OT, more than likely...

[The Natural Philosopher]

£60/square ft of habitable floor space for very basic shell used to be the guide. Thats Barrat Superhutch building tho.

more like £100 for any level of decent finish and fittings.

It can cost that much to refurbish an interior without a shell.

A lot depends on 'feetchas'

I went for dormers for example. Each dormer took almost as long as the main roof did..

Its hugely laborious but ultimately satisfying experience.

Another useful guide is 30% materials. 70% labour.

So using decent materials doesn't add much to the price, but fiddly features do.

A final tip. The money really starts to go when the house is built and your wife moves in.

[The Natural Philosopher]

so you make the foundations big enough for a decent extension and sell with planning..

a nice bungalow down the road had to underpin some 15 years back..they did it to two storey standard and it nw has a 5 bed 2 storey house on the original construction.

[John Williamson]

I can also do things like soundproof a room properly so I can do some recording without paying a fortune to add on soundproofing to somewhere that's already too small. A quadruple glazed window is much cheaper than taking an existing double out and putting a triple back in. Putting a good, solid ceiling in costs very little at build time. Yes, I see where you're coming from.

Ah, now that's where I'm on a winner. I'm not married... ;-)

Yet....

[The Natural Philosopher]

Go for it

uk.d-i-y saved me 6 figure sums I reckon, but be prepared for a long build especially if your project manager is as bad as mine was. I fired him after 2 years and finished it myself.

[John Williamson]

Cheap mobile home/ biggish caravan on site, and I'll be there most nights. I also used to work as designer/ estimator/ project manager for a landscaping company many moons ago, though I'll be employing either a sole contractor or site manager. As the site's being sold by an architect/ design firm, I'll have a chat with them tomorrow. I'll be wanting a good, solid patio, about the size of a large extra bedroom, I reckon.....

Must find that drafting board..... Rotring to the rescue!

[Catman]

They've actually come pretty close WRT the money part. (Certainly in the £250-£300k range which buys nothing very grand round here) But seriously, if you're going to go to all that extra hassle, why build something ordinary. Sure keep the budge down, but otherwise, why bother?

[Catman]

I'd have thought so. You can surely buy them round here for that *sort* of money.

[Nick Odell]

I had to use one last year but maybe the insurer just linked me through to that site from their own - I can't honestly remember.

Nick

[bobharvey]

I goove that's troo. Also en-suite barfrooms, futility rooms (whot were called a scullery when I were alive) seem de rigor when its time to go.

And loft room access, doors wide enuf for wheelchairs, a proper chimbley all sell bungalows.

There: doubled the cost!

[Richard Robinson]

Well, more home per zbarl isn't to be sneezed at.

Wanders off, humming "Tie me budgerigar down, Sport"

[Skipweasel]

Ah, but they went out of fashion when scurrilous rumours morphed into WikiLeaks.

[bobharvey]

Oh, is there more than one sort? I only know about the 'never quite got enuf' kind.

[Ivan D. Reid]

On Sun, 09 Jan 2011 11:15:48 +0000, The Natural Philosopher

wrote in :

If not before:

[The Natural Philosopher]

I used COREL draw, these days Rhino CAD plus an A1 inkjet.

Yes, it will cost 2 grand to get that lot together, but should save you

5 grand in architects fees.

And it will save a LOT more if you can draw up pretty diagrams for the electricians and the plumbers showing pipe/wire runs: with 3D CAD you can even make sure the buggers will fit into the walls.

STRONGLY suggest satellite cabling and CAT5 cabling into EVERY room ending up in a massive area in the loft where you can patch. Even if you do wi fi etc, it still helps to be able to put a wifi point IN THE ROOM on the end of a cable, rather than relying on crap propagation through foil backed plasterboard etc.

Also plan drains carefully. You can never have too many drains..you can move a bath. shower, sink or a basin, but bogs are a bastard to relocate.It may take you three days to draw something up, BUT if it saves three men three days because the job is well thought out its a decent time /cash tradeoff.

I spent two days knocking up some nice Rhino D view of proposed bedroom fitted cupboards. Good thing I did cos SWMBO said 'oh no, cant have that, must have floor length curtains' (Why I will never know. The cats piss on them if they can). Anyway in the end the answer was to relocate the curtains to the front of a window alcove...

See

can't do THAT with a Rotring..

I really do advise, IF you know how to do a drawing board, to get Rhino.

Spend ages designing the house, down to the last detail. You very soon acquire a suite of library objects like bogs, cookers and fridges etc..take time and get them right - and then you can quickly assemble while layers of structure, fixtures, plumbing and the like, and see the house before you even build it.

[Steve Firth]

drivel.

[Steve Firth]

It will cost more than you think and far more than any armchair pundit imagines.

This is good as a rule of thumb guide:

the time I've finished, a five bedroom house build with four bathrooms and five reception rooms will end up costing me about 250,000 pounds, excluding the price paid for land.

[bobharvey]

Cheapskate. You might have given /all/ the bedrooms an en-suite.

[The Natural Philosopher]

A square box with a plain gabled roof is the cheapest. But add a hip or dormeer..a bit of wall tiling..use decent tiles ..decent wooden windws..maybe a few solid fuel stoves, UFH, decent water system, fully wired for the 21st century..heat pump heating? UFH?

[The Natural Philosopher]

you wont be allowed to build something that isn't wheel chair friendly.

[Catman]

Absolutely. I'd very much like to build my own place. I'd keep the budget down, but certainly wouldn't build anything *ordinary*

Well, you have to, or it'll fly off. Thanks for pointing out another of my failures. :)