Building our own Home
on our new Equestrian Property

We bought a 12.66 acre arable field in 1988, and then designed and constructed our home in 1989 and lived in it for 32 years until 2021. In the large vegetable garden you will see the greenhouse and, to its right, the kerosene tank. You will see the electrical fencing around the main growing area to deter herbivores. To the right you will see the 20m by 60m dressage arena. To the left of our drive is our small orchard.
The property we had purchased
Our Stable Yard is shown at the foot of the field most of which we also purchased
Please compare the lack of trees depicted round our boundary with how it looked 30 years later.
Mary planted hundreds of saplings which grew to trees more than 30 ft high
Tasks carried out by we ourselves on a DIY basis:
- Design of house and all services
- Production of all drawings
- Site surveying
- All quantity surveyng and the purchase of all materials
- Levelling of footings concrete
- Oversite filling and screeding
- First and second fix woodwork
- First and second fix plumbing and drainage
- First and second fix wiring
- Decorating
Tasks carried out by directly contracted labour:
- JCB excavations
- Brickwork
- Roofing
- Plastering
- Glazing
- Scaffolding services
Milestones
- Foundations excavated - Easter 1989
- Oversite completed -Spring Bank Holiday 1989
- Chimney topped out - end of July 1989
- Roofed - mid September 1989
- Plastering completed - March 1990
- Electricity connected - June 1990
- Central heating commissioned - November 1990
- Decorating completed - after we had moved in, at a more leasurely pace
Overview
- 3,600 square feet
- Ground floor area 9 metres by 18 metres
- Upper floor area 9 metres by 14 metres
- External woodwork fully-durable Brazilian Mahogany
- Internal woodwork Meranti and Luan
- Double glazed in Pilkington K
- 2 baths, 2 showers, 4 WCs, 4 washbasins
- Wall cavities intact, inner walls of thick thermal blocks, walls thermally insulated with U of 0.6
- Ground floor thermally insulated
- The 'Feed-In-Tarif' (FIT) from our solar panels each year exceeded our cost of purchased electricity, so our net annual electricity cost was negative, despite having to cook solely by electricity, since we were too far away from any gas mains
A few of the Photos showing the home at different stages of its construction
Groundwork and foundations
Raising it from ground level to roof level
The supporting infrastructure outside of the house
Fitting out the rooms
Finished!
The gardens and dressage arena
The stable yard
A selection of the Design Drawings
Design Drawings.
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