Building the case, but not yet the house

A long silence which, to be honest is not because of apathy but a lack of news.

Since the last post, we've just been refining & revising the application. We're nearly there but because Christmas is around the corner, we're all going to take 5 and have a break, and come back in January with a rejuvenated submission.

Here is a drawing of the revised design drawn to scale against the old ("too much massing") design. What do you think?!

Last post I mentioned Jim Dyas Davidson's Flickr. It turns out he lives in the valley below the plot, which is a lovely coincidence.

Happy Christmas 2014. Let's see what happens next year!

Planning to fail us?

The past couple of weeks have been frustrating. Having spent months designing the house we want, having invested a lot of brain power and significant funds in architects fees, we had been very hopeful about the upcoming planning submission.

Some brief scene-setting to bring you up to speed: we withdrew the original planning application in August and parted with the original architect. The feedback from planning on that submission was also not great - they specifically wanted less "massing" and less "fenestration". 

We appointed the current architects and have so far had a fantastic relationship and are working well together. We worked on reducing the massing and fenestration whilst maintaining our design requirements and aspirations.

So - we have spent the past 8 weeks actively refining the design. Before hitting the "go" button though, we had the foresight to approach the planners informally to understand their take on the new design...

They still don't like it though. I could talk at length about our disappointment but won't. We are doing everything we can to try and rectify the situation. So, you won't hear much on this side I would imagine, before New Year... During this time we also have consider concessions we might be prepared to make to the design in order to satisfy the planners, something we are really finding hard to deal with.

A final thought: at what point was it decided that it is a worthwhile idea to preserve old buildings that were built for function, and not built for their architectural merit? 

Uncovering some History

We had not investigated the history of Broombank very much, but had chatted to Mabel Lawson - our 70+ year old neighbour who has lived above us at Hillhead since she was 5 years old. She remembers "running about with the 4 boys" who lived at Broombank when she was young (i.e. around the 1930's?).  We plan to chat to her more... 

Jaimin did some online searches and has found that historically, the Anderson family are associated with the plot as croft farmers. The earliest tie seems to be around 1863, with William Anderson, b. 4th March 1824 in Bogstone, Logie Coldstone, d. 27th May 1863 in Broombank, Tarland.

From what the internet has to offer, if you can follow this:

- George Anderson (b. 1833) (brother or son of aformentioned William?) married Isabella Coutts (b. 21st June 1853) and they lived at Broombank. She had 4 daughters and 2 sons between 1879 and 1888. 

One of the daughters, Annie Elizabeth Thomson Collie Anderson (b. 1886)seems to have had 2 husbands or partners - James Dinnie & Frank Glenesk (b. 14th Nov 1890) and and at least 3, possibly 5, children: Alexander, George, Jane, Mary Ann and Isabella.

 - Mary Anne Dinnie Anderson (21st Jan 1906 - 1983) was apparently illegitimate

- Isabella Glenesk Anderson, (b. 21st June 1912 at 1, Adelphi, Aberdeen) was also apparently illegitimate

This brings us to at least 2010 when this post on rootschat.com provided this fascinating history and 3 potential sources of good information: 

• daughter of Isabella Glenesk Anderson, granddaughter of Frank & Annie, known so far only as Glenesk
• granddaughter of  Mary Ann Dinnie, aka BlessedBe
• dorothy2710 - can't work out the exact relationship

To try and get some reliable information I have posted this topic on rootschat and can't wait to see if anything comes of it!

In all the digging I also came across some very good professional photos on Flickr and tumblr taken in 2011 by a local photographer, James Dyas Davidson.

Progress with Fenceline

Today Jaimin visited the plot to meet the farmer bordering the north side of the plot. The wind was howling! The plot is a bizarre shape so we are hoping to realign some fences. The meeting went well and Mr Ross saw no reason why, as long as we don't impact the access track which is used for timber haulage and he can access his drainage ditch, he couldn't accommodate us. This is great news as it means we will have a much more sensibly shaped plot. The boundary plan to the north will therefore look more like the green line, eventually:

The south fence will also be straightened out, according to the orange line (roughly). This borders a different farmer's tenancy but apparently should be fine. None of this can happen for 12 months after planning though, but the principle is established! Phew...

Still Planning Stairs

We were hoping that we would have a Planning Application in this week but not so. The design for submission is pretty much finalised but the architect is busy, so we have to hold fire until he can get something together. Frustrating but probably not a big deal in the long run.

Bumpy has been working hard on 1st floor layouts while we debate them, especially the stairs. We've fiddled with a few stair positions including a central staircase which works well for upstairs by allowing 4 more double bedrooms, but takes centre stage downstairs in the family room. The option prior to this batch ever-changing sketches should help conceptualise the layout.

