Our Place: Planning the dream

Its been a long time in coming, almost five years with a leaky roof, a window that doesn't shut in the bathroom and no real shower. But we have broken ground and we are finally remodelling!

It's actually quite tricky designing for your own home, especially when both of you have strong opinions/ passions and particularly when one of you thinks he is 'The Client' with the final say... eh em... not naming any names.

Usually, when I go to a clients home for the first time, I have the advantage of fresh eyes and impartial perspective. However when you've lived in a place for a while I find you adapt to it and become blinded to its inefficiencies. 

So its challenging but also the best fun, so much freedom to play with concepts you'd loved but never been able to see in reality. We are on a budget so I am working hard at sourcing reasonable finishes and furniture and will be looking at ways we can facelift items that we already own. All of which I plan to share as we go...

For today I'm sharing our proposed floor plans and some of the mood boards (above) we are using as a starting point for sourcing.

The ground floor wrap around extension:

New garage and workshop
New utility with external and garage access
Extended kitchen and dining area
New corridor from the entrance to the back garden
Small extension to the front living room

First floor extended area: 44.5 m2

First Floor Extension:

New open plan study area to the first floor landing
New box room
New master suite with walk in wardrobe and ensuite
New family bathroom

First floor extended area: 34.5m2

Our Place: The Planning Application Process

We have planning! 

It took a little while to achieve but we have it!

I’ve been through the planning process many times and thought I knew exactly how to get what we wanted. However every day is a school day, and there were some do’s and don’ts we learned along the way if you're planning a scheme that’s a bit more unusual:

Do give yourselves some room to negotiate

If you're pushing the limits of what you think is acceptable there is no harm in preparing yourself with some pre-assessed compromises. 

To get our scheme through we agreed to:

• Change the cladding from the somewhat risqué black zinc to timber cladding
• Remove our projecting balcony
• Reduce our overhangs

Do go and talk to your neighbours

Ours were pretty unhappy and it was uncomfortable, but I think the relationship is still intact and we’ve actually gotten to know one side better. The other side not so much!

Do talk to your planner or have your architect talk to your planner

Despite initial reservations, we were able to convince our planner that the modern approach we were taking, at the rear of the property, was a more honest representation of the sustainable timber frame construction method we wanted to use.

Don’t be afraid to chase your planner

I was very keen to keep a good relationship with our planner and resisted chasing her before she went on holiday and as a result, we ended up having two extensions of time on the planning decision. Mistake!

Offer to compromise before you get formal feedback- the jury is out

The last do/ don’t is a bit tricky as I can’t tell if our process was slowed down or if it’s ultimately what got us through so I’ll just tell the story.

After the comments from our neighbours (some of which were quite damning and not representative of the discussions we had), I called the planners and offered to compromise the scheme if they could give us some formal feedback. 

We waited a long time for the feedback due to holidays and difficulty seeing our neighbours and this resulted in our planning decision being delayed by about 6 weeks, but ultimately due to our being willing to compromise we achieved planning first time with just a few tweaks to the dwgs....

Approved planning scheme from the front

Approved planning scheme from the rear

Caroline Sydney-Payne; A Place For Family

'Family' was the definitive term when designing Caroline and Billy Paynes extension. This design is all about sharing and creating a space for everyone to enjoy ...

  

Like every modern family, Caroline's is a busy one. Two children of primary school age, activities and a business at home mean that the family space works hard to provide everything required.

The scheme revolves around creating a unified space with the flexibility to multi-task and provide the family with places to play, work and study on the ground floor.

 

We started with a range of sketch schemes, mood boards (below) and a lot of Pintrest Action which you can see here.
 

 

The Layout

The design extends the open plan living area, by infilling a courtyard, to create space for a new kitchen (open to the living area).

 

  
 

To gain as much natural light as possible for the space and to add that 'wow factor' we added a roof lantern to the flat roof area. This is to flood the kitchen with natural light and create as much borrowed light as possible for the existing dining area, new study and utility room.

To allow natural light and ventilation, into otherwise internal rooms, we designed in two roof lights to the utility room and proposed study/ 4th Bedroom and used glazed doors between rooms.

The kitchen design incorporates a breakfast bar to allow the children to be able to sit with Caroline whilst she is in the kitchen whilst keeping them out of harms way. Rear glazed doors open into the garden to create an easy connection between the internal and external spaces.

In the dining area we created flexibility with an extending table that can be moved into the centre of the room when a larger number of people need to be seated and used a large wall mirror to reflect natural light from the kitchen extension into the dining area.

 

 

 

The dining area doubles as a play area and built in storage houses the children's toys and books in tubs so they can be easily cleared away for dinner.

The lounge has been refocused on the fireplace in the centre, a large corner sofa looks inward toward the fireplace (TV wall mounted above) and beyond to the open plan living space. An arm chair allows the seating plan to be easily reconfigured for more social occasions.

The new kitchen allowed us to use the floor area to provide a new study, utility room and extend the existing downstairs WC to form a wet room and shower.

 

 

The Finishes 

 The interior finishes and furniture have been selected to create an eclectic mix of traditional tones and forms with a modern injection of pattern and bright colour.

The chandelier light fittings are centrally positioned in each of the three distinct spaces to visually link the open plan living space. The same themes and shades have also been continued in the finishes to connect and distinguish the different uses.

Continuous floor timber effect floor finish, broken with a rug in the lounge, create a high end seamless look to the space and increase the visual impact and feeling of size. The area of decking outside will have boards orientated the same way to and at the same level to continue the visual connections to the space outside.

VALERIE HOWELLS: A PLACE WITH A VIEW

Mr and Mrs Howells breed rare sheep and rams and had a small one bedroom cottage in need of modernistaion throughout.





Walnut Lodge prior to remodelling

 

 The scheme includes a single storey extension to provide an open plan living area with views over the adjacent fields that hold their livestock, internal remodeling to provide an aditional bedroom and new bathroom.




Views from Southern aspect over adjoining fields



We also reclad the entire property in Eternit Cedral Weatheboarding, a maintance free material, which completely transformed the property inkeeping with the countryside asethic and allowed us to update and improve the properties insulation to meet modern standards.

The connection to the outdoors was paramount to the client and with the house in such beautiful surroundings we included roof lights and open eaves to the open plan living space. Off of the living space are two fully glazed french doors which open to the southern aspect and take in views of the surrounding fields.

The project is nearly complete on site so watch this space for completed photos...