CO DOWN / PROJECT
E
ver since I met Dom I knew he wanted to build his home but to me it just sounded like a lot of hassle and stress,” says Nicola. “We’ve both always liked watching Grand Designs houses. It was more the idea of building from scratch that I found daunting.” “We had done what we could with our home and even though we loved what we’d achieved, we knew we could use more room with the three kids. Over a period of 14 years we had renovated our kitchen and ensuite.” “Then I don’t know if it was a midlife crisis or what but it was very much me who was encouraging Dom to have a look at sites, to a certain extent I think I got bored with our house. We put it up for sale before
we even found the land to build on.” “We’d originally thought of buying a second hand house but to really get what we wanted we realised we had to build new,” she adds. “A big appeal for me is that you get a house that’s built for your own needs. It’ll give us 20 years with minimal upkeep, we won’t be renovating room by room as we did in the previous house.”
The perfect site
¹,WU TWWSML NWZ TIVL J]\ Q\ _I[ PIZL \W ÅVL suitable plots, they were all compromised to a certain extent. When we found the site we were hooked. I knew we would never get this plot again; it was close to work and Belfast, close to the children’s school. A two acre site that ticked all the boxes. As soon as we saw Q\ _M X]\ QV IV WٺMZ IVL \PIVSN]TTa Q\ _I[ accepted.” ¾
SPRING 2019 / SELFBUILD / 25