Setting out to build a healthy and energy-efficient property, Nicola Jones and Paul Rea have created a comfortable, awardwinning 21st century home

WORDS KATHERINE SORRELL PHOTOS ANDREW WALL

Patience is always a virtue when it comes to self building, and this was certainly the case for Paul Rea and Nicola Jones, whose desire to create a new sustainable home took 13 years to come to fruition. “We were positioned in a hamlet but found our lives centred on the village nearby, which had all the facilities we needed and was where most of our friends were,” says Paul. “We decided to find a plot there, somewhere with a larger garden. However, every time we looked for a site at auction or through an agent, there was always a developer who was prepared to pay more to put multiple dwellings there instead of one self built home. After 10 years we were finally able to buy this patch of land; the recession meant developers had less money available.”

With their combined experience and interest in sustainable transport and renewable energy, Paul and Nicola were determined for their new abode to be as low-impact and energy efficient as possible. “We’d made all the environmental improvements we could to our previous property, and wanted to take our ideas to a new house to prove they could be achieved,” says Paul. “We hadn’t self built before, but I’d added an extension, using the skills of friends.”

Planning complications

Their next hurdle was achieving planning consent for their sensitive site that was surrounded by trees. Paul and Nicola intended to build a house that would look similar to the adjacent 19th century, twostorey houses. They designed a three-bedroom home with a lounge- diner, but the planners insisted it needed to appear to be a bungalow from the rear in order to complement a 1950s property several doors down the street. The compromise was to build into the roof, with only a small upstairs window on that side.