Hey everyone, welcome back and welcome to a new podcast series.

This new podcast series will follow the build of my garage conversion into a new downstairs annex.

All the way from design, planning permission, building and all the fun that’s in between.

Before I start going into a bit more detail, I must caveat that these are based on my experiences, they’re based on my journey and ultimately it’s my opinion and my point of view.

It may not be the same for everybody, it may be different in a lot of ways, things may go down a different route, a different path or you may not be able to relate to it at all.

So please bear that in mind when listening to my thoughts.

As you might have been able to tell from the title of this podcast, planning permission has been granted, which is a massive tick in the box.

It’s actually been a few more weeks than I anticipated to get to this point, but we are moving just way slower than I anticipated.

And I guess that’s my biggest learning so far.

Everything takes time.

So where are we at?

Like I say, planning permission is granted.

We’re good to go, no objections, no changes.

It’s exactly the design and plan we wanted.

After planning permission was granted, we needed to find a builder.

We went out to three different builders.

Two of the three responded and then after that a decision was made on which one we should go with.

And that choice has now been made as well, which is really, really exciting.

However, we’re now just in the final stage of crossing the T’s, dotting the I’s and getting everything in line for a contract.

All things being well, that should be sorted this week.

We actually do have a tentative start date in the diary.

That start date is June this year.

I’ll be honest, with the pace that everything was going, I wasn’t anticipating actually to make it this year.

The builders we spoke to were very busy and that was the reason why one of them didn’t respond.

They couldn’t start till next January.

So I was starting to think the longer it takes to get the detail done, we’re not going to get the ball rolling on building this year.

But fingers crossed we will do.

Like I say, the next week or so is critical.

Let’s get that contract signed.

Let’s get the finer details sorted out and then we should be good to go.

What’s this podcast going to be?

Well, I’ve never done anything like this before.

This is the first big building project that I’ve been part of.

Yes, I’ve done a small downstairs bathroom in the past, but nothing quite like this.

My intention is to document, photograph, film, talk about as much of it as I can.

This is the first podcast that kicks off that series.

Realistically, it probably will be a little while before the next one.

But once building started, then I’m hoping there’ll be a lot more regular.

Although, as you all know, I say things are going to be regular and then weeks and weeks go by.

But let’s just see.

As we’ve already found out, this journey is not a straight road.

There can be many, many twists and turns and things that you think are easy can take much, much longer.

Let’s take a little bit of a step back to plan permission.

An architect was appointed to do all of the work for us.

Yes, I briefly designed what I wanted myself in a computer-aided design program to get the layout and the rough spacing.

But I don’t know how to design a building.

I don’t know what regulations to think about.

It was easier to bring in an architect that knew what they were doing, that could suggest other things, could point out where it might go wrong.

More importantly, point out where it could cost more.

And it was just good to get their guidance.

The architect is doing the whole process from design through to planning, finding builders, contracting, which has been a massive help.

Originally, it felt like this was quite a scary process, that it was going to take a long time, that things could be rejected, that we’d have to change the design and all of that.

To get planning permission completed in nine weeks apparently is quite the feat.

We were told it was going to be eight weeks, but it actually turned out to be nine after a little nudge.

We didn’t have to make any changes.

We did about three or four designs internally.

So when I say internally, just through chatting and talking about different ideas.

But once the final submission was done, that was it.

It didn’t change after that.

It was that planning submission that got approved.

We didn’t have to go for a flat roof like we thought we would.

So we’ve got a pitched roof, which will be really nice.

Everything else is all good.

We just need now to continue on the process.

The next stage is getting a contract signed, which like I say, should be this week.

Then also starting the building regulations, which in theory should be done by the time we start building in June.

Although apparently there is wiggle room around that.

You don’t have to be on an exact timeline with building regs.

It’s not the same as planning permission.

Like I say, this felt like months and months and months for me.

When realistically, it’s been four months from the start to where we are now.

Speaking to others, that could have been six months, could have been nine months, could have been a year, could have been longer.

I think at the moment we’re doing pretty well.

Hopefully that is a good sign for the rest of the project.

It’s interesting though how quickly things can change.

And the biggest change so far is the approach on the bathroom.

I will caveat again that none of this is fully set in stone.

We haven’t built it yet.

It could change again.

Originally with the bathroom, I wanted to go with the company that specialize in adapted bathrooms and accessible bathrooms.

They have a lot of knowledge.

It felt like the right thing to do.

But their price was probably three or four times higher than what the builder quoted to do exactly the same thing.

With the overall cost of this build being more expensive than we imagined, and may go into costing at some point in the future but not now, it was important that we could save money where it made sense to save money.

The bathroom was one of those places that we could save some money.

The plan is the builder will do everything.

The build, the bathroom, the fitting out, the electrics, the whole lot.

It probably makes it a lot easier planning wise.

You don’t have to engage with multiple different companies, different contracts, different resources, etc.

It can all be handled under one roof, so to speak, or the roof that will be there once we’ve finished.

I hope everyone enjoys coming on this journey, learning with me about what works and what doesn’t work, what went wrong, and all of that great stuff.

I plan on giving, like I say, as much detail as I can.

I will deep dive into some of the areas a bit more as we go along.

So yeah, apologies for the delays.

It was purely because it took much longer to get to this point than I anticipated.

I thought we would get planning permission done, we’d get a builder decided within a week, we’d get a contract decided the week after that.

It was just too ambitious.

That was never going to happen.

The world doesn’t move at that speed, so I think that’s important to remember as well.

I would always add some buffer time into any work you’re doing like this, and we’ll see how that pans out.

We’ve been given a four-month build timeline.

Let’s see how that goes.

Anyway, I’ll leave it there for now.

This build series will continue separately as its own series.

My other random podcasts, blogs, etc., will arrive whenever they arrive.

Let’s catch up soon.