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Our site is situated in a small wooded area of around 10 acres on the outskirts of Tarves near Ellon in Aberdeenshire. Our family run small coach company from the part of the site which at one time was a quarry!
With Jen's parents nearing retiring age and wanting to take a back seat as it were, we decided around three years ago to apply for planning permision to build a house in a natural clearing in the wood so Jen could be more hands on with the business.

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We previously stayed around 1.5 miles away at the other end of the village and found that we were continuoulsy running back and fore when problems arose and it seemed that building our home in the woodland behind our yard ticked all the right boxes.



We wanted a house that would fit in it's surroundings, almost become invisible from the road, and felt an off the shelf kit from one of our local kit manufacturers wouldn't do the site justice, so we put together a small wish list and enlisted a local architect to come up with a design, which was largly the image used in the header of this website.
We identified a natural clearing in the wood, which meant minimum felling of trees and little disruption to habitat. We were directly beside an electric line and would fed off a private water supply so services would be easy!




As it is a sloping site we wanted to make use of the different levels, we wanted the house to reflect a modern eco friendly home without going over the top, and as aforementioned wanted it to compliment the surrounding in which it would be built.

So site clearing began, and a new road was made from an existing forestry track from the bus yard to the site. We were very fortunate that a local farmer, who was a family friend, was in the middle of planting tatties and so we were able to relieve him of the stones and land gatherings from his fields which formed a great foundation for our new driveway.

Once the road was complete we had to get our caravan on site which was a fun morning.......

With the site cleared, the caravan in place, and supplied with water and electricity it was then a waiting game through the winter until a suitable kit manufacturer had been decided upon and building warrant had been applied for!

During this time we set about doing all our research into heating, cladding, windows, kit manufacturers, bathrooms, kitchens, roof slates, you name it we've researched it! Point being, you can never read enough, ask enough questions, speak to enough people about self building and thier experiences. Allow yourself plenty time to get if not everything, most things sorted out into some sort of plan because if you don't time flies away in front of you and before you know it, there has been mistakes, you may have forgotten about a specific requirement you may want in your build and it will be too late!

Our experience of this was noteably our kitchen! We had specific ideas about what we wanted and a fair idea of sizes, but by the time we had made the decisions and started to visit kitchen and bathroom suppliers our kit was ordered and the kitchen space turned slightly smalled than we required to allow us to have exactly the kitchen we wanted!
Moral of the story.......Its never too early to start thinking about all the aspects of your build, design your main rooms from the inside so that when you order your kit, you do have the space and dimensions you require, and most importantly don't think you have plenty time to worry about any issue, however big or small, because the small issues can turn into big problems!

Thanks to Jim(dad) as ever, for his expertise with the digger (although i'm sure he loved every minute in his big yellow toy...), Ryan for all his help gatherin stanes oot o' the parks! Daniel and loren for all their help, and Ian Cook, our local farmer for the loan of his tractor and cart, and the stones from his park, without whom we would have really struggled!