Buying a House in the UK: Part 2

It's been a minute since I have hopped on here to give an update on the house. Let's just say that my brain has been busy thinking and planning, but the outwardly the house mostly looks the same.

Here's a recap:

• We put an offer in on the house in October 2025
• Got the keys January 2026
• Hired an architect January 2026
• Architect helped us submit our planning application to the council February 2026
• Target decision date from the council: April 29 2026
• April 29 2026 - We did not hear anything yet from the council. The decision date pushed back to May 11.

After the original decision day had passed, our case officer from the council messaged our architect to say that they needed more information on the windows. Side note: we applied to use UPVC windows that are specially made to look like timber - normally in the conservation areas they require you to keep original features, ie timber windows. I am not opposed to timber, but they are MUCH more expensive and the upkeep is harder than UPVC, so we thought we should give it a shot and apply for the Timberlook style.

May 8, our planning officer said he would be willing to go ahead and approve our application that day if we would drop the UPVC windows and just do timber. If we wanted to continue to push for UPVC he would need to hand that part over to a conservation officer and we would continue to wait on a decision.

This was actually good news for us because we thought there would be kickback on a few other things we were applying to do - like install a heat pump on the side alley of the house. Ultimately we have decided to go ahead and pass the window issue onto the conservation officer, so we continue to wait. The target decision day is now May 18 but we haven't heard anything back so I'm not optimistic.

Needless to say, the fact that the original officer said he was going to approve everything else has given us the confidence to move forward with the project in some smaller ways. We have hired a structural engineer who will hopefully be starting his process this week. After those drawings are in, we can use them to give to the builder for a full cost quote before proceeding with the project. We can also hand out the party wall agreements to our neighbors.

We share a wall on both sides, so whenever you are doing major construction work that includes the party walls you are expected to give your neighbors these agreements that essentially protect you (and them) from any damage that could occur during the build. Any advice on how to deal with tricky neighbors would be much appreciated.

This past week, we gave our builder the go ahead to do a light strip out, so they came in and took out the flooring, doors, doorways, trim, built-in furniture, cabinets, and bathrooms. It was liberating to see the project get started, and honestly the little bit of work they did made a world of difference. A lot of the old, damp smell in the house is gone.

We will be having a landscaper come in a couple of weeks to completely clear the front and rear gardens. I can't wait to fill it with flowers and grass, maybe a swing set. I want to cover everything in wisteria; it smells magical this time of year.

That's the latest scoop on the house. As I have sat with the floorplan for 3 months now, there are a few internal changes I want to make so I will address that in another post. I'm curious to know your thoughts on laundry room placement.

Here's some pictures after the strip out this week!

This was the kitchen in the upstairs flat, but we will turn it into a bedroom.