leave their buyers with plenty of garden. So they planned a house they could slot into the space. However, the Upshons’ house had to have a
split personality; on the one hand, it needed to be cosy for the couple while providing an office for Laurie and a craft workshop for Heidi, but on the other hand, they wanted space for the occasions when their children and grandchil- dren descended upon them. It certainly meant cramming a lot into a house with only a 110m2
footprint. The answer was LAURIE AND HEIDI UPSHON
Before they applied for planning permission to build on their plot – a chunk of what had been Laurie and Heidi Upshon’s back garden – they knew their neighbours in the Cotswold location wouldn’t appreciate a sprawling home or a third floor towering over them. So to get the space they wanted, they dug downwards. Laurie and Heidi had moved into a period
property with a huge garden in 2002 and loved the old house. But simply managing the garden with its productive vegetable plot and fruit trees was becoming a chore by 2008 and the couple decided they’d look at a low-main- tenance lifestyle. The plot wasn’t a problem – the huge garden
had an overgrown wilderness corner, which cleared, they felt would be ideal and would still
to build downwards. Houses with basements are commonplace in Heidi’s native Austria, and indeed across mainland Europe, so Heidi had no doubts it could be achieved. All they needed was a builder they could trust to do the work. “We’re by no means tree-hugging greens,”
Heidi told Selfbuilder & Homemaker. “But we wanted a simple and low-cost lifestyle and from what we could see, a pre-engineered, timber- framed home was the way to go.” The Upshons looked at all the suppliers, even
visiting a European home show, but eventually narrowed their choice to four potential compa- nies: “We felt it was important to use a supplier with experience of building in the UK because of the need to understand our regulations,” said Heidi. “Eventually, we settled on Hanse Haus, simply because they seemed more on the ball.” One ‘flat pack’ home supplier, she said, had even failed to return calls. But that still left the problem of who they’d choose to build the basement.
...continued on page 21
LOUNGE, DINING ROOM AND KITCHEN ARE COMBINED, IDEAL FOR ENTERTAINING
HEIDI’S BASEMENT WORKSHOP,
COMPLETE WITH ‘DAYLIGHT’ LIGHTING, IS AN IDEAL PLACE FOR QUIET STUDY
selfbuilder & homemaker
www.sbhonline.eu
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