WE LEARNED...

CASHFLOW CAN BE HARD to manage with an arrears stage payment self build mortgage. You need to do the work, get it valued and then they give you the money back – but obviously you need the cash first! It’s so important to manage your project alongside the financial side of things and keep spreadsheets up to date.

LISTEN TO YOUR LOCAL PLANNERS’ point of view and go into the process with an open mind. It’s a lot easier to work with your local authority than to be too headstrong about what you want. We asked a lot of questions about what I would be allowed to build before I started putting things down on paper.

IF YOU’RE PROJECT MANAGING yourself, it’s important to acknowledge that you’re never going to get everything right, all the time – even if you do know what you’re doing. The trick is not to beat yourself up about it; just brush it off and move on.

HARDCORE YOUR SITE at the beginning of the project to save on making a lot of mess when moving earth and materials throughout the construction process. We decided at the outset of the build where we wanted the car parking area to be, and just paid the money to lay the crushed up bits of stone. In the grand scheme of things, it saves you from a lot of untidiness.