SUSTAINABILITY
Along with triple-glazed windows, the walls, floor and zinc-clad aluminium roof are super-insulated, with all exceeding the minimum requirements of Building Regulations
DAVID’S ADVICE
“We bought almost all the materials ourselves, rather than asking our contractors to obtain them for us. If you have the time, and are reasonably confident at talking to suppliers, this will save you money as there will be no mark-up added on.”
the boys are not blaming each other, saying, ‘it’s his fault, he should/shouldn’t have done this.’” As well as taking charge of sourcing almost all the building supplies himself, visiting local quarries for instance, and haggling hard, David did all the internal painting, helped by Deanna. Most of the walls are light stone, boosting the already copious amounts of natural daylight which make the internal spaces both airy and calm. It took several coats to cover the sand and cement render, used in place of standard plaster as one of the careful measures to keep costs under control. Deanna describes the interior décor scheme as “contemporary classic”. She admits she found it quite hard to come up with a look that felt both comfortable and fitting to the house’s ultra-modern aspects, such as the over-sized doors and streamlined kitchen and bathroom fittings: “When I first thought about it, I thought that oranges and greys would work, but then I decided that I wanted something with a bit more warmth, which is how we came to have soft colours such as plums, taupe and creams. I’m very pleased with the way it’s turned out now – not ultra-modern, quite classic.” David is especially proud of his ingenious solution for hanging the curtains Deanna wanted up at the windows – to add texture to the room schemes and privacy. “I thought, I love the simple look but it’s easily going to look too modern and stark,” she explains. “And then I thought, I’m not going to be too comfortable without curtains. I considered shutters, but because the windows are so big they would
september/october 2019
have been too heavy. We fitted pleated paper blinds upstairs, but I definitely wanted curtains downstairs.”
However, there was a problem. The full-height window frames finish on the ceiling. David stepped in and took advantage of the six-inch void in the suspended ceiling above, creating an internal ‘box’ which not only housed the curtain track but allowed for the installation of LED lights, which cast a cosy glow downward in the evenings.
It all adds to the ambience of what is obviously a very well-loved home. “What we really like to see now is the perspective when we stand in the garden at the back,” says Deanna. “You hardly ever see your house from this angle, but we liked the view so much – with the sky reflected in the glass – that we decided to build a summer house at the end of the garden in the same style as the main house, so we can spend time in there just appreciating what we have done.”
It is indeed no easy feat to create a home which minimises carbon emissions, taps into natural resources and is a comfortable environment to live in and enjoy – and is future-proofed, with its owners in mind. Add the fact that this project achieved all this, and set interesting design parameters in its Fenland village setting, all for a very reasonable build cost of £350,000, and it is no wonder that David and Deanna are delighted with the end product of taking that first step over the fence.
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