Chigwell: a £3.6m home, designed and built as one project

Craig Bellamy (Madisons): I think that professionally I would like to have a reputation that is one where it’s held in the highest regard because of the amount of lives we’ve changed. Well, I come from a really close family. We always spent a lot of time together, and we still do, which is nice. I think family values is nice, and I think you do learn a lot from people that bring you up, you know, and it’s your ethics, the way you perform, to make sure you turn up.

Andrew Sheeley (RocHaus Architects): We’ll walk through the client’s brief, what they want to achieve. We’ll pose questions, importantly, about how they see themselves living in the space later on, because a lot of clients approach it with a layperson mentality: I just want an extension, I just want it to be as big as possible.

Craig Bellamy: A master builder is classed for someone that can not only do the work themselves, as in all the trades that are being used on site, which I can, and I have done over the last 30 years, is to be able to instruct other people to do it, to the ability that you feel that you can create yourself. Basically, yes.

Andrew Sheeley: We ask questions that probe a little bit deeper. You know, we want to find out how they want to use the space. Why do they think they want to go as large as they do? What’s the point? You know, do they do yoga in the morning looking over the garden, or do they like 30 person roast dinners on a Sunday? You know, what’s it look like to live in that space? And we kind of pull out of the client, we tease out, and we layer up above their basic needs what their actual desires are for the property and how they want to live in it after.

Craig Bellamy: If I was the customer and I was looking at builders, I would look for, A, who I feel I can communicate with, who I feel can offer me the best product at the end, who looks like someone that’s going to look after you.

Andrew Sheeley: A lot of clients aren’t familiar with running through the tender process, dealing with builders, dealing with the psychology of builders versus their needs and how to manage that, as well as then helping them get to the contract side of things and then running the project on site. So we really position ourselves so the client can have as little or as much of a service as they may want.

Craig Bellamy: What I offer to the client is, like I said to you previously, is different to what somebody else’s approach might be. So I’d like to sit down with a customer, I’d like to try and, it’s almost like I try to download their brain, what they want to feel at the end, and then try and create that throughout the process, as well as, rather than just bricks, mortar and paint. We build lifestyles, not houses.

The family arriving at the finished house: Surprise! [inaudible] all be feeding the family, watching footy.

Owner (man): We went through a process again with Andrew where we interviewed seven different building contractors, and it was a tiring day asking the same questions. The minute Craig walked in the door, he’s a bit of me. I get his humour, he gets mine. We’re going to get on like a house on fire. And I’ve watched a lot of Andrew’s podcasts that he’s done, where he’s specifically spoken about things that we should look for, and Craig just ticked all those boxes. And I’m not saying that because he’s done a great job, but I think with both of them we’ve definitely got friends for life. And Craig, he’s a character, but a good one, and he’s given ideas along the way. He’s changed things without even telling us, just knowing what we’d want, and upgraded certain materials that he’s used off his own back. He’s made a saving here, put it somewhere else.

Craig Bellamy: [inaudible] work really hard to earn money, and you want to make sure that the money that you’re spending is, you’re obtaining the best value for that money possible.

Andrew Sheeley: Oh, I didn’t realise I could have that. I didn’t realise that was possible, or I never thought to do that. That’s really given me something that’s now getting my juices going.

Owner (woman): We just threw out so many ideas, as crazy as they were, and then had Andrew drawing up and taking our ideas in, putting it all together and showing us who it is, and it was amazing.

Andrew Sheeley: A lot of clients come into building work and they see it as the stress it is. It’s building work, right? It’s not easy when you’re spending your life savings, or what is equivalent to life savings, on a project.

Owner (man): Well, he had a good process. So he said at the beginning, think about every single room you would possibly want in the house, and then tell me what you’re going to do with it. The house is much better than it was even planned to be, and that’s down to him, and Craig and Andrew putting the heads together. And they’ve challenged each other constant. They don’t just sit there and nod and agree with each other. They debate things, they talk about pros and cons. And Andrew is a wealth of knowledge. He may, on his business card, say architect, but he’s way more than that. He knows everything inside out from start to finish, and he’s challenged Craig, and likewise Craig’s challenged back, and it’s been a good team effort.

Owner (man), to his daughter: What’s your favourite part of the house? Daughter: My room. Owner (man): Why? Daughter: Because I love it.

The words spoken in the film, by Craig, Andrew Sheeley of RocHaus Architects and the owners; one stray word is removed and a few words that cannot be made out are marked.