For those of you who watch those programmes where unqualified people suddenly decide to build a house that they design themselves out of old paint tins. They then manage the project claiming it will be built on schedule in 10 days or similar, (Grand Designs?) I am sure you have realised there is a subplot. This subplot is that most people who make these moves end up loosing their shirt-the show presenter (Mcleod?) did it recently himself. Any way that is not the point.
A number of years ago now for a series of reasons I cannot now justify, on any level, I employed an Irish architect, who it turned out not to be one. Well my request to him to help us remodel an existing property resulted in the development of a plan that would have been at home in Cape Canaveral- or where ever it is they make space rockets. It is now my family home and yes I love it but there are days when the pain of the process of its construction come to my mind and I shudder. The aforementioned ‘architect’, before I sacked him along with awful threats that I could not believe I was saying at the time, led us to believe that our ‘spaceship’ could be constructed for a given figure. It was all worked out, cost per square metre, percentage contingent fund, optional extras, the lot. Ha the numbers were rubbish!
The day I arrived at our house to see no roof, no windows, loads of half demolished walls and a gang of young labourers working away caused me to consult exactly where we were up to. I felt very uneasy . I sacked the project manager and his team on the spot-see later- and I sacked the ‘Irishman’ too, he wasn’t an architect as you now know now.
Calculations were done and the very bad news was that with all the on costs left in the demolition of the existing shell we had already passed our budget for the ‘whole project’. I will not explain just how we picked the Irishman but we did and all the rest is history.
Two good friends who are ‘master builders’ came to our rescue. One of the first problems we faced was the fact that the ‘demolition team’ had removed the supporting structures that held up the road alongside our house and a particular foundation for the main supporting part of the whole structure had been ‘overlooked”.
Nightmare. Liz and I worked late into the night under torchlight trying to put some metal siding sheets in place to stop the road falling in! No good the road was beginning to show signs of cracking.
Matt and Barry (our builders and great mates) announced the need to properly excavate the hole and after digging footings etc (to support a bridge like structure) we would need to fill everything back in to road level.
Yellow pages and a man arrived. Shy, almost retiring but with great references. ‘I am in the JCB display team’ he informed me, ‘so is my wife!?) – (He was and so was she we checked)
Now this was to be a big hole and although I knew the power of JCBS his final figure of £15,000 estimate actually seemed reasonable at the time. At eight the following morning he was there. Descended from its low loader the beast got to work. I do not have a picture of the hole but it was huge. Pillings inserted the soil that had been taken off in trucks the previous day returned, minus a handling charge of ‘quite a lot’!.
Over a coffee I got talking to Mr JCB and not only was he very nice but amazingly open. ‘I have great recommendations you see he said’ “‘in general most people are scared of demolition and the like and have little idea how to price it”. ‘Only last month I won a contract to demolish a primary school.” We priced the job and told the contractors it would take ‘the men’ between two and three weeks to do the job” “in fact my wife and I did it in three days”. “25 grand for the job” ” What is more the people were so delighted how tidy we were etc they have promised to recommend us to anyone who asked.” I was now very curious as the man ‘unpeeled the orange’. He had a home in a prestigious area he gave me a website address of ‘the best family pub in the world’. This pub was his ‘hobby’, he owned it and he told me quite simply without any boast or embarrassment. ” Most people would look at me standing there in my yellow work wear and think mmm a JCB driver. This JCB driver is a millionaire” !!
Tales of a Life Well Lived 