Geoff – Page 6 – Geoff's Blog

The Move – Day 1

Today we actually started on the physical move to Devon. The removal contractors, Pickfords, arrived at 9:00 this morning, and went through the house like (a) a tornado; (b) a plague of locusts or (c) a dose of salts. Four guys moved all the possessions and furniture from three quarters of our house by 15:00!

After all the anticipation, the trials of selling the house under our wonderful English legal system, and the hassle caused by our purchasers’ purchaser (described, aptly, by his stepson as “a bit of an arsehole”), it’s good to get on with the actual move. And of course, all this was compounded by some of the worst December weather in living memory, and the total joy that is Christmas.

Pickfords are back on Tuesday to finish off, then we are all off to Devon. By Wednesday evening, all being well, we will be in our home for the next year or so.

Moving to Devon

We’re pretty much all set up for our move to Devon now. We have rented a house for at least 12 months – possibly long enough for our new build, but we shall see – about 12 miles from our plot, in a village called Broadwoodwidger. We have the removals company teed up to move us in early January, and we’ve done things like transferring the phone and broadband accounts, buying heating oil (ouch – 70p/L!!!).

We’ve decided that, as we shall be in Woking for Christmas, we might as well enjoy it. This evening, we’ve decorated the Christmas tree that will be our only decoration for the holiday.

We both have a feeling of great relief, now that the uncertainty around the house sale is over. There are plenty of war stories to tell about the outrageous and unreasonable behaviour of our buyers’ buyer, but those are for another time. For now, we’re happy and excited to be moving.

We’ve sold our house

Finally, after a long, anxious and frustrating time, we have exchanged contracts on the sale of our house. This is a key step in the new build project, as it provides the money! We move to Devon on 5 January, into a rented house for about a year.

At least, now, we can start to plan the new house in earnest. To this point – aside from owning the plot – it’s all been a bit of a fantasy. But now, it can become real.

We’ve started

We’ve now completed the purchase of the plot of land in Holsworthy, Devon on which we are going to build our new house. Planning permission was granted just on the deadline of 20 July, and we went on to complete the sale last Tuesday, 27th. You can see some photographs of the plot on our website

The Planning Drawings here show the outline design for the house.

Welcome

Welcome to my blog. I’ve created this for a couple of reasons, but mainly to keep track of the self-build project that we’re starting in Devon. I’ll aim to use this as a project diary.