Converting the Barn…

Anyone who thinks that getting Planning Permission is easy, hasn’t tried it recently! And certainly barns are no longer favoured by the Planners.

Indeed, we spent several unsuccessful years trying to develop plans that would satisfy them.

Luckily, we met Tim over at Brooks Architects and he’s a well-known Heritage specialist who turned out to be an absolute star. A wonderful chap who went above and beyond for us, and really put an awesome plan together. In particular…

  • It’s already a big barn, but Tim proposed restoring the original L footprint (and the Planners agreed). Thus, the approved plans include renovation and conversion of the existing barn, together with a new-build extension.

  • It has its very own Batcave! Not like Wayne Manor’s, but an upscale pied-a-terre for our endangered Suffolk bats.

  • The barn conversion sits in its own land (the front orchard, and the gable end moat, about 2 acres STS), which means you could, potentially, physically and/or legally separate it.

  • We’re all impressed with his stunning full-height Great Room. This is full of light as he kept the original high barn door opening, but double-glazed with big new shutters… and with similar glazing opposite it, over the exposed timber frame.

  • The cosy gable-end sitting room with wood-burning stove has french doors opening on to the moat.

Overall, it has the potential to be a spectacular barn conversion, and a very desirable luxury 4/5 bed residence. Just from looking at the plans, it’s hard to visualize how big it really is. However, once the barn plans were approved, and Full Planning Permission granted, I commissioned architectural renders. You can see them here.

And I generated a 3D fly-thru/fly-round video (on YouTube) which I think is rather nifty. I confess that poor Tim is a little horrified, as I’m one of those Secret Modernists who’s taken some Bleedin’ Liberties with the (non-native) external vegetation, and gussied up the moat. And then been rather liberal with my use of LED lights and hyper-modern interiors. I think Tim would definitely prefer a more subdued, heritage-appropriate finish!

I reckon this kind of large, architecturally-designed barn conversion is in Grand Designs territory. There are a bunch of upscale Suffolk (and Norfolk) barn conversions available, and many of the recent ones, are £1.2m-£1.5m, especially if they have a bit of land. The key question, I guess, is how much you’d spend building it. I don’t know, but I’d be shocked if 500k didn’t get you a bloody long way towards it (especially with a hearty dollop of Kevin McCloud’s famous “sweat equity“.



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