Actual size? Or just an illusion?

Getting a feel on-site for how big the actual floor space will be.

On Friday, the builders completed clearing the site (although there is a hug mound of rubbish and soil to be removed). The whole site now feels quite large - the driveway is quite generous and the garden will be a nice manageble size too, although it will probably feel smaller once planted up.

The builders also spray painted the outline of house onto the ground on Friday, which was a massively exciting moment. Right up until I was able to take a look for myself - it seems tiny!!

For the last 4 years or so, the house has only existed on paper and within my head. I think I have looked at the drawings so often and spent so much time "wandering around" the house in my head, that the real size of the place has been lost. I don't seem to have a real feel for how big / small the place is going to be any more.

I was really excited to be able to walk up to the where the front door will be and "enter" the house. Walking around the layout and getting a feel for the dimensions was a very eye-opening experience as it all feels so much smaller than I had anticipated. Actually, it feels about half the size I had imagined! The kitched feels tiny and I can't imagine fitting 3 bedrooms and bathroom along the back wall. The dining and living area feels just about okay, although very compact.

The builders kept trying to reassure me that the sizing is quite decent and that the size of plot if very nice. I was sceptical but they told me that they'd worked on a plot of a similar size before, that had more than a dozen houses on!! Shocking!

Measuring Up

So tonight, to get a better feel for the sizes, and to hopefully put my mind at rest, we measured up the rooms in the rented bungalow and compared then with the drawings.

It turns out that most of the rooms in the new house, are going to be pretty much the same size (or even a little larger), which is very surprising given that the rented bungalow is 1970s and feels quite generous inside. Now I feel so much better about the whole thing.

I think with the right colour scheme in the new place and the fact there are going to be some large glazed areas (and roof lights too), it should hopefully feel very spacious when finished.

It just doesn't feel like it on-site at the moment. I know from watching people's reactions on these self-build TV programs, like Grand Designs, that people feel very differently about the size and space of their place, at differing points throughout their build. So, I should really know to expect the same thing with this project.