I've been reading, and occasionally posting, on this forum over the past year. I enjoy looking at other people's projects and I suspect we are all the same, so I thought I'd introduce my project.

The house is in a conservation area the borough of Lewisham in SE London. We're re-instating half of a semi-detached house that was bombed during the war. The facade is going to be a replica of the original, but it is a bit more modern round the side and back. The location / orientation of the house is fixed which has produced some limitations in what we can do (e.g. south facing windows for solar gain are limited).

The house isn't as ambitious in terms of being 'green' as many on this forum, but with rain water harvesting, 3G windows, MVHR, insulation above building regs and some PV (if planning allow) I hope that it will be significantly better then a house done by the volume builders.

Here is the link to the planning application on the council website:
http://planning.lewisham.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=_LEWIS_DCAPR_73048

This post is of course prelude to me asking more questions. The first of which is quite likely in the next couple of days.

If you have any questions or comments about the house let me know.

Hello Richard

Welcome.

I'd love to hear about the history of the plot, and how you came by it.

It always fascinates me how these plots in London manage to stay unbuilt-on for decades and decades, when they have such high values and there is allegedly a chronic housing shortage down there.

Ferdinand

Tony said:

''There is no plot!''

As I read it, I thought there was. The OP says:


''We're *re-instating* (my *emphasis*) half of a semi-detached house that was bombed during the war.''

Here's a quick history of the site:
- The area was farming land until the 1870s / 1880s when Victorian developers started building in the area

- I haven't been able to pin down the exact details, but I believe a bomb landed over the road taking out that house and causing irreparable damage to the semi detached on the plot I now own. The WW2 Bomb Census says the bomb fell sometime between, 7th October 1940 and 6th June 1941

- A shocker of a 1950s house was then built. It was only two stories joined onto a three storey neighbour next door and looked very ugly

- In 2006 someone bought the land and applied for planning permission to demolish the 1950s and build a building that would be of similar proportion to the neighbours but divided into four flats

- Between 2006 and 2008 a couple of different applications went in for a single dwelling house instead of the four flats. However, none of the planning applications were acted upon. The 1950s house was demolished sometime during this period

- At the start of 2013 I did some research via the Land Registry and Companies house to find out who owned the plot and wrote to them asking if they'd be willing to sell. Much to my surprise they got back straight away and asked me to make an offer. Buying the land was a bit of a slow process taking six months, but I finally bought the land in June 2013

I thought I'd give a quick update on my project. After a few unanticipated problems getting the foundations in (building on top of two former houses isn't ideal) we are now approaching first floor level.

As I've been asking a few questions about my project on the forum recently I thought I'd upload a more recent picture of the project. The walls are now complete, roof timbers have started going on and most of the windows are due to be delivered this week.