The Kennels
Before the Build

The Kennels, as we lived in for a number of years until I said that I was going over to Old Orchard and wasn't coming home! I couldn't take it any longer! We had made do with the property whilst we went about getting planning permission but it just took so long to do and so many refusals. We had wanted to build further back into the two acre plot but that was refused. We wanted to build a substantially large 4 bedroom house (before the 2008 crash) but that was refused. 

Eventually we got fed up with trying and looked at selling The Kennels and buying another property elsewhere, even though we liked where this house stood. We had a few builders who tried it on to get us to accept a ridiculously low price, we said 'no' then. We had a chap who said he wasn't a builder and offered us a fair price but he then tried several tactics to get us to drop the price, right up to getting paperwork signed, and then he had two solicitors trying to arrange the sale. Our solicitor, rightly, suggested that we call off the sale. Start again!

One weekend we spent the two days visiting homes that were for sale that we thought we might be interested in. Nothing on the Saturday but on the Sunday we found a house we felt really comfortable in and loved the layout. Unfortunately it wasn't in a n ideal location for me to get to London for work but we decided to go for it anyway and sort out the work issue later. We placed an offer on it and it was accepted. 

A day later the agent phoned us and said that the owners had taken it off the market as they couldn't agree where to go so were staying where they were! I was so fed up I started looking at new build homes, something we hadn't considered before because I like a house with character, although Ray also wanted something that was low maintenance. Through research online though I amazingly came across a builder who was building new homes to exactly the design of the home we had just lost. I called Ray to come and have a look. A new home but looking like an old Suffolk house with what looked like an add-on built later. Delightful. We contacted the building company and, long story short, this led to a home being built for us to roughly the same design as the one we had made an offer on but was in the wrong location. We'd lost out on that but now had one being built for us on the land that we already owned. Serendipity, I'd say.