"We finally have the home
we always imagined."

Three Years of 'Someday' Finally Became Now

David and Claire Andrews had been living in their Victorian semi in St Albans for eleven years. They loved the house — the high ceilings, the original fireplaces, the character that newer builds simply can't replicate. But the kitchen diner at the back felt like an afterthought. Dark. Cramped. Disconnected from the garden the children had grown up in.

"We'd been talking about doing something with the back of the house for years," says Claire. "Every spring we'd sit in the garden and think, this year we'll sort it. Then life would get in the way, and suddenly it's October again."

The turning point came when a neighbour on Clarence Road completed a rear extension. David and Claire knocked on the door, had a cup of tea, and came away with a name: Hampshire Build.

"I expected the process to be stressful. Planning applications, builders, decisions — it all felt overwhelming before we started. What actually happened was the opposite."

— Claire Andrews, St Albans

Crittall Doors, Skylights, and Respecting What Was Already There

From the first consultation call with Mark, it was clear this wasn't going to be a box-standard extension. The Andrews home is a period property — Edwardian bones, with all the charm and all the constraints that comes with. They wanted something that felt deliberate. Something an architect would be proud of, not something that looked like it had been bolted on.

The brief centred on a full-width ground floor rear extension — opening the kitchen into a generous kitchen-diner that would finally connect the house to the garden. The key design elements they'd fallen in love with? Crittall-style steel-framed doors running the full width of the rear elevation, paired with flush roof lantern skylights that would flood the space with natural light even on a grey Hertfordshire morning.

"Mark's team understood immediately what we were going for," says David. "We didn't want something that screamed 'extension.' We wanted it to look like it had always been there — but better."

The design team produced measured drawings, detailed elevations, and a planning-ready pack that balanced the contemporary detailing of the Crittall frames against the period character of the existing property. The proportions were carefully considered. The materials spec — London brick to match, slate-effect flat roof — was chosen specifically to complement rather than compete.

The Part Everyone Dreads. The Part We Handle Entirely.

For most homeowners, the words "planning application" land somewhere between mild anxiety and genuine dread. There's a reason for that — the process can feel opaque, slow, and entirely out of your control. What happens if they say no? What can we actually build? Do we need a planning consultant?

With Hampshire Build, the Andrews didn't have to ask those questions — because those questions were already being answered by Mark and his team on their behalf.

"We literally didn't have to do anything," says Claire. "Mark's team submitted everything, managed all the correspondence with the council, and kept us updated at every stage. We got a notification when it was submitted and another when it was approved. That was it."

The application was straightforward — Hampshire Build's experience with St Albans District Council and a thorough understanding of permitted development boundaries meant the drawings were right first time. No requests for amendments. No back-and-forth. Planning granted inside the statutory eight-week period.

"I'd been told by a friend that planning could take months and might be refused. Ours was approved on time, first submission. We didn't even have to write a single letter."

— David Andrews, St Albans

A Vetted Contractor, a Clear Schedule, and Everything in Place Before a Brick is Laid

Getting planning permission is one thing. Finding the right builder to actually execute the vision — on time, on budget, to the standard the drawings demand — is where many projects fall apart. It's the part that keeps homeowners awake at night.

The Premium Package addresses this directly. Hampshire Build maintains a curated pool of vetted, trusted contractors — tradespeople they've worked with across multiple projects, whose quality and reliability they know personally. The tender pack — drawings, specification, schedule of works — was sent to two contracting teams from that pool. Two detailed, comparable quotes came back. Hampshire Build presented them clearly and helped David and Claire understand what they were actually being asked to pay for.

"That was a huge reassurance," says David. "We weren't just picking someone from a directory and hoping for the best. These were contractors Hampshire Build already trusted. And having two proper quotes side by side — with everything spelled out — meant we could make a genuinely informed decision."

Before the build started, Hampshire Build produced a detailed Schedule of Works — a stage-by-stage breakdown of the entire project from groundworks through to final fix. It became the backbone of the whole build. The contractor worked to it. David and Claire could follow it. There was no ambiguity about what should be happening and when.

A Home That Finally Matches the Life They're Living

The extension completed in late 2024. The Crittall doors now run the full width of the rear, framing the garden like a painting. On summer evenings, the doors fold back and the inside and outside become one. On winter mornings, the roof lanterns pull the grey Hertfordshire sky into the room and turn it into something beautiful.

"It's hard to describe how much it's changed the way we live in the house," says Claire. "We practically live in that room now. The kids do their homework there. We have friends round for dinner. It's become the heart of the house in a way the old kitchen never was."

The project came in on the agreed budget. It completed within the agreed programme. There were no surprises, no disputes, no anxious conversations about cost overruns. David and Claire got what they were shown at the outset — and a service that made a complex process feel, as Claire puts it, "genuinely easy."

"If you're sitting there wondering whether to do it — just call Mark. I wish we'd done it three years ago. The house, the process, the result. All of it was better than we expected."

— Claire Andrews, St Albans · Hampshire Build Premium Package

· · ·