When Martin and Kelly Guest bought their plot and the property residing there which now sits next door to their newly built oak frame home, they had no idea of the potential they were about to unlock.

Finding the perfect plot

“It was marketed as one property by the agents,” explains Martin. “It had, at times, been subdivided into two and, at other times, it had been used as just one house. We had planned to live in one part and rent out the other, but until we saw the deeds, we hadn’t realised that what we were buying in 2001 was legally two separate dwellings.”

Initially Martin and Kelly thought nothing of this; it took some time for them to appreciate that they had purchased a site where a replacement dwelling was a possibility (and one where they could stay in their existing home while the building work was undertaken.)

In 2003, the Guests approached a local Architect and together put in a planning application to demolish one of their two properties and build a large house within their grounds. The planners seemed surprisingly relaxed about this and were happy to accept a 30% enlargement, and as the site is quite isolated, there were no neighbours to object. So, instead of getting involved in a lengthy planning battle, they simply had to decide what to build on their plot of land.

Choosing to build with oak

Martin had spent many years working as a carpenter and had already decided their site was suitable for an oak framed home. So, they initially put in a design for a Dutch barn-style house with a mansard roof. This was the one feature the planners didn’t appreciate and so they resubmitted their plans with a more conventional pitched roof. With planning permission granted, they were ready to start, but first needed to sell one of the houses they had bought back in 2001 in order to float their home building project. This held matters up as there was a dispute over a shared access arrangement which took nine months to resolve.

During this period, Martin began approaching oak frame suppliers with a view to obtaining quotes.

“I originally looked at building the oak frame myself but soon realised the amount of work required, so I decided to look for an experienced business which could also offer a structural warranty,” says Martin. “I met and got on really well with Tim Crump and went over to their workshop in Hereford, where I liked what I saw.”

Key design decisions

Martin and Kelly’s oak frame home is designed in an American style, with the posts and beams entirely enclosed within a timber clad wall. The first job was to bolt CLS (Canadian lumber sizes) timber onto their oak frame to build up the external walls.

“All the external timber was chosen for its quality and durability,” explains Martin. “The western red cedar cladding is about four times more expensive than pine, but it has a life expectancy of 60 years untreated. All the other external timber is hardwood using either oak or iroko.

All the Guests’ joinery was made by a friend Martin had met at college years ago, where they both studied carpentry and joinery. Their friend has his own workshop where he also made their staircases. Additionally, another family member helped with Martin and Kelly’s carpentry.

From an interior design perspective, Kelly was the inspiration when it came to all the finishes.

“She chose all the bathrooms, the kitchen, granite worktops, tiles and the colour schemes, and she decorated the house,” smiles Martin.

Having trained as an energy assessor, Martin has a keen interest in new building techniques and energy efficiency and employed several different methods in the construction of their oak frame house.

“I would thoroughly recommend using a self-levelling floor screed,” says Martin. “It is pumped into the house and has the consistency of soup, so you have to make sure the plastic membrane it is poured onto has no holes, especially on a block and beam floor, which we have here. It was finished in a matter of hours and was dead level the next day.”

“ Oakwrights were great to work with… „

Martin Guest

Self-building with the support of family and friends

It wasn’t until October 2004 that work began on Martin and Kelly’s plot, with their oak frame arriving in December.

“Oakwrights were great to work with,” says Martin. “Just five months from the first contact with them, the oak frame arrived on-site and was erected in seven working days. All of a sudden, we had a post and beam shell that looked out of this world!”

As far as Martin and Kelly were concerned, the frame erection only marked the beginning of their labours: it took a further 22 months to finish the house. Having said this, there is a strong family and community feel about this self-build, as many of the people that worked on their project were either related to Martin and Kelly or had known them since childhood.

“I had my brother-in-law and a young lad helping me for much of the time, but nevertheless I ended up undertaking a huge part of the work myself,” says Martin.

Overall, the project went about 10% over the Guests’ budget; something that doesn’t bother Martin too much.

“We put a lot of money into buying quality fittings throughout. We have Fermacell board instead of ordinary plasterboard: it’s much heavier and is great for soundproofing. Also, things like having the brickwork done using a Flemish bond with white cement gives the house an older, more weathered look. It must have worked because we recently had it valued and the estate agent asked me when I finished the barn conversion, which made me smile,” concludes Martin.