Oooh, we’re moving now

Last year we explored the possibility of having an enormo extension. It would have been a sight to behold, the aim of which was to give Ned a bigger (wider) bedroom and us an en-suite. At any time either of us want to go to the loo, their appears to be a child skidding the bowl.

As it turned out, we encountered a classic Catch-22 situation in so far as we could either afford the extension or the moving out for the six months that the build would last but not both. It was a blow for me because I was firmly of the opinion that an extension made better financial sense than paying solicitors fees, estate agents fees, and stamp duty to only find that the new place isn’t quite right and needs redecorating, a new bathroom, boiler and kitchen.

Still necessity is the mother of invention and we’re now looking at moving again but this time we’re not solely looking at houses, we’re also looking at the land that they’re sitting on. With plenty of reports in the news about issues with new build houses, the idea of knocking down a perfectly suitable house and building your own might seem odd but it isn’t really. Quality issues stem from the build ’em quick, build ’em cheap mass builders and a lot of older homes aren’t necessarily configured to suit a 21st century style of living. Starting again from scratch isn’t proportionately more expensive than building an extension either.

One of the things that stops being self building is the fear of something going wrong but if you have proper home warranty insurance from someone like CRL, you’ll be covered if the thing falls in or the cellar collapses or something.

In terms of self builds (the name is a bit misleading as I’m certainly not going to be running a line of bricks any time soon), as well as tapping people up for reputable local builders, we’re also looking into the prefab stuff. We’re lucky that I happen to know someone who works at BRE who has pointed us at some cool companies like Huf Haus.

Whichever route we go though, we’re now definitely looking at shifting the family to pastures new as we’ve just had an offer on the place which is pretty close to our asking price. Exciting times!

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