Building your own house sits at the top of most wish lists and the bottom of most confidence lists. The main-contractor route exists exactly for that gap: your plot, your architect's drawings, one builder owning the build from groundworks to handover while you keep the decisions that matter.
Mitchell & Andrew Building Services delivers one-off new builds across Cornwall, and this is how the route actually works.
What the contractor owns, what stays yours
The contractor owns delivery: programme, trades, materials logistics, building control visits, site safety, and the thousand daily decisions that keep a build moving. You keep the decisions that shape the house: the drawings you arrive with, the specification level, the kitchens and bathrooms and finishes as the stages reach them.
The healthy split is written down before anything starts: drawings and structural design from your architect and engineer, a specification agreed line by line, and a communication rhythm, a weekly walk-round beats daily interruptions, that keeps you informed without making you the site manager.
- Contractor: programme, trades, compliance, delivery.
- You: design, specification, finish decisions on schedule.
- Weekly walk-rounds beat daily hovering.
Frame or block: the honest site answer
Timber frame arrives engineered and rises fast: the shell in the photograph went from slab to trusses in short order, which suits exposed sites wanting weathertight speed and plots where the concrete trades are the bottleneck. Blockwork builds slower and carries its own virtues: thermal mass, easy alteration, and the finish Cornish planning often expects under stone or render.
Mitchell & Andrew Building Services builds both, and the honest answer is site by site: access for frame deliveries, the weather window, the cladding the design wants, and where the budget prefers its risk. The method is a means; the specification is the house.
- Frame: speed to weathertight, engineered precision.
- Block: mass, flexibility, traditional finishes.
- The plot and the design pick, not fashion.
Weathertight rules the calendar
Coastal weather makes one milestone king: the shell wind and watertight, roof on, membranes down, openings closed. Before it, the programme bends to forecasts; after it, the indoor trades run in any weather and the calendar becomes believable.
That is why good programmes front-load the shell: foundations, frame or blockwork, roof and glazing sequenced hard, with first fix, insulation and finishes stacked behind the dry line. Ask any builder for the weathertight date before the completion date; the second depends entirely on the first.
Money and paperwork in rhythm
One-off builds pay in stage valuations: an agreed schedule where payments follow completed work, foundations, shell, weathertight, first fix, completion, with each stage visible before it is paid. Self-build lenders release funds on the same milestones, which keeps everyone honest by design.
The paperwork finishes the house twice: building control sign-off, structural warranties or certificates, electrical and heating certification, and the drawings-as-built folder. A new house with its documents complete sells, insures and remortgages without friction forever after.
Related pages
Questions customers ask
Do I need my own architect before approaching a builder?
For a one-off house, yes: design and planning belong to your architect, structure to your engineer, and the builder prices and delivers those drawings. Early builder input on buildability is valuable; the design authority stays yours.
Is timber frame or blockwork better for a new build?
Neither universally: frame buys speed to weathertight, block buys mass and traditional finishes. The plot's access, exposure and the design's cladding decide, which is a site conversation rather than a slogan.
How are payments structured on a self-build?
Stage valuations against completed milestones, foundations through weathertight to completion, matching how self-build lenders release funds. Work visible before money moves is the healthy pattern.
Your design, one accountable builder, a programme that worships weathertight and payments that follow visible work: that is self-building with the risk managed and the joy kept.
Mitchell & Andrew Building Services builds one-off houses across Cornwall on exactly those terms. The contact page reads your drawings.
