“We self-built for £150K”
DIY self-builders Melanie and Alan Williams have designed and built this characterful barn-style family home for a build cost of just £604/m2
Homebuilding projects like Alan and Melanie’s don’t come around very often. Built to a staggering budget, the large, traditional home is stunning inside and out. Here Alan talks to Alison Wall about how they achieved their latest self-build.
How did you find the plot?
Where we live in Hampshire there are loads of ‘colonial bungalows’ – Government pre-fab houses – and we’d passed this one many times.the house was made of tin, with no insulation, and 4 x 2 timber on the inside and bitumen paper on the outside. It was well past its sell by date.
You got through planning in five months. How did you manage?
Our design had flint, red brick and black cladding, which all fitted in with the local vernacular, so getting planning permission was straightforward. The neighbours were a bigger problem, though, as they saw us as outsiders and they had all sorts of worries — none of which were real! Now passers by say it’s the best house in the road.
What was the inspiration for your design?
Our first self-build was a cottage and the second was an executive-style house. I asked my wife Melanie what she’d like for our third — the answer came back: ‘a barn-style home’, so I scoured the internet for images of barns I liked, including one in Norfolk, then did loads of sketches and designs. My youngest son is an architectural technician and I worked with him on the design. Melanie was very involved in the interior design and she has an amazing eye for colour. We chose a kitchen from Handmade Kitchens of Christchurch, which you fit and paint yourself and she chose the colour for that — it was spot on. The whole thing was a real family affair.
Did you come up against any challenges?
We lived in it for a little while until we got planning, then we got a demolition company in to knock the old bungalow down. It was the worst plot in the world: it had three greenhouses, shed upon shed, trees, bushes, brickwork — it took ages to knock it all down and get a clean sheet. We couldn’t use any of the original foundations and I had to fill in a little pond right where the footings needed to go. I did all the digging out and pouring the concrete