It’s been a long time coming! We started the journey of building houses at the bottom of our garden fifteen plus years ago. Our ideas we evolved over the years. A farmhouse type building with a few barn style homes around. Or timber style barns to compliment the buildings at Chiselwood.
Each time we thought we had the plan in our head, we would start to approach planning and there would be a reason why this could not happen.
“The speed of the road could not allow access”. This was 60 miles per hour fifteen years ago. It dropped to 50, then 40, so we talked to consultants who helped us prove that the access had plenty of distance to pull out safely.
“We live outside the village curtilage, so the local council would not allow any building on the boundaries”. The village has almost become a town with a huge amount of estates being built in the last ten years, so that helped us move forward a bit.
“The land is next to a canal so sequential testing does not allow building”. We approached a consultant to help support the fact that it is a managed waterway with little risk.
At each stage of the process we fine tuned the designs and concepts we wanted. We incorporated designs we have created for our clients in their homes over the years. Also adding designs and buildings we were inspired by, until finally we had the concept we wanted to go with. It’s been a long time coming!
Every stage has been a huge learning curve. We are not house builders, however we have had many years experience helping others build theirs. Martin and our team at Chiselwood are great problem solvers. We trust people we have employed throughout the house build to help us achieve this goal. Sometimes our expectations and trust have not produced the outcome we wanted. However the core of our team is helping us to achieve great things.
Our journey is like being at base camp at Everest. We can see the peak. The snow and weather can hinder us sometimes in that journey, we are ascending the hurdle to get to the top, and the first house is nearly complete. Of course we still have to get safely back to base camp, then back to the bottom and our guides will help us achieve that, we just need that courage and stamina to keep going!
Recording the journey in the blog has been helpful. Each month it feels like we have not moved forward, however when we photograph the site and include it in the update, it is often a surprise when we see the progress!
This month has seen a great move forward, although the changeable weather is still challenging. We have nearly completed the exterior on plot six, with just the rendering at the front to complete. Exterior door has been fitted and garage door is ready to fit. We also have the groundwork to the front to complete.
The interior has had the biggest advance this month. The upstairs is plastered and base coat painted and downstairs well on its way. In hindsight we would have been better to work downstairs first, as we could have been fitting out all the bathrooms etc. We will do that moving forward. We can begin to do the joinery upstairs and fit the kitchen. The decking on the balcony is nearly fitted and looks amazing.
The aim is to have an opening towards the end of August to fully start marketing the site. It really will be a landmark moment.
The other plots are also following on well. Exterior is the priority on the other three fully constructed. The final two will have their second floors erected next week and we will really excited to see how the site will look.
We are incredibly busy at Chiselwood. The fitting team are split working on the joinery on the houses and fitting furniture in beautiful homes. The workshop team is preparing the final pieces to fit into the houses and working on projects to be fitted late summer. The designers are working on projects to feed into the workshops for autumn and new projects for the end of the year. https://chiselwood.co.uk/projects/
We would love to show you a lot of the projects, however a few are placed in magazines so will only show sneak peeks for now!
Our poor willow.
For many of you that visit our site, you will be familiar with the beautiful willow on the driveway. We had a rude awakening after the recent storms when it fell down across the drive and onto the house. Thankfully the drive took the initial force preventing it doing too much damage to the house. Our team came to the rescue and alongside a tree surgeon, the drive was cleared and the damage sorted. We were very fortunate. We will miss the beautiful tree, hopefully it will sprout shoots to become a small bush, however we will not miss the weekly clearing of the leaves it sheds! Things never stand still at Chiselwood Headquarters!
If you are interested in purchasing one of the houses and want to book a visit contact the team. https://www.pygott-crone.com/properties/sales/rps_pyg-SLE210006/
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