AS many home-buyers who bought their dream house in the ‘race for space’ of 2020 have already discovered, finding an electrician, plumber, carpenter or builder to carry out even the simplest of repairs or renovations is currently the stuff of nightmares.
It’s a situation that will take time to resolve, says Liam Bailey, head of research at Knight Frank, who expects that ‘delays in the delivery of building materials and inflated building costs will continue to affect the market next year, with completion dates pushed forward, construction postponed or schemes put on hold. Delivery times for construction materials have increased sharply as supply chains struggle to keep pace with demand’.
The reverse side of the coin is that ‘oven-ready’ properties, especially historic or listed buildings that have been renovated to high standards of construction and design, will continue to command a premium in the coming year. Three fine historic houses currently on the market in sought-after areas of Hampshire and West Sussex will give discerning buyers the chance to test that premise in the run-up to Christmas.
The cathedral city of Winchester is rightly proud of its rich architectural heritage and its planning and conservation laws are among the strictest in the UK. But it’s all grist to the mill of Julian Long, managing director of Winchester-based Lonmer Construction, a family-owned firm of builders and designers that specialises in the renovation and rebuilding of listed urban and farm buildings.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der December 08, 2021-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der December 08, 2021-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
