Following the write up of our brief, Rob drew up some sketches which we really liked first time we saw them. At the same time, we’d divided the task of detailing the house design between us. Katie was responsible for all the bathrooms, field shelter and landscaping. I was responsible for the kitchen, the mechanical engineering, lighting and building engineering design. Well, literally as we had to work with specialists to design each piece.

We were still living in London when we started the pre-application process. One Saturday afternoon, I was out walking in East Sheen with my daughter. I noticed a cabinet makers showroom, YEO Cabinet Makers. Actually, there are other cabinet makers on the high street YEO show room stood out as it wasn’t pastiche and it had rounded edges which was what we were looking for.

Within 15mins of chatting to James the founder, I knew we were going to be working with him. He has a workshop in North Devon. An amiable character and also built a lot of the cabinets with his dad. Following that meeting, I started a design process with James that has subsequently involved Adam Hodgson who’s one of the partners.

Rob introduced us to Urquhart and Hunt for Landscaping, Max Fordham for Building and Mechanical Engineering, Najib Sheeka of Torsional for Structural Engineering.

All the folks we met at that stage we got on with and are working amicably with them to date.

Some of the themes we were starting to look at included, SIP construction, some steel frame, cladding using flint and wood, sedum roof, building engineering topics such as ground source heat pump and solar tiles vs. panels.

We got busy with the pre-app and started to talk about structures, building shell, and all the other things you’d need. The initial conversations resulted in the pre-app drawings below.

Before we submitted the pre-app, we met the previous owner of Dianthus. He was going to demolish and build as well. He was kind enough to give us his pre app plan and the feedback from the council. This proved valuable to inform our pre-application.

When we met the planning officer, during pre-app. He was complimentary of what we were trying to achieve without giving much away at that stage. He asked for tweaks to things like ridge height vs. neighbours property. splay for parking and clarification on drainage etc.

The resulting feedback gave us all we needed to proceed to planning application at the beginning of 2018.

. Dianthus Preapplication Drawings