What made this more disappointing was the fact that we thought we’d found an architect that understood us, the house and the vision. The architect even came to stay with us for a few days to measure up and talk through the ideas, and while i “think” ultimately we got what we asked for (plans of how the building is now) we really thought we were starting a relationship that was going to continue as the house grew into our home, so when things fell flat it was a major personal blow to us both.

Time came and went and plans didn’t materialize however 50% upfront payment was made so we hung in there. Heated words were often exchanged in our house and tensions were running high. Months after due date and with me basically on my way to the guys house drawings arrived. I say drawings and not plans as the drawings are missing some key parts (as I’m now painfully aware….need i say “bathroom”). But onwards and upwards.

I’m a HUGE believer in the power of the internet and am now turning to the online communities to break out of the traditional mold and challenge people to think openly. We have the basic layout and the files are in digital format and are looking to post them in some architect forums to let people run wild with their own personal vision of what the house could be like.

Now we are fully aware and expect some of the ideas, layouts and designs to be far fro our taste or practical for that matter but somewhere in there we are hoping to find some true inspiration and someone we’ll choose to work with closer before we then get the plans finally looked at by a French architect.

So in time i’ll post the raw drawings and CAD files on here for you all the play with (they are in ArchiCAD so you’ll need to do some converting) but for now i’m just going to go over and measure the sides of the house again and let the internet hopefully throw some interesting inspiration out way..

UPDATE : We are getting some excellent idea’s thrown out at us from people at ELance and some great feedback from the Architect community on what we should have done BEFORE we got anything drawn up ( or not ) and i’ll be approving all these comments shortly and will try and do a full write-up with the help of these contributors as advice to others before they find themselves down a blind alley like we have.

THANK YOU ALL

I KNOW I am as shocked as you are and later we will go into all the trouble we have had but to get a first round of drawings through is very exciting for us so we thought we’d share them with you.

I’ll go into more details later as well as show you the scribbles over the current drawings with plans of what we are looking to do.

Today we must say is a huge releaf as we paid out and thought we would never see these.

I will publish all the views and files we have shortly. Along with a full writeup and explantion of what these refer to and out plans for that section. In the mean time if you click the image it will take you to the Flickr page so you can see the other images and these full size.

As you can see from the photo on the right the “Grange” is missing some shutters and this is causing loss of tiles on the roof during storms and in the past has lead to complete loss of the roof (this is something we are keen to avoid again as you can imagine) so the task was simple, find a shutter builder to quote on replacing the shutters on the grange and on the house to for good measure.

Number of shutters needed : 9
Number of shutters actually quoted for : 6

Number of doors needed : 2
Number of doors quoted for : 1

Number of windows needed : 0
Number of windows quoted : 3 (he actually missed a whole window)

Now that’s not all. Before I give you the price I need to explain that this quote took 3 MONTHS to arrive. It actually arrived the night BEFORE we were due to arrive for a weeks renovation, it did however come with a nice note to say that he could complete the work in September for €6,000… Needless to say I went bonkers, this wasn’t just ineptitude and laziness (getting the quote wrong) it was down right insulting. If he didn’t want to do the work then he should have just said so and we would have started down our DIY route earlier.

So we went from a quote for 9 shutters, no windows, 2 doors to 6 shutters, 1 door and 3 windows.. Time to get down to Weldom and buy some wood I think and that is exactly what we decided to do.

See the post HERE on how we ended up building the shutters for the grange and the house. They may not be professional but they will see us through this winter and cost a whole lot less. Sometimes you really are better off doing things yourself. I fear this is going to be our renovation moto.