As I am sure most of you know, we built our own home a couple
of years ago. It was a dream we had held for a very long time. We finally had
the opportunity to realise this dream and had a fantastic experience
commissioning and building our ‘forever home’.
It is an overused cliché to say that it is a journey building
your own home, but I really do think it sums up the route we took. Along the
way we had so many ups and downs, coming very close to calling it all off many
times. There are so many aspects that have to come together to achieve your
perfect home – budget, land, helpful planners, excellent design, the list is
endless. However, the most important thing is finding the right people. To start with, we were fortunate to find an
architect who understood our priorities and our unique building plot. This was an
odd shape disused haulage yard which made it difficult to design a traditional family home that fits.
We went through a long and at times distressing process of approaching
building firms to price our dream home, only to find that it would cost more than twice what we could afford. We
then went through a lengthy redesign period and finally arrived at dream home ‘number
two’. This time it was the affordable version. However, this was only if we
took the risk of going the self-build route. There are no guarantees of success or that it
will come in on budget if you decide to build this way!
We then found a local developer, Gary Taylor, who agreed to
help us project manage our build. Through Gary we employed some amazing trades
and craftsmen who then helped build our home. We were closely involved, being
on site every day over the ten months that it took to complete.
All through the build we were very impressed with the
attention to detail that every one of our team paid to their work, from electrician
to bricklaying and joinery. We always felt that we had achieved something special and
are delighted to say that our home has just been awarded the RIBA, (Royal
Institute of British Architects) Craftsmanship Award for new build properties
in Suffolk.
There are a few photos of our home in the pdf file below. We
would just like to say thank you to everyone that was involved in building our
home. The Craftsmanship Award goes to you all.
