A contemporary ranch style home

When Laura Fennell and Alison Richards found the third of an acre plot of land beside a bend in the Grand Union Canal, eight miles from Aylesbury, Bucks, they could hardly believe their luck. It was the first building plot they had looked at, having spent several fruitless months searching for a large house of any age providing it had character and appealed to them.

"Our aim was to pool our resources and combine our two small houses into one larger, preferably four bedroom home," says Laura. "When, by chance, we asked one of the agents we were dealing with about plots, he said this one was about to come onto the market. We immediately looked at it and realised it was a wonderful site that would be ideal if we were prepared to become self-builders. It was only later when we read the self-build magazines and attended exhibitions that we learned of the problems other self-builders were experiencing finding a site and realised how extremely fortunate we were."

At first they were rather apprehensive about selfbuilding, but they were spurred on by the thought that Laura’s brother-in-law, Colin Luscombe, who had recently had to give up his bricklaying job due to a serious injury, would be available to help them supervise the job when neither of them were around. For most of the time, however, they undertook the supervision themselves, as well as undertaking all the project management. Laura had already given up her job and was a full-time student doing a science degree 40 miles away at Royal Holloway College. Alison continued to work in her London-based high tech - no logy sales job.

The site, which they bought for £127,000, came with detailed planning permission for a four-bedroomed house. This was also a stroke of luck, because although Laura and Alison wanted to print their own stamp on the house that was eventually built, they gained a lot of ideas from the house that was planned, not least the external timber cladding and the ‘upside down’ concept that they have opted for, with the main living space upstairs and the bedrooms beneath.

Local architects Hinton Cook, whom they commissioned shortly after buying the plot in February 1998, went along with this scheme, coming up with the idea of a top-lit brick-faced curved stair tower at the front of the building with a front balcony accessed from the upstairs. This was aimed at providing some relief at the front of the straightforward pitched roofed building.

"We love the staircase. It imports light from the top and front," says Laura. "As the front faces approximately north we have placed fewer windows on that side as it is the rear that looks over the canal and has all the views. The noise factor was also a consideration, as a main railway line runs along the other side of the road.”

"One of the main things that we like about the house is the way that this one big first floor room runs the full 14 metre length of the house," says Alison. "It is wonderful to get back to in the evening – so light and spacious. It has really enhanced our lives and is so different from the small compartmentalised homes we lived in previously."

Apart from the first floor verandah and the curved stair tower with its splendidly solid beech staircase, there are several other interesting pieces of design. They include the doorless ‘wet room’, based on a Dutch model, that serves as the en suite bathroom attached to the mas ter bedroom downstairs; also the wood strip floors which run throughout and, of course, the exterior horizon tal cedar cladding.

"Choosing the cladding timber was a big decision," says Laura. “We could have opted for the much cheaper Baltic Pine or Douglas Fir, but we chose cedar because of ease of maintenance and longevity. We think we chose correctly because after two-and-a-half years it has matured to a beautiful silver colour. Fortunately we were in the position of being able to buy high quality fittings when we felt it appropriate. Apart from this our only real ‘luxuries’ were the internal doors and the second floor that we fitted upstairs. The main reason for a second floor on top of the one supplied by the timber frame company was to accom - mo date the underfloor heating which we had decid ed to extend to the first floor, as we had very little wall space for radiators. We feel it also adds that bit of extra insulation between the floors."

Fitting the additional floor plus all the underfloor heating loops at first floor level was one of the many tasks Laura and Alison undertook themselves. Together with friends they also laid the beam and block ground floor, including doing the all the cutting needed at the base of the curved stairwell. After moving in during November 1999 they spent two more years carrying out all the internal finishing work. This included all the decorating, most of the tiling, fitting doorframes, architraves and skirting and other carpentry, and also cladding the outside of the double garage with cedar.

The build proved relatively straightforward, although they regret that in order not to overdevelop the plot their planning authority, Aylesbury Vale, made them ‘squeeze’ the house in length, slightly reducing the sizes of the two spare bedrooms downstairs.

"Most of the subcontractors, apart from one ‘carpenter from hell’ were fine and we had few difficulties apart from the usual problems of co-ordinating the different subcontractors," says Laura. "We had a problem with the roof trusses. We had made it quite plain to Taylor Lane, who manufactured and supplied the timber frame, that these were to form a feature in the roof, but when they arrived they were full of knots and gaps. When we complained a director of the company visited us and agreed to clad them in Douglas Fir at no extra cost to ourselves. We think they now look fine.

"We found it extremely hard to find good carpenters and plumbers and the build overran, largely because it took 16 weeks to get planning consent rather than the eight weeks we had anticipated. However, we believe the project has been a good use of our time and that by doing a self-build we have gone up two or three steps in the housing ladder. Now it is finished and I have gained my degree I am looking for another job."

Alison says: "We adore living here and there are very few things we would do differently with the benefit of hindsight. Perhaps we should have planned a log-burning stove into the upper floor. We might still fit one, although it could make it too hot. Certainly we could have managed with fewer sliding doors on the first floor. Despite having double-glazed argon-filled panes we have still found them draughty in winter.

"But basically it has worked. As women we were naturally apprehensive to begin with, but we had excellent support from family and friends. It was a relatively short period of stress for something that we find a great joy to live in. Although we had no absolute budget we were careful throughout to make sure we were not spending more on the build than the house would be worth. We need have had no fears.”

Further reading:

• A Low Impact Self-build by the Thames
• A Super-E Airtight Kit House
• A Guide to External Finishes