During the summer of 2007 Simon and I took the time to do some market research into the holiday lodge market in the North of England and it quickly became apparent that most holiday lodges were essentially mobile homes with various degrees of cladding on the outside and maybe a bit of decking tagged on for good luck. The "posh" ones usually had a hot tub outside... yuk! Very little imagination seemed to be going into the design of either the lodges themselves or the settings. Whilst one or two lodge parks were better than most it seemed there was a bit of a gap for something more imaginative and elegant.
We decided early on that we would start with a blank sheet of paper and design every element from scratch. We wanted to build lodges which would be sensibly eco friendly, easy to build, practical to live in and look stunning. Simon came up with lots of ideas which we hashed around until eventually it just seemed right. Once were comfortable with the basic concept we got to work on the detailed specification and the plan slowly came together.
We then had to decide how to make the project come to life, we considered many options and concluded that we wanted to manufacture the buildings ourselves, no easy task but it would give us complete control over the quality and lots of flexibility to make changes as we went forward. We identified a manufacturer of glu-lam frames and then set up our own small manufacturing unit on a farm nearby to make the timber frame panels. Ben Bennett, a timber frame expert specialising in holiday lodges was drafted in to mastermind this process, he would take care of the erection of the lodges.
Once the shell of the building was up we could then bring in trades to fit them out, starting with insulation, dry lining, and plastering, then fitting windows, floors, doors kitchens and bathrooms. We had a plan and we were on our way...
We decided early on that we would start with a blank sheet of paper and design every element from scratch. We wanted to build lodges which would be sensibly eco friendly, easy to build, practical to live in and look stunning. Simon came up with lots of ideas which we hashed around until eventually it just seemed right. Once were comfortable with the basic concept we got to work on the detailed specification and the plan slowly came together.
We then had to decide how to make the project come to life, we considered many options and concluded that we wanted to manufacture the buildings ourselves, no easy task but it would give us complete control over the quality and lots of flexibility to make changes as we went forward. We identified a manufacturer of glu-lam frames and then set up our own small manufacturing unit on a farm nearby to make the timber frame panels. Ben Bennett, a timber frame expert specialising in holiday lodges was drafted in to mastermind this process, he would take care of the erection of the lodges.
Once the shell of the building was up we could then bring in trades to fit them out, starting with insulation, dry lining, and plastering, then fitting windows, floors, doors kitchens and bathrooms. We had a plan and we were on our way...
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