Building the foundation for a dream life.

Byline: By Beth Neil

Maureen Sookhoo's home is stunning. Spacious, stylish and sumptuous, right down to the very last detail.

And so it should be ( she designed it herself.

Living in the remote village of Tanfield Lea in Stanley was making life increasingly difficult so six years ago single mum Maureen began looking for a new home to be nearer both her work as a midwifery lecturer at Northumbria University and son Dhruv's school at Emmanuel College in Gateshead.

"We both knew we needed to move closer to town," says Maureen, 51. "Dhruv was about to sit his GCSEs and had to be nearer his school. We looked at a couple of houses in Gateshead, but they were both bought really quickly.

"Then my brother mentioned this plot of land on the estate he was living on and everything took off from there."

The plot was on Glanville Close on the Festival Park site in Gateshead and Maureen was keen to snap it up. She arranged a mortgage and eventually bought the land from Bellway Homes in 1999 for pounds 28,000.

After buying the timber-frame self-build kit from Elvet Structures in County Durham and getting the National House Building Council on board, the ambitious scheme was under way.

A work colleague knew of a builder who would manage the project and everything appeared to be going smoothly, until Maureen got a letter from Gateshead Council.

"They still hadn't received any plans from this guy and the foundations were in by this stage," she says.

"I rang him up but could never get hold of him. So I went round to his office and, of course, he wasn't there. I eventually tracked him down and he said he'd been unable to get the plans from the timber frame company."

It turned out the man was working from an old plan of the house and he wasn't even a registered builder. Maureen sacked him and she and Dhruv were forced to spend Christmas time 1999 knocking down the walls that had already been built.

"It was a lesson learned," says Maureen. "I don't know if he was a conman or just incredibly stupid but I decided I was going to manage the project from then on. Everything had to come through me."

That meant trawling through paperwork and having the unenviable task of taking charge of a multitude of workmen and watching them like a hawk.

"I kept a very close eye on them right down to picking things back out the skip that they'd thrown away as waste. It was extremely difficult because I was working full-time and dealing with all this. But I always knew we'd get it finished."

Dhruv, now 20, whose name comes from his Mauritian father, reckons their bad experience helped spur them on to complete the house.

"We weren't depressed and we didn't see ourselves as victims. It just made us more determined. I actually felt more secure that my mum was handling everything."

Dhruv had always been interested in architecture but it was working on the house which eventually convinced him that he wanted to pursue it as a career. He is about to go into his third year in architecture at Newcastle University and is the representative of the Royal Institute of British Architects in the region (RIBA North).

"When you're working on a project and you become very close to it, you don't see it the way everyone else does," he explains. "When my grandparents came to look for the first time, they thought it was amazing and that's when it started to sink in that this was something really special."

After Maureen took over the project, the house was completed within six months. The workmen she employed, mainly on other people's recommendations, were fortunately honest and reliable.

She and Dhruv continued to live in their bungalow until their four-bedroom detached palace was finished, although neither would have been averse to living in a caravan on site.

"We were able to have the house exactly as we wanted," says Maureen. Our conservatory is timber frame, like the house, rather than the UPVC that everyone seems to go for. I've got a really low maintenance garden and we've opened up the hall.

"Dhruv particularly wanted double doors for the lounge, so we got them."

Maureen estimates that, including the land, she spent between pounds 95,000 and pounds 110,000. The house is now worth around pounds 250,000.

"It's been worth all the stress," she smiles. "I really like it here. We're near the town, but it's still rural enough for us to get pheasants in the garden"

Any hints for would-be self builders?

"You have got to manage your cashflow properly," says Maureen. "There was only one time I ran into a bit of difficulty and I had to go to the bank and ask for a short-term loan of pounds 2,000.

"We had a lot of help and support from Gateshead Council and NHBC. They were just brilliant. Would I do it again? Yes, absolutely. We're actually looking for our next plot of land to build another one."