Our House in the Middle of Our Street!!

Well it's done. the house has grown from a muddy patch of land which we basically reserved on the 5th February this year to a complete 4 bedroomed detached house. The pictures below show how the house has grown from the ground to its final completed state. I do hope you like the pictures.

So the site was purely just a muddy sandy plot of land. We could only really see it by holding the camera over the fence, as above, we needed a lot of imagination to believe and see our home.

The house was actually started during the month of April, so every single saturday from February would see a trip to the plot, a round trip of almost 100 miles, just to see a muddy patch. But now, on a sunny day in April, we had started. You can see above the damp course being laid, our house was starting to grow.

The house quickly took shape and the ground floor grew and grew, but then it stopped. Nothing happened during the month of June, nothing!! it was frustrating to see no progress and we wondered when oh when will it be finished.

So in July the house was ready for a roof, so this is what happened.....

Progress, as you can see.....

 This is what we have today, our house completed, as designed and as bought off plan. This is our home!!

COMPLETED

The house now officially has been completed, the house now is legally ours!!! I will have some pictures tomorrow but this time has taken almost 9 months to complete. There will be some further work done to it in the garden, which I will update the blog for all to see, but the day has arrived when I can at last say...........BUILD COMPLETE!!!

One Week To Go!!!

So the time has come to start to pack. We have one week to go and we will move in. The whole process has seemed to take ages, yet the house build has seen so many changes over the past few months, especially over the last 4 weeks. The furniture removers have been booked and time off work has been booked, we are now so excited about the big move.

The pictures below show some of the features which are now complete and ready for us to move in...

This is the Kitchen :-) we are very pleased with it. Although, the floor is covered at the moment as not everything has been completed.

So more pictures to come as we enter into our final week!!

A Hidden Message

Well I have been away from the site for a long week and our update on the build has been limited. Yesterday we drove down to the site to check on the latest. Strangely enough I received a text on the way down, as I was driving then I didn't read it and waited until we arrived. I parked and we walked to the site office, reading the text which stated that our carpets and flooring would be fitted on 28th Oct and our supplier asked if this affected our moving in?? What a very strange text to receive....was this a message??

In the office we were told that our CML was being carried out on 14th Oct which means that the house should be ours by 28th Oct!!! The supplier knew more about our house process than ourselves!! This was great news, the long wait is almost over and that will bring so much relief to our current commute and lack of space in our current rental.

There is not a lot of pictures to show you. The house still has a considerable amount to do. there were "brickies"building our garage, the roof joists should go on early this coming week and the roof needs to be finished soon after. inside the house there are a number of rooms which still need tiling, so there is plenty to do. the cooker and toilets still need fitting so as you can imagine, time is short and I think that there may be some overtime this coming week.

Carry on working guys!! You are helping us achieve our dream house now :-) only two more weeks to go!! The countdown begins.......

Its Almost Done

Its almost finished. We have spent some time last weekend down at the house. We now know that it will be completed and owned by us before the end of october. Can you believe it? At last the time is coming and its almost done. Take a look at the pictures!!

Here is the kitchen, as you can see, the units have been fitted, no floor tiles yet although I do know that they have probably been fitted now as this picture is about 7 days old.

The bathroom and the en suite have the tiles fitted also, albeit, there is still some work to be done in here.

The garage hasn't been built yet but it wont take long. This is my one and only blog for September, I have been traveling non-stop, so, lets hope October brings the finished house.

Windows

The house is really making progress now. We drove down on saturday morning. After seeing it during the week we knew the house was moving forward but it was still a really welcome sight to see all the windows in place. The outer fence has been replaced by a wire fence, giving a much more of a complete view of the house. The pictures below show the front and the rear of the house. It really is now looking like a home that we saw and dreamt of.........Can't wait now!!

Will update when there is more. The inside of the house will now start to take shape, so there may not be a lot to show you until we have the kitchen, carpets and floors completed!! Keep Watching.

Another Quick Update

Have been down to the house during the week for the first time. The progress of the house is now taking large steps in quick time. The pictures below show the progress. We are still hoping for an October finish.

I will update as we progress. Its certainly now looking like our house.

