Converting a Petrol Station

Martin and I had a competition with everyone who had worked on our conversion to come up with a name for the house - and some were particularly rude but we settled on Didit, which really sums up the whole project in one word! From the beginning we felt that we were battling against the odds. Martin had owned the roadside garage near Honiton in Devon for over twenty years, purchasing it in a derelict state and literally knocking down the small kiosk shop and wooden bungalow in order to rebuild a far larger shop and a new home next door. The business was a success and he would still be running it today if the A30 had not been moved. We can see the new road on the other side of a hedge but the old A30 now only services a little village as a two-way road and, with virtually no passing traffic, our garage business ground to a halt with no hope of any compensation.

Martin had always felt that this was on the cards but had believed he could sell the business for car sales, storage or whatever and that we could continue living in the bungalow nearby. After two years on the market, however, we had to face the fact that nobody wanted to purchase the service station. We were sat here doing nothing, with an empty garage and an empty forecourt and couldn't think what else to do - so we decided to apply for planning to demolish the shop and petrol station and build ourselves a new house. East Devon District Council were not impressed, however, and refused planning permission, insisting that we should sell the building as a commercial premises. We were in a catch-22 situation but desperately needed to move on with our lives.

We reapplied for a conversion to the existing shop but were told that the planners would recommend refusal. We were sure that we would have to take our application to appeal and I nagged several of the councillors to death, with the planning officer developing a nervous twitch every time he heard my voice! My policy was that, if I kept on for long enough, they would grant us planning just to keep me quiet and it must have worked because we were actually granted permission without the need to appeal.

The local builder drew up designs for the house, which is on a single storey with four bedrooms. JR Layzells is an old family firm, which also doubles as an undertaker! I couldn't believe it but, apparently, it is not unheard of as carpenters are also a dab hand at making coffins. If Martin was cheeky to the builders, they would stand behind him measuring him up. We told Paul Layzell which rooms we wanted and left him to fit them into the old shop, with the addition of a new double garage to one end and an extension to contain a kitchen/diner, study and cloakroom. We didn't approach any other architects or builders because we had seen several properties that Layzells had built in the vicinity and everybody here knows them. Sometimes they would be working on the house and would have to down tools, wash and change to attend a funeral or collect a body but, when the building work stopped, we were actually sorry to see them leave - they had become like family although at least the coffee purchases have drastically reduced.

The site was classed as contaminated land, due to the presence of the petrol storage tanks, but these were not actually removed in order to contain any contamination rather than simply move it to a different location. We had to fill them with concrete and they are situated under the garage, which gives it the sturdiest possible foundations!

Martin and some friends stripped out the interior of the shop, which had contained a kitchen, an office, the cashiers office, an off-licence and store, to create an empty shell. The shop had been constructed in blockwork and we decided to build on in the same way - using rendered cavity wall construction with an inner leaf of Celcon Solar blocks and a 50mm clear cavity.

The front wall had been primarily glazed and, therefore, needed to be blocked up and fitted with new double glazed windows. I know every show home for miles around, having spent two years considering moving house, and copied the style of windows - with their frame of white glazing bars from a local development. The garage is actually surrounded by farm fields and close to the River Otter, which gives us a wonderful outlook. We wanted to maximise these views and gain plenty of natural light through patio doors.

We reused the interlocking concrete roof tiles but had to remove them in order to renew the felting underneath. We wanted to make sure that we wouldnt have to undertake maintenance work in a couple of years. We also replaced all the old tiles at the rear of the house with new ones to avoid a patchy effect. The roofing work was subcontracted out by the builder, as was the plastering, plumbing and electrics. At the end of the day the build cost was exactly what we were expecting and, when I look at other self-builds, I think we did it very cheaply at under £50,000.

I was interested in heated towel rails and telephoned a company for more information. The lady said that we were very lucky not to have to pay the VAT on our project, which was news to me, and suggested speaking to Michael Holmes at Homebuilding & Renovating magazine for further details. I rang and asked to speak to the editor and nearly fell over when he actually came to the phone and spoke to me! He was extremely helpful and explained that we would be eligible to claim a refund on our VAT as the project was a conversion.

The only problem is that I became inspired and have now decided that I want to build all over again. We are currently looking for a site, with the new bungalow on the market and valued at £250,000 and, although we will feel very sad to leave, we are eager to start on the next project.

I love the kitchen - it is the most popular room in the house due to its size and the presence of a TV and sofas. We had lived here for six months before anyone even bothered to go into the lounge and, when you are cooking or washing up, you still feel part of the family. Visitors positively refuse to move!

We undertook most of the interior decoration ourselves and chose some strong colours for certain rooms - mixing paint colours together to create the ideal shade for the lounge. Martin had this strange idea that when you move from one house to another, you take all your old furniture with you. I explained that he'd got this totally wrong and that we would need to purchase new, contemporary furnishings to complement our new home.

We stayed in the next door bungalow throughout the build, which took just under a year to complete and although we were literally living on a building site, at least our home was somewhere clean and warm to return to at the end of the day. We have since sold this property and with the farmer living on our other side, I feel that the new house is a huge improvement to a closed down petrol station which no-one wants to see and think that the quality and finishes are far better than any of the show-homes we viewed.

Living next-door to the garage, with a buzzer connected to the shop, we could never seem to get away from work but Martin is now retired and I work part time as an accounts assistant at a local nursery. It would not be over-exaggerating to say that this house has really changed our lives - it is such a great place to live, with plenty of room and little upkeep.

We have more time to spend together as a family and our nine year old son, Kirk, had the best summer holiday ever during the conversion. He loves anything to do with building and has taken the decision that this is what he wants to do when he grows up, being very keen on digging big holes and filling receptacles with concrete. His biggest ambition is for us to purchase a house with a field and to buy him a mini-digger and in years to come Im sure he will be building his own house.

Further reading:

• A Converted Railway Station
• A Converted Bowling Alley
• A Guide to Reclaiming VAT on Conversions, Renovations and Extensions