First Floor:

Ground Floor:

Jaimin has done some good research on metal profile roofing and we've now received a full colour palette and some fancy samples. We are leaning toward an Anthracite Matt finish in Colorcoat HPS200 Ultra... This works well with both weathered larch and in due course painted colours too. It has a remarkable 40 year guarantee! We had thought Raven was good but interestingly when we received the sample it's darker than online, so cast aside.

On Sunday we are meeting one of the 2 tenant farmers who neighbour us, to discuss options for realigning the weird shaped fence line. We will report back...

The cottage roof has become tricky to design due to joist requirements so it is looking like a call to a structural engineer will be the most efficient method.

Plans, budget, plans...

When you build a house there is a lot to think about - obviously. Forget the small details (light sockets, ironmongery), even the big stuff like wall construction, roofing, colours, building design - are all tricky and very involved. It must therefore be natural to constantly question whether one is doing "the right thing", but at some point instinct has to take over and decision made. Incidentally, the more we learn the more we realise that all these options exist because there really is no "right thing" out there... sadly!

We have had to make careful considerations of our budget and house size - too many to highlight here - but it is the old adage of "compromise". I am sure it will turn out fine, but I am also sure it's going to be a lot of work. To help us, we have had a very interesting "online estimate" (from, originally, Estimator's Online, would you believe...) to help us understand the costs of building.  It's astoundingly detailed and a real insight to the costs, well presented and well broken down, to the penny, with all sorts of useful stuff in there. I would recommend that anyone doing a build gets one done, if anything as another weapon in the armoury to approach trades people.

The good news is that we think we can manage to build efficiently within budget (if we ever get any money). We will have to be very selective on where the money goes, but this I am pretty sure is a self-builder's standard situation. We have decided that talking numbers and budget makes very tedious reading so you'll probably be please to hear we will not be posting about it very much.

The plans are constantly evolving and hopefully improving, but whatever we have today will almost certainly not be what we finish up with, especially on the inside. The building's exterior should be pretty close now, which is exciting in itself. 

Google+ Integration

Possibly too technical but this post is also an experimeriment. Jaimin has connected the Blog to Google+ to see if it posts an update on our timeline, making the Blog more visible to our friends and family. To make this interesting here is a photo of the kitchen in the cottage.

What do we do with the Cottage?

The cottage is a traditional Shire farmers cottage with a slate roof, solid granite masonry and 2 gable ends. We have been considering what we do with it, and today Blair (to be referred to henceforth as "Bumpy") came up with a slight amendment to our original plan, which works well.

We hope to have a 3 section property. The west and centre sections will have a mezzanine which covers a master bedroom and dining kitchen. The full height east section will be a living space which will have a family bathroom attached. There is a lot to do, including a new roof and totally gutting and reinstating the interior.

Here is a photo of the view from the loft.

x30 Fast Forward from April

Briefly, the past 6 months have been spent working on trying to design the new house and prepare for a planning application. Lucy's Dad Blair knows a lot about building and design having built his own home years ago so we're working very closely with him. We joke that we've employed him as a Non-Executive Director on this project. Lucy says "that's what Dad's are for". 

We have employed Roderick James Architects (RJA) to help us with the design. They are oak framing specialists, and we love oak. We won't be able to have a lot of it but we really want some on show in the front part and living space of the building.

We've rented and lived in about 10 homes in the past 12 years so we are hoping to borrow some of the stuff we've liked, and eliminate the stuff that we don't like. Importantly we want to make the most of the beautiful view from the plot.

The house will be timber frame based and clad in larch with metal roofing. We have based it  conceptually on Roderick James' version of expandable living. The Gray house and Tigh Darach are examples.

We're also getting some traction on ideas for the cottage...

In the beginning...

We are a family of 5 with another one on the way (Feb 2015). In April 2014 we bought a plot of land in rural Aberdeenshire. It's 0.6 acres, is a weird shape and has a stunning view. This photo shows us all standing in front of the plot recently. 

We had been looking for a house of our own for a while and couldn't find anything suitable and affordable. Because we live in Aberdeenshire with all its beauty and landscape, one of the stipulations we gave ourselves for buying land was that it had to have great views. Not easy, but somehow we managed. We now own a plot overlooking the aptly named and very regal "Queen's View", near Tarland.

We're planning to build a house on the plot in the place of an existing steading (outbuilding), and then renovate the small traditional cottage to be a "granny cottage" or annex. 

Hopefully we can record the story in this blog! We have friends nearby who have built an extension to their lovely cottage, and their blog is awesome. Their project is quite incredible really. We thought it was a great way to record a project and be able to share it with family and friends far and wide so we have copied their idea. We don't think they will mind because they are very lovely people :-)