In the beginning...

The house South/West elevations 2015

Original drawing from 1967/8 West elevation

Original drawing from 1967/8 South elevation

In the the beginning there was a house - designed by Architect Eirikur Walton of Brown and Buttrick Scunthorpe and built in 1968.  When I say designed, I mean designed, as every detail of this then state of the art 1960s home was designed and drawn by the architect - even the fire guards! 

Original drawing for detail of fire screen

We are fortunate to have the original documents, a veritable archive, including artist's impressions, the architect's annotated drawings and the bill of quantities so we know every aspect of the construction and details of all the finishes that were used. 

.....and here is a picture of the house today in its slightly faded glory - for example the single glazed garden room is collapsing and leaking badly and some of the original single glazed windows and the cladding have been replaced by UPVC.

Front entrance 2015

So...with the help of Century Architects, plans have been hatched to bring this lovely home, in its fabulous setting, into the 21st century without losing its mid-century feel. 

There are a few guiding principles for this work - 'Reduce, Re-use, Recycle' and sensitivity to the original design.

First, Reduce - we want to make this house as energy efficient as we can - it has an existing very new and efficient oil fired boiler for the heating and hot water and the aim is to keep it, but get its use down to an absolute minimum by wrapping the house in insulation and aiming for a pretty airtight envelope. We also want to replace lighting with LED and look for energy efficiencies where we can.  Solar PV has been ruled out in the short term because of uncertainties about the tariff.  More about all of this as we go on as there are so many things to consider when doing a retrofit rather than new build...

Secondly, there are some great features and fittings in this house and we don't want to get rid of them so Recycle and Re-use where we can. We hope to sell/give away some of the things that we don't need to keep and have already taken quite a lot of things, like blinds curtain poles and curtains, to charity shops.

Finally, sensitivity to the design - and this links with the last point as this is not an exercise in ripping out all that wonderful 1960s period interior but rather using and adapting it to fit with today's lifestyle. 

Well this week the builders arrived and the project has begun...but more about that in my next post.