The Donated House

The deal went through last Friday, and since then, I’ve been too busy to write. In fact, I’m still too busy to write, but I told my mother the blog address, so I’d better keep it up to date now.

I’ve been up there to post leaflets through all the neighbours’ doors to tell them we’ll be there tomorrow if they’d like to pop in for a chat. I really want to start off neighbourly relations on the right foot, since everywhere I’ve lived I’ve been blessed with excellent neighbours and it’s made life very pleasant. And you have to be a good neighbour if you want to have good neighbours, after all.

I hope to get some plans and elevations (not yet to exact measurements, just indications) done before tomorrow because I want to talk to the locals about their thoughts on our plans in advance of applying for planning permission. I hope they’ll like it and be enthusiastic about our plans, because I’m tremendously excited about our plans and I’d really hate to find I was stepping on toes.

I’ve baked some little cakes and got a bunch of china tea cups and saucers and made some bunting for a festive, welcoming feel. I’m really looking forward to this! And to getting some pictures, so there will finally be something to look at on this blog.

Well, we are certainly enjoying an unusual stretch of beautiful weather: dry, sunny, warm. Great for outdoor work. If only I had some land to work on.

Currently the whole thing is hung up on the right of access. Apparently it’s across private land (I thought it was adopted highway, life and learn) and while that’s apparently normal in that area (40% of properties have access across private land and everybody, sensibly, just doesn’t panic) we are expected to insure against the possibility of the landowner deciding he or she doesn’t want us accessing our plot. Well, the insurance company are taking their time over it and I have no idea how long this is likely to take. Could be months for all I know.

So I am here at my computer rather than ripping down ivy and reroofing sheds.

However, I am thinking that I’d better apply for planning permission as if it was all going forward, since I really want to know by the end of the summer what I’m going to be building come spring. If it’s not going to be the straw bale recycled materials home of my dreams, I guess it’s going to be some variation on the existing plans (for a modernist, glass and steel mostrosity with a swimming pool wing. Which I really don’t want. But I want a house, so my options might be limited if I fail to get PP for what I do want.)

Well, I suppose I’ll go out and have a lovely walk in the sunshine and hope that the Easter break leaves the insurers in a good mood.

(*drums fingers*)

(*drums fingers some more*)

(*SIGHS HEAVILY*)

(*drums fingers*)

Seriously, every time I go there I find something else new and wonderful to make me love the place even more. I went up there with Lea today to show her the land and to drop some stuff off to the solicitor, and we found a fantastic cafe above a very good health food shop that carries everything I currenlty have a LOT of trouble finding anywhere near us. For all that I’ve loved living here, it’s a bit of a lentils and soya milk desert.

The solicitor said she still hasn’t heard anything from the vendor’s solicitor. I asked whether this was normal (should I panic yet? Is something wrong?) and she said it was pretty normal considering it was a complicated contract. Part of me thinks “how is it complicated? I can explain it in 2 sentences.” and the other part of me thinks, “yeah, but everyone thinks designing a good website is simple and it’s bloody not!”

Anyway, I’m not going to be too paranoid in the absence of actual evidence that something’s gone wrong. The “Sold” sign is still on top of the “For Sale” sign next to the land. Subject to contract it says. Bring on the contract, I says. Tap tap tap.

Meanwhile, I accidentally bought a 4m x 10m Marquee tent on ebay. I didn’t expect to get it for the price I bid, and while it’s a bargain at about half the price you’d pay new, I hope it won’t take up too much space. The idea is that it can be a welcoming social space for all the people we will have visiting the land, starting with the neighbours as soon as we seal the deal. I plan to stick a little bit of paper through all their mail slots with a date to come and meet us and have a cup of tea and talk about our plans with us. I really want to start out on the right foot with the neighbours; I’ve been blessed with really good neighbours all my life and I am well aware that that’s largely because I (and my family) have always made an effort to be a good neighbour.

Anyway, the marquee can later be a social space and camp kitchen/canteen for my enormous volunteer labour force.

Obviously, I will have an enormous volunteer labour force.

Well, in the end, the Building Society wanted us to jump through one hoop too many and we have decided (after some serious counting of beans, and after getting confirmation of what we can expect of our remortgage) that we can buy the main plot without the benefit of a mortgage. It will leave us with nothing to build with… except our entire income, since we won’t be spending it on mortgage payments.

I still slightly worry about the remortgage of this house, both because we haven’t actually applied yet (though we’re told that’s just a formality and that the offer is assured) and because we will then be liable for fairly crippling payments until we manage to sell this house. And the market’s not exactly inspiring. Still, we can manage for as long as we need to, and we can knock down the price of the house, in an emergency, because we’d expect to be £50k up, if it fetches the optimistic price, so we can cut into that without actually going into the red. And at any rate, it will be convenient to have it as a base while we get the outbuildings reroofed.

In hindsight, I am much happier with this plan than with the one where we go into debt, especially with all the requirements the bank was coming up with. I really don’t want them calling the shots of how and when I build. This way, we’ll have to struggle along in a caravan (or straw caravan) for a year or so, but we can save some money through the year, if Elmo’s job continues as expected, and if we live quite frugally, and that will allow us to at least get started on one wing of the house in 2012.

It’ll all be worth it when we’ve worked our butts off for 5 years and finally built a dream and have no debt to show for it.

In other news, we spent yesterday at Barbara’s new straw bale project out in Skipsea. It’s a plot that she got for peanuts because it’s about to fall into the sea (might get 50 years out of it if she’s lucky) but the point is to build the house with donated/volunteer materials/labour as much as possible, mainly to prove it can be done and raise some awareness of straw bale community building. Elmo and Alec moved several tons of gravel while Barbara and I pegged out the site. It’s a really interesting project that I hope to dedicate some more time to. I’m setting them up with a blog which I’ll link to as soon as it’s live.