PlaNNiNg & PrePariNg
Katie and Andy Thomasson prepare their plot for the renovation of two stone farm cottages and find the tradespeople essential for the work
Having only recently submitted our plans, and not daring to spend (and potentially waste) any money starting the building work until they were officially approved, we began by trying to establish contacts with tradespeople.
Building up an entire contacts book from scratch can be quite a difficult task and our first task was to find a groundsman to help prepare the foundations. Our designer, Mark, put us in touch with Robert — a knowledgeable landscaper, who also has experience in laying foundations. Robert suggested the first thing we did was to prepare the driveway, which was muddy, uneven and featured an entrance too narrow to accommodate lorries delivering materials to site.
He levelled the site, topping it with a generous quantity of hardcore so that vehicles wouldn’t get stuck in the mud, and removed one of the gateposts, widening the entrance onto the drive.
We then needed to line up a team of stonemasons, which proved harder to find than we’d anticipated. Luckily, the only stonemasons
in the local area are due to complete their current project around the same time that we anticipate them being ready to start on ours, so no time will be wasted waiting.
While we sweated on the final outcome of our planning application, we prepared the rest of the site — which included the removal of 24 15m-tall conifer trees (left). It was a time-consuming and exhausting process. All the trunks will be cut down to become firewood (a procedure that I think will be ongoing for a couple of years to come!).
We knocked down the stone outbuildings attached to the back of each house, as these would’ve eventually obstructed the views once we’d fitted the bifold doors. Uncertain as to whether or not the corrugated roofs were made of asbestos, we took no chances in dismantling and disposing of them very carefully — wearing full protective clothing and an asbestos-graded face mask. We’re stacking the stone on pallets, with the intention of salvaging them to be used in the building project.
By the time we’re done knocking down walls, we’ll have just enough stone to build the front of the two extensions, tying them in seamlessly with the existing houses. This is something that the planning officer who provided us with preapp advice was keen for us to include when we submitted our full planning application — and we also hope that it will save us some money when it comes to supplying the stone for the masons to lay.