Your Design

Surveyor

Before engaging the services of an architect, you first have to get yourself a Land and Buildings Survey. Some architects could offer you this service included in their fees, but it's worth shopping around as you could save yourself £££'s.
We used a company called CPB Surveys based in the West Midlands, who were recommended to us by our chosen architect.

The survey comprised of

1. External Land Survey
2. Building Survey

The External Land Survey consists of a comprehensive of the site to record all physical features, trees, services and drainage locations, fences and boundaries

The Building Survey records all main walls, partitions, columns doors and window openings with heights, overhead beams and downstands with underside heights, ceiling heights, steps or staircases, floor finishes and main services inlets i.e gas, water, electricity

With the marvels of modern technology now at their disposal, the surveyor took measurements externally as well in each room, with his digital 'tape measure' which then fed the details wirelessly to a tablet PC which in turn built up the plan of our house.
The survey itself took around 2 hours and cost £450.31 inclusive of VAT.

The measurements were then forwarded on electronically to our architect who would then use them to produce the drawings for our proposed extended house.

Architect

We first contacted our chosen architect, Bell House Architects, back in February 2011, primarily to get some advice on how we should go about starting a build (as we are both novices) and secondly, because she happened to be the mother of a close friend of ours.

During the initial half an hour meeting at our home, she explained the steps we needed to take,  what her involvement would be and of course what would be required of my wife and I.

At the end of the meeting it suddenly dawned on us what we were getting ourselves into both financially and emotionally. It was not going to be easy nor cheap and it would most definitely cause a lot of stress. However, we both agreed it would be worth it in the end so we decided to push forward.

We asked for a design that would provide us with a large open-plan kitchen/diner at the rear of the property with bi-fold doors leading out into the garden. To the side, replacing the existing garage would be a slightly smaller garage/workshop with a downstairs WC and Utility Room. All three would be interconnected and accessible from the kitchen/diner.
Upstairs we would be extending the 2nd double bedroom and adding an en-suite, creating a large family bathroom and adding a 4th bedroom. We also requested a plan for converting the loft space into a master suite with en-suite and a Juliet balcony facing the rear garden.

Our architect delivered the draft drawings to us on the 22nd July 2011 and after much to-ing and fro-ing we had final drawings needed in order to submit our planning application on the 25 November 2011.

As we would be extending to the side and rear of our property we would have to submit a Planning Application to the local planning office who would then either approve or reject our application based on its own merit. Unfortunately, as far as planning offices are concerned, "...there is no such thing as a precedent in planning." So no matter how many other similar properties in your street have extended and to what extent, bear in mind the fact that just because they received planning approval, it has no influence whatsoever on the outcome of your submission.

I'll go into more details regarding Planning Permission in the next section