The Church already had planning permission when we acquired it.
However, the existing permission did not match our requirements, so early on we applied for, and successfully varied the existing permission to include two critical new basement roof lights as part of the works. In addition during the process we also separately applied for a new design of roof slating - in a 'fish tail' design - this permission was refused, much to Jackie's annoyance!
Following on from this, building regulations approval was managed through a private firm who reviewed & approved the plans, checked progress, carried out regular inspections and issued a completion certificate.
We estimate that we brought about 40 tons of materials onto the site including:
* 300 sheets of plasterboard from Lafarge
* 125 sheets of Kingspan insulation
* 10 tons of ceramic tiles (floor, wall and victorian) from British Ceramic Tiles
* 1.5 tons of grout/ adhesives from Norcros
* 40 ‘bales’ of Rockwool insulation
Best estimates are that about the same tonnage of waste materials was generated with as much being recycled and reused as possible.
We used new Victorian tiles in the master bedroom, master bathroom and in the kitchen. In the 3D kitchen design alone there are over 1150 individual ceramic tiles, each laid individually by hand. Ian and Neil laid them, and they were the first floor tiles they had ever laid!
The whole of the lower area of the building was waterproofed with a swiss waterproofing compound called Vandex plus Kingspan composite insulated plasterboard. In addition all of the external walls and and roofs (apart from the historic main church lounge walls which were newly lime plastered) were fully insulated. New bronze church style replacement double glazed windows to match the existing pattern were fitted.
There were three areas of glass flooring. The main glass floor in the lounge area comprises four sections of glass 40mm thick, with a clear span of 1.7m and no intermediate beams. Total weight 0.75 tons. There is a glazed slot of 34mm thick glass panel in the kitchen area about 1.8m long that enables a view from the top to bottom of the Church and sets off the double height original stone arch. There is also a smaller square piece of glass 1m square enabling light to flow down from the 'sky lounge' in to the dining room area. Elsewhere in the lounge, there is solid oak floor with a 'four quadrant' design.
The ceiling with its vivid colours has panels going from dark to light, with six shades of emerald green and 750 individually stencilled gold stars. Painted by Mark Cox (Mark-el-angelo!). He did a perfect job of all that, six metres up a scaffolding tower...!
The column and wall panels (approximately 125 individually shaped pieces) were made of factory computer (CNC) cut in a Torquay workshop and sprayed MDF, done locally in a car repair workshop. The kitchen is a bespoke design with MDF cupboards and a natural slate worktop to fit within the overall design of the Church.
The roof was fully renovated, insulated and re-slated with Penrhyn and Ffestiniog reclaimed Welsh slates in a faint striped pattern on top of a super-insulated new roof structure.