  

Scaffolding Removed

Drove down this saturday, weather not so good so the drive was slower than usual. We arrived and it was raining, not heavy at first but it got steadily heavier and heavier. The opportunity to take photos had to be quick......Another week down and the scaffolding has also come down!! With the rain coming down we elected to go and complete our other task today........

We drove to Basingstoke and ordered the flooring, carpets and wooden floors for the house. We have managed to find a company who are very competitive and offer a fantastic service, so they will take our business and provide our goodies. Then back to the house, the sun is out.

One major difference was you could actually see the whole of the house, albeit hidden by a fence but with the scaffolding out of the way, it looks like a house. The picture below is what we saw.......

There is something which I hope you also spotted!!! Notice the bit of WHITE just over the fence on the left hand side.......yes, its a window!!

Looking through the window, you can see through into the kitchen (slightly). that looks like another window around the back......Lets go and check. We have only ever seen the back of the house from the road to the side......lets take a look.

Wow, look!! We have windows and doors!! I wish we could get closer....What about a sneaky visit around the back of someone's parking. BE QUICK!!

So now we have a good looking house, the windows are going in. It wont be long now!! I will update as soon as there is more!!

We have a Roof

So, we have been away for a short break, somewhere sunny and warm, hoping that it has been the same here at the site. Sunny weather means the builders can have a chance to get our house finished earlier. Obviously our aim now is to be in the house completed before Christmas, which seems easy but I can assure you that time has flown since I wrote my first blog.....back in February!!! So Christmas is not that far away now.

Anyway, so when we came back we have had some great steps forward. The picture below shows the front of the house with a roof.

The rear of the property also shows the depth of the garden to come. It looks so big!!! The windows will be in very very soon and then I believe then the house will really begin to come on.

We have also made the choices of carpets and flooring now, so we really are now getting ready for the BIG MOVE!!!

We can't wait to be in our new space. I will update as soon as we have windows. i think the big fence will be replaced once the property becomes secure, so I will add further pictures then. Keep watching!!

New Neighbours

Today was just a simple trip down to the house to check out any progress and return the "Choices Book". We had been hanging onto the book for longer than normal, we just couldn't let it go, almost as if we were trying to keep it LOL!!

We were being pressured by the Developer Ladies and we just couldn't put it off any more. So after scanning the book we reluctantly remembered to put it in the car for the drive down to the site. Drive was ok, just a little showery rain on the way down, it really isn't that far now, the journey goes very quickly.

So 45 minutes later, we were pulling up into Shears Road, looking for our house. No further movement on the build but the scaffolding has been moved up to the second floor roof joists, ready for putting in the ceiling and then the roof. The pictures below show the other houses in the street. They already have their roofs on, so the neighbours should be in before us......We wont be far behind.

We also drove around the back of the plot to take a look, as you can see from the picture below, the Roof is ready to go. the trusses are ready to be fitted, so it wont be long now.

So pleased with our visit to the site, we headed to the office to hand in the book. Talking about the neighbours........in the office was a couple who turned out to be our neighbours. They were very friendly and very chatty, so we are very excited to have such pleasant neighbours and we are looking forward now even more to our move into our new house.

It really was a good trip!! Next week is our last week in work before our holidays, so if I have time and there has been any progress, then I will report as normal. WATCH THIS SPACE!!

Real Progress

The first saturday in July was a great day, the sun was out so it was a warm day with very little wind. It really was a great day. We drove down to Andover in no time, shades on and music playing loud in the car, really enjoying the morning. So far the day was perfect, what else would make our day better?? May be some progress on the house!!!

As we drove into the estate, for the first time, I didn't look across the green.......Very odd, as I normally look but today I didn't, so I really had no idea what to expect. As we turned the corner into the street, we couldn't initially work out if we saw our house or the house next door.  But it was ours!!! OMG, look how big it is!!! IT'S OUR HOUSE GROWING IN FRONT OF OUR EYES.

The last time we saw the house the brickwork was only at first floor joists and now its right up there, above the window frames upstairs, so now we are waiting on Second floor joists, then it will be roof!!

Below are the pictures from today.

This is real progress!!! I hope the weather stays fine, soon we will have a roof!! I will update soon.

Choices Day

Last saturday was choices day, we had an appointment on site with the Developer for choices about Kitchen and floors etc. So I believed that we were pretty much prepared and knew exactly what we were going to have.......It wouldn't take long, I was guessing about an hour??

Well, about two hours later we surely have everything completed?? Not quite. We have selected the Kitchen units, couldn't help it, but basically gave into the boss here. She can have what she wants in the kitchen. I am easy on that side, but it was good to see that we have very similar tastes.....pleased about that, I SHOULD HOPE SO!!!

The tiling in kitchens, toilets and bathrooms are also finalised and that was also very neat. We have gone different colours in each, but light shades in each. Also, things such as outside lighting and some additions to the Garage door were also finalised, so after thinking it was going to be an easy session taking only a mere hour, I felt exhausted yet also realised that we had completed a milestone making the completion nearer.

According to the build plan we are on Week 3, as you know the build has been going on much longer than this, yet for us the build has stalled for over a month now. The house is at ground floor Lintels and joists. This is the same as the two houses on one side of us. Yet the 3 the other side are having their roofs fitted, so I am guessing that once these are done the builders will move to ours......watch this space. It will start taking shape soon.

I have not taken any further pictures as there has been no change, so once there is change then I will post it. Later!!! 

Recent Events

Well not a lot has happened over the past few weeks, the other houses around us are progressing but ours and two others are holding at the first floor ceiling joists. We have also been advised that only one conservatory company can build before completion, which is really quite disappointing as that limits us to CrystalClear, their prices are not very competitive, so will need to ask for a discount.

This coming weekend is choices, we need to make some decisions over the house look. This is a great step, we just want the house to be finished!!

Talk more when there is more.

Its been a few weeks

Well the time has passed and we have been away on a couple of long weekend breaks to some great places. We have had no idea of the progress of how far the build was going, so what we saw today was such a great surprise. We are now up to the Lintels and the place looks great. It wont be long now and we will be thinking about moving in....LOL, it cant come soon enough.

This is what we saw today, as you can see there has been some great progress.

This is looking in through the Living room window with the front door to the left.

This is the right hand side of the house, the garage will be built back there!!

Here you can see the front door in the centre and the study room to the left. So the house is now growing out of the ground. We are very pleased and very excited about moving into our new house.

Started!!

Well at last some progress!! The building work has started, to be honest we probably missed the start as we have not been to the plot for the past few weeks. The day started sunny as promised by Mr Fish.....does Michael fish still forecast the weather.....??

Anyway, a beautiful sunny day in April, the birds singing in the trees and a blue sky. It must be time to get up!! So we drove down to the plot, traffic slightly heavier today....it must be something to do with the sun. Drove straight past the show houses straight to the plot, not knowing what to expect I saw through the crack in the fence that something has changed......excitedly I turned to my sweetness and said "they've started".......I jumped out of the car armed with the camera and marked the spot and raised my aim.....

This is what I saw.

I checked and then jumped straight back into the car to show the Boss......she pushed me back out and said take some more......so this is what I saw next;

So now we are off and running.......Can I say that being Grand National Day???

Feeling lucky, we went to Andover for lunch in our little fav place and then went to the bookies to place a little bet........No, we didnt pick the winner, but who needs that when now we are building :-)

Will write more soon.

Nothing is Happening....

Well I just thought I would drop a line into the blog, there has been little to write about this whole subject for the past few weeks. We should have exchanged contracts on 24th March 2011, which was over a week ago now. There has been two issues holding us back, one was a minor thing with the mortgage offer saying that its valid so long as we sell our existing house.......  well that would be tough, as we dont actually have a house to sell. But that was overcome very easily. The major stumbling block for us at the moment is that the master developer now wants an additional 6 months to finish the house, that means that the house "may" not be ready until June/July 2012, which is absolutely crazy, considering when we actually committed and paid money to the house they said it would be July/August, they then said when we paid even more money that the house would be delayed until November/December......now the B*ggers want another 6 months, which to be honest is a pain in the back side and quite unacceptable, but we will see what the solicitors can do about it. I dont think we would have gone for the house if we knew from the start that it would not be ready for 18 months......but we will see.

I will let you know what happens.

Projected Plot Plan - Just an idea....

I thought I would share a thought with you. We have done a plan sketch of the plot which is to scale, 1cm to 5m, this is just an idea moving forward. You can see that I didn't do this drawing as its too organised and detailed but this gives some idea of what we are aiming at once we have moved in. The conservatory has not been purchased yet, but it will happen, we have no idea what kind but this will probably be the size. You may note that the gates to the drive way come half way up it........we have questioned this design but unfortunately this is as per plan. Once we have completed and moved in then I think I will be moving the gate forward to incorporate all of the driveway and therefore give complete private parking for the motor :-). Please note that I drive the blue car and not the pink one LOL!!!

We will see how that goes!!

Beginning of March

Well after what seems like a very long week, the weekend came. I think all the paperwork has been completed now and we just need to sign on the line, this is due late March. I will give all parties a call early next week just to make sure that we are ready or at least its moving forward.

We drove down to the plot as per usual, the sun was out in Hampshire today, so the drive was enjoyable and took no time at all. We had a guest with us this weekend who was keen to see the house.....difficult as there was nothing there except a muddy patch. We went to the site office to say hello and we were introduced to a lady who turned out to be our neighbour of the furture. We were very pleased to see that she was very friendly and very chatty, this was perfect as it was an early introduction to the immediate neighbourhood. As it turned out, she invited us to look around her house which is the same shape as ours, so we were able to show our guest the house or a similar house.

We stroll around to her plot and we were invited into the house and let loose on browsing the plan/layout to our guest of the day. I mentioned this blog and our new neighbour asked if her house was featured........YES YES YES, sorry all the pictures of the house type are in fact our neighbours house, so I apologised but she seemed happy that we had used these pictures.

We are very excited to have such a friendly neighbour and we are now even more looking forward to moving in  later in the year. Goodbyes were said and we went for lunch.

No prizes for guessing where we went for lunch, down into Andover town centre and into the Copper Kettle. Its such a great friendly place, the food and service is excellent so I see no reason yet to change our lunch location. Some shopping was done and then we headed back to Wiltshire. We did stop on the way back, just outside Andover there is a little arts and craft place, so we stopped and had a look around. The first little shop we went into was a cake and chocolate dream. The aroma was to die for. Needless to say, I had to buy some of the bad stuff, also, needless to say that not a lot made it home :-)

Anyway, I will update more when something happens.........is Spring here yet??

End of February

The update this week promised a mention of our little place in Andover where we have lunch, so let me start off by giving this charming little place a big THUMBS UP!!!! Its called The Copper Kettle, its a little cafe down a little brick alley off the main street. The welcome is always friendly and the food is always excellent quality and lots of it, so if you are on a diet then I recommend the Summer Ham Salad. If you want to fatten up then the quantity will get you every time!!!

Well worth a visit, but don't go there on Saturday, as I don't want it too full when we go there!!! LOL

We went over to the plot, took some pictures and then decided that nothing had changed. So we are still waiting on the other side being completed before the builders move over to our area.......

We have a project now, which is a 13 week plan, so as soon as week 1 comes then we should be able to see something on the picture front. Nothing more to say about the plot, so will leave it at that.

The house buying process is moving along now, all the paperwork is complete, so we are just waiting for legal, mortgage and the contract signing. That's it, so we are ready.

We have started looking at conservatories, kitchen tiles and elements of the house within, so the pictures below are from a similar house which has already been finished. I imagine ours will be slightly different as we are going to have a different finish, but it gives some ideas.

This is the kitchen of another house with a similar kitchen, we will go with a tiled floor and probably not white doors, but its a great size.

This is the dining area, again, we will have a tiled floor as its attached to the kitchen. Its a big size and our 8-seater dining room table will fit here. The door will lead into our conservatory.

So that's about it. Just enough time to add that I have found another blog on this community, its written by the local councillor. I dropped him a line this week and unlike any politician/councillor that I know......he wrote back!!! Unbelievable, I am beginning to like this place even more.

Will update next week.....

House Update 19 Feb 11

The week has passed none eventful really, only boring documentation to apply for the mortgage properly. Albeit, we have an agreement in principle, we now need to complete the application for real. So with all the paperwork done, utility bill, ID and pay statements all prepared, then we are ready for this bit.

We drove down to the site this morning, basically, it feels like every weekend now we are spending at least one day in Andover to get to know the place ready for when we move down to the new house. We even have a little place which we go to for lunch, cant recall what it is called but next week I will check it out and give it a mention. Walked round the town and watched the ballroom/line dancing dancing next to Argos in the Chantry Shopping Centre, all for one minute and the headed out.

The visit to the site was uneventful, the weather was poor so the picture below is really just a weather check. Nothing has changed, its still very much a muddy patch with nothing going on. You can see the change in the colour of skies since last week, but that's the UK for you.

As you can see its a miserable day :-(. The photo below is from the side and is basically the site entrance and would by looking towards what would be the house when finished.

As we left the site, we noticed that our plot was labeled as SOLD.....Jolly Good !!!
Anyway, here's for better weather next week and some progress please!!!

House Update 12 Feb 11

Well, went down to the development this weekend. The aim was to complete the reservation and finalise the paperwork, also the worst bit was paying some more money.....

We drove over to the plot to see if there had been any changes, any building? Has anything changed.......Well I will let you judge for yourself....

Well as you can see, nothing has changed apart from the weather.

So back to the sales office to complete the reservation and all the documentation.

BAD NEWS - The house will not be ready until November/December now which is a few months off what we had hoped but we didn't moan too much. We saw it as an opportunity to save some more cash.

The sales person dealing with us was friendly as ever, so we got straight down to it. All the plans we discussed, shown to us which included looking at things like kitchen layout, ground floor and first floor plans and street lamp post positions.

This probably took about an hour or so, it was interesting to see the whole layout and to ask questions regarding the development. We also asked for copies of the plans for the house, so you can see these details below.

Front & Side Elevations 

Rear and Side Elevation

So these are the elevation drawings for our new house. We have more which I will share during the next post along with some idea of future developments of the property, such as garden and extension/conservatory. I amy even include some costs if that may be useful.

So the last bit of the day was paying the extra cash, which didn't hurts at all. Then my fiancee stuck the reserved sticker on our house on the development plan. This now means that we are going to buy and its ours!!! 

So we need to sort the mortgage this week and move that forward. Oh, yes, one last thing. We also found out that our house number is our lucky number 8!! Very pleased about that.

Estate Agents

I had the tough news today of letting one of our estate agents know that we would not be proceeding. She has been so good for us in such a short space of time, we wanted so much to be able to say that we would buy a house that she introduced to us, but that was not the case. She was so looking forward to hearing from us, I think she knew that we were definately going to buy and that we had everything ready to move forward, a complete NO CHAIN scenario for us so she thought it would be relatively easy. She was so so helpful - THANK YOU SAM!!!!

As for the others, I had no issues just letting them know that we had happily found a better house and that we had no further need for their rudeness and greed......does that sound harsh?? Some of these guys are so backwards, they do very little and expect so much. Sam did so much and yet she didnt get our business, no doubt she will keep on doing what she does well and continue in her chosen career to be successful.

Fingers crossed, no more estate agents :-) just the developer to deal with.

Nothing further for today. 

House Hunting

I have recently moved back to UK. I thought I would never be back, I sold up many years ago and said goodbye to my friends, moving to the sunshine. Well, life always has a way of pulling you back.

So, after finding somewhere to rent for a few months, my fiancee and I have been looking for somewhere to call home and maybe to begin a family. I have lived in many areas in the south of England before, but my lady is a south coast girl, so finding somewhere where she feels happy was the aim. We both have busy lives and our work keeps us both very active, but we both have the privlidge to be able to work from home.....so we needed an office atleast!!

The following blog is our story of finding our house to be.....

Requirements;

• Detached with 4 Bedrooms
• Garden to rear, large enough for a conservatory.
• Garage and parking off road for at least two cars.

We have been all over Wiltshire and Hampshire looking for a house. We have looked at so many houses but have now settled on Andover for our location. There is a new development called Augusta Park, where there are 3 main property developers present. We visited all three and settled on trying to finalise a deal with Taylor Wimpey and a new 4 bedroomed house.

The house that we selected is called the Sturton, we have checked out the "demo home" many times, with many pictures taken and compared with houses. We feel that the deal that we have struck with the developers suits us perfectly and the plot enables some great potential for expansion and meets our requirements perfectly. The story, hopefully is a record of the build and the progress and issues that we may experience through the process of our new build house.

This is what the house should look like when its finished.....

This is what it looks like now, yep, its just a sand pit. Something that I should be familiar with;

So our plan is to update this blog as a record of our progression.......watch this space.