HOMEOWNERS Spencer and Emma Guy, with their children James and Olivia
LOCATION Buckinghamshire
SIZE 270m2 (plus 100m2 garage)
BUILD ROUTE DIY
CONSTRUCTION Cross laminated timber
BUILD TIME Five years
PLOT COST £400,000
BUILD COST £450,000
VALUE £1.5million (estimated)
Living on site is not for the faint-hearted, but Spencer and Emma Guy have most certainly proved their mettle by living in a work-in-progress self-build for more than 10 years.
CONSIDERED CLADDING
The cladding wasn't added to the house until the family had been living in the house for four years. Local clay bricks were used for the base, with black-painted larch timber boards above. A large balcony extends from the master suite and creates a patio pergola.
Their journey first started in 2007, when their abstract idea to move out of London, where they worked and had renovated a terraced house, changed into a firm plan for a new lifestyle outside of the city. "We're both architects and we've always wanted to build a house,"," begins Spencer Guy, founder of Levitate Architects. "We started to think a bit more seriously about moving to the countryside so we began looking on plot finding sites. We're both from Yorkshire so wanted somewhere north of London and a plot came up in Buckinghamshire in 2009, so we went to have a look at it."
This story is from the June 2022 edition of Homebuilding & Renovating.
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This story is from the June 2022 edition of Homebuilding & Renovating.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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