Anyone doing a self-build?

[nuttysquirrel]

Was just wondering if any mumsnetters are building a house in RL? We are about to start in the new year and if anyone else is thought we could start a support thread?

Just a shot in the dark I guess! allegedly there are 20,000 self-built houses constructed every year.....so thought maybe one of them might be a mumsnetter!

bump???

We are but I am in Australia where it is a much more normal/regular thing to do.

We are hoping to move in mid January and I am very excited.

It was quite an easy process as we found the land then traipsed around looking at loads of display homes until we found the 'one'. Our builders offer some flexibility in the design but nothing too huge. You could almost describe it as supermarket house building as everything is laid out and you just pick and choose colours, accessories and upgrade anything you want changed. This is all on display at the builders design studio plus they have all of their own contractors so there is no project managing needed by us.

If you are interested the link shows you the house we are building. It is the Santorini 26, if you click on the floorplans you need to look at the alternate plans for the 26.house plans

So what are you building and where?

Hello esselle good to hear from another house builder....even if you are about 14,000 miles away! Great on you for doing it. Where abouts in Melbourne is it? The link doesn't seem to work for me.

I have friends who live nearish (well for Australia) in a tiny place called Meredith and we visited a few years ago, bought a few homebuilder magazines there too. It does seem to be much more common thing to do there and in NZ, here people just seem amazed that we are doing it. If I had a pound for every "are you going on Grand Designs then?" comment.......well I would be blinking rich!

We are in the highlands of Scotland and are currently living in two portacabins on the plot while we slowly get things going (much more comfy than it sounds!). We plan to do much of the work ourselves for cost reasons so will take ages.

Would love to see the plans!

Wow you are hardcore! Two portacabins in the highlands! I guess it will make finishing your home all that more exciting and 'pressing'!!!

House plans here. Sorry about the last link. We have changed the sitting room into bedroom 4 as we didn't think we needed 3 living rooms but a spare bedroom is very useful. The outdoor room is under the main roof but not on the foundations, we are having a wood decked floor installed. We are also fortunate that my Dad and brother are both electricians. We had the basic electrical package from the builders and will then get it 'pimped put' when we move in.

The foundations were poured on Sept 2nd so the builders have definitely cracked on and will be done by mid Jan - we hope. Christmas has delayed us moving in as most tradesmen disappear for a few weeks!

With home building being so much popular here it is really the cheaper option too. We sold our 1 bedroom flat in London and for roughly the same price we have bough a block of land which is 644m square (approx 16.5m x 39m) and will be building a 4 bedroom house on it!

We have also been hugely helped by the Australian government which has a first time buyer grant which is available to all. It is usually about $12k but with the recession it was increased as part of a stimulus package to $26k if you built a new home - it is a bit less if you bought an existing home. This was to keep the housing market alive and keep jobs in the building industry. My DH is pretty impressed at this as he couldn't imagine Gordon Brown doing this.

I am in the final stages of a self build and am on the tiling, decorating bit. Having tremendous fun choosing curtain material for the sitting room that I am dtermined to be living in for Christmas- it just needs a fireplace, to be painted, window boards glossed, skirting board fitted, lights in, carpet fitted and furniture in. A doddle. I am living in it now and doing it around me.