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The First 3 Steps to Building Your Own Home

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You’ve read the magazine articles for inspiration, watched the TV shows with envy and trawled the internet for tales of house building success, and now you feel ready to take a leap of faith, brush off your tool belt and build your own home. Whilst you might not be planning to undertake the work yourself, there is still plenty of preparation to do before a builder can even set foot on your site, and many months (or even years) of hard work ahead, so don’t be too hasty about choosing that wallpaper.

Every journey starts with a few simple steps, but when you are building your own home, things are rarely straightforward. Here is a rundown of the three things you need to take care of first before you call a builder, let alone before you begin deciding where to put your new bathroom.

Step One: Find a suitable piece of land

Wherever you live, you will be lucky to find a building plot without investing some time and effort in your search for a spot to call home. Depending on your desired location, it could take years to discover the perfect place to build, and longer still to make the purchase. If you are planning to disrupt your life, risk your relationships and spend months living in temporary accommodation in pursuit of your dream home, make sure that the place you pick for your building project makes the hard times worthwhile.

You will probably only undertake this kind of project once in a lifetime, so be certain about your choice of location and make sure that it is somewhere you will love to live for many years to come.

Step Two: Secure planning permission

 Playing the planning game is an unfortunate yet necessary hurdle which must inevitably be overcome if you wish to build your own home. With a series of stages to navigate through successfully on your way to approval, it might feel like your project has stalled before it has even begun, but if you are passionate about your project and persistent in your pursuit of planning permission, you should hopefully be rewarded.

One way to improve your chances of securing planning permission from your local authority is to have professional, detailed plans drawn up before you make your application. If you can enhance your application with 3D visuals of how your proposed build will look, you could stand a better chance of getting a “Yes”. This could be particularly useful if you are planning to build in a sensitive area where new construction is limited.

Step Three: Find an architect

It is essential to get the design and planning stage of your build spot on if you want to have a successful project. This means hiring an experienced, qualified architect with the skills and expertise to translate your ideas into a building which really works. From something strikingly contemporary to a traditional family home, there is an architect to undertake any project – all you have to do is find them! In addition to creativity and ideas in abundance, make sure that your architect also has the financial nous to take your budget into consideration when drawing up their plans, as the last thing you want is a beautiful house on paper which you can’t afford to construct.

Complete these three stages of your self-build project and you will be well on your way to constructing your dream home. Then, and only then, should you start worrying about the wallpaper!

This post was written by blogger Hayley Francis who recently built her own home, taking the above three points into consideration at the start of the process in addition to acquiring 3D Visualisation from JBS Design to create an accurate recreation of the final plans.

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