Q&A with Stuart and Katie

What was your biggest splurge?

The polished concrete cost £12k, it was probably about £3k more than if we had tiled, but we both love it and think it was worth doing. It creates a great flow throughout and blends nicely with the wood panelling. The windows were £27k, but we worked to get that down quite a bit as well. The kitchen, utility, and appliances came to £31k.

What single piece of advice would you give a budding self-builder?

Get a quantity surveyor to draw up a bill of quantities; we got ours done on the recommendation of the architect. This gave us more control over the spending, and we could easily add or deduct items based on the unit prices provided in the bill of quantities.

And we did add a few things to the contract that increased the cost, such as driveways and landscaping. To save some money, we initially planned to use concrete paving for our patio, but we decided last minute that we wanted sandstone instead. We knew the price per meter for the sandstone, so we had more control over the spending and could make informed decisions.

Overall, our main piece of advice would be to ensure you have the right professionals on board from the start. We hired an architect that we could easily communicate with and a quantity surveyor to help us control the budget. Although it cost us around £2-3,000 upfront, it saved us a lot more in the long run.

Good communication with the builder is key, and ours kept us involved throughout the entire process. The electricians, in particular, were great at keeping in touch with me and making sure everything was done correctly. The contractor in general was fantastic, and the site was always kept clean. Overall, the process was easy, although living in a space which wasn’t ours during the build was a bit challenging – probably more so for the parents!

tank, which could have led to a costly alternative system.

“It was going to cost around £12,000,” says Stuart. “At one stage, we were unsure if we’d be able to get anything suitable for the discharge of water at all, which would have meant no discharge certificate and therefore no mortgage. Things were getting quite hairy, but, with the help of a neighbour, we were able to find an old field drain in the lane beside the house. We had to go through solicitors and Land Registry to get permission to dig. But eventually, we were able to install a very simple septic tank for £4,000 and the soakaway just goes into that field drain, which was a lifesaver.”

For the electrical installation, they assumed that connecting to an existing pole would be straightforward, but NIE told them they’d have to connect to a different pole at an extra cost of £8,000. “We spoke to a few different people at NIE,” says Stuart. “Katie eventually managed to chat to one of the workers and got the cost down to £4,000. You need to be persistent sometimes. If you just take the first word for it, you can find yourself paying over the odds.”

Katie adds: “I was pregnant, angry and emotional, which all helped!”

Interiors

Describing the couple’s interior style direction as “warm meets minimalistic” Katie says: “From the start, we were adamant that we wanted polished concrete flooring which set the tone for the rest of the house. We also bought our kitchen and bathrooms quite early on, so we just hoped we would still like them when they were in the house. Not knowing what anything would look like in reality was the most difficult part.”

“We picked things that we liked, made an online mood board and looked at social media self-build accounts. We had a neutral aesthetic and just followed it through, room by room.”

“We wanted things that were easy to clean and maintain, like large tiles in the bathrooms and a minimal shower screen – all of that reduced that amount of grout and glass to keep clean,” adds Stuart.

“Phillip from the kitchen company was really good. He advised us that in an open plan living area, the kitchen becomes more like furniture (as well as being functional). So we changed from our original shaker style choice to one that was more modern and minimalistic,” says Katie.

“I like to choose items that have an enduring, timeless style, plus I don’t like clutter on the worktops or in the way.”

Savvy decisions

“We had to reduce our insulation package to save money in the end,” says Katie. “Originally, the house was specified with rigid board insulation, but we had to switch to cavity bead insulation. The thickness of the new insulation makes the U-values quite similar. Since much of the house faces south, we installed a lot of glazing to make use of the solar