In reality, the kit home is just another example of prefabrication, but without some of the more negative connotations. While timber frame versions still dominate in consumer consciousness (accounting for 90% of all self-build) there are also interesting developments in metal structures, even including using former freight containers, that may well yet become a common sight in the UK.

While the concept of producing the components for a home off-site is nothing new, kit homes enjoyed their heyday in the early decades of the 20th century in America.

From around 1910-1920 there were around seven nationally respected companies selling homes in kit form. The most well-known was probably Sears Roebuck, a mail order company synonymous with mass retail in the USA. Between 1908 and 1940 selling from a yearly produced catalogue the company would provide purchasers with building plans, materials and the house in kit form which were then delivered along the country’s extensive rail network.

One of the most popular house styles with purchases was the bungalow. The USA, having none of the land restrictions suffered in the UK (USA very big, UK quite small), has maintained a love affair with single floor or low-rise dwellings to this day.

The Sears Roebuck Houses were quick and easy off the peg answers to housing needs, and while in some instances still being of considerable charm and appeal to their owners, offered less in terms of flexibility and bespoke styling.

