So, we may scratch the podcast, there’s not much to talk about, really. We can’t afford to do much of what we wanted to do. Which is fine, in a way. We’ll end up with a nice comfy house whichever path we go down, but it’s somewhat shocking the difference between the quoted ‘use this as a rough figure for your build costs’ and the ‘this is what it’ll cost’ quotes we’ve got.
Lots of places recommend 1000 – 2000 ukp per square meter finished costs for builds, based on your level of finish. Bare plaster box, we asked for and still got a quote of well over 1,500 per square meter. That’s not the nice eco-friendly box we wanted, that’s cheap block.
We asked some timber specialists for quotes… Dear Goddess! Their prices were insane. Having splattered everywhere that the cost of building in timber is cheaper – you can pre-cut it all, rock up on site and throw it up in an afternoon and still have time for a cuppa, we were looking at massively more per square meter, so I’ve no idea where they were getting that from.
So we’ve cut, cut and cut. Away went the underdeck office, the studio, the garage with capacity to add a studio, the garage being built by someone else, the extension, external insulation…. all gone. Well, probably.
I think my last ditch attempt at getting a quote which make some kind of financial sense has been sent out, I sat down with a basic drawing program and knocked up an architectural ‘sketch’ of what we want, just to get a costing from another company. It doesn’t necessarily include the foundations, which will have to be factored in. The thing is, the house is huge. We don’t *need* a bigger house. It’s just that the house is huge in places we don’t need it to be huge. It’s lovely that the lounge is vast, but actually? We could probably get away with one 2/3rds the size. What we need is a bigger kitchen (currently 2.2m x 2.2m-ish). Adding our current dining room to the kitchen works less well than it might because a full meter of it is taken up with fireplace. We don’t want to take the fire place out…
So, I’m down from a really nice big garage to a wood-framed garage of dubious quality, or possibly a single garage on a massive slab of concrete. Not limecrete because our finances won’t stretch that far. I’ve even drifted down to looking at second hand concrete sectional garages…
On the interesting side, just had a call from the plumbers, and their quote actually comes into the ballpark that I’d envisaged. Less, in fact, than I’d envisaged. Which is the first nice thing that’s happened with the quotes so far. Perhaps it will all work out the way we’d like. However, at the moment it’s all a bit stressful here at chez us. Especially with the paperwork for Kathryn’s Indefinite Leave to Remain to sort, and the stress around that.
