building regulations)
We want to look at Smart Home technology.