Name change?

The house is called "Port Bredy" which is another name for Bridport. That doesn't have a lot of meaning for us and is not historic for the area - and we don't like it particularly. Its easy to change when we buy the house.
Our best idea at the moment is "Saint's View", or we could go for the french translation "La Vue De Saint".
Other ideas are welcome. Leave a comment.

View from our garden gate

View from our garden gate
Originally uploaded by Lenny & Meriel.

Lenny couldn't resist going to see our house in the snow this morning. This is the view looking across to Saints Bay from our garden gate.

Living Room Visualisation

Living Room Visualisation
Originally uploaded by Lenny & Meriel.

The architects had ideas about a partial buffer zone upstairs, lowering the floor level and putting a high window in the SE gable end. This is my attempt at a visualisation to try to work out what it might look like. Its a nightmare to draw though!

Our house in the distance

DSC_7776
Originally uploaded by Lenny & Meriel.

Look along the skyline, near to the left hand edge of the picture. You'' just about see a red roof - that's our house.

Signed up

Well, we went to the Advocate's chambers and signed all the relevent papers, which means that were tied in to the purchase of the house (unless the survey turns up a bad problem).
Our "conditions of sale will become operative" on 3rd March - that means that we will have exchanged in England speak. Then we will complete the process and hand over the remainder of the monies due on 10th March. And then it's all ours.

Architect

Had an exciting meeting today with the architect/surveyor/project manager company where we discussed some nifty issues like having two sets of sliding/folding doors on the ground floor at the end of the new glass gable to trap and/or recycle hot or cold air before it enters the house. That along with the suggestion of lowering the floor level in both the upstairs & downstairs living areas in order to get the ceiling height, and consequently the width of the upstairs lounge increased. Another one was to use really nice timber instead of steel for some of the exposed structural elements. Ideas abound and we are very happy about it all.
Should sign the papers tomorrow, then we'll all be tied into the deal (to the value of the deposits). Oh, and the depisits went in today - man, that's some heavy cash!

Besides all this, there's a new bunch of pictures which we're keeping here (I'll post a permanent link at the top of the page soon).

More pictures

This is turning into a "spot the difference" competition, so we'll just nip it in the bud right now. If you want to see any of the other musings, you can look at our page on flickr (for the uninitiated, never mind what it is, just go there).

Our preferred design

PortBredyPreferredDesign
Originally uploaded by pierrelenfestey.

So this is the design that the planner said might be possible. Apparently they never say "yes", they'll only say "Mmmm, I can see that might have a chance", or "I don't see why this would't be possible".

A description of the unique planning bureaucracy will follow (but I can't guarantee it'll be interesting).

Existing planning permission

PortBredyOriginalPIP
Originally uploaded by pierrelenfestey.

This is the visualisation that Meriel did of the design which already has planning in principle - which basically means that we have permission to extend & adapt the original house.
But we don't want to do that! We're far more ambitious (well, alright maybe only just a litte).
More to follow

Port Bredy before the sale

PortBredyRear
Originally uploaded by pierrelenfestey.

Well, I got the flickr thingy working so here's a picture of the house as is.

Quite odd, eh?

More to follow - specifically Meriel's visualisations of the extension and new glass gable that we're planning on adding.

Waiting for the results of the survey to come back.

We keep revisiting because the current owners live in Australia and an empty house is too tempting to leave alone. This time Lenny popped in to see the neighbours to check out their opinions on impending building work. Nice bunch.

Our only worry is the cows that visit the surrounding fields. Sounds trivial, but man they smell! and apparently they bring their friends, the flies. Not a deal breaker according to the residents of the area.

When the mainframe is fixed pictures will follow.

Beginning

So we found a house called Port Bredy which is in an area (sort of a peninsular) called Jerbourg.

We've put in an offer for the property, which has been accepted and then we've gone to see planners about doing alot of building work to it to extend it and add a glass gable.

Now we've just got to go through the survey to make sure the property is OK and then we'll jump through the legal & financial hoops to make it ours - at the moment it should be done by 10th March.

Pictures & Plans to follow when I can be bothered to work out how to post them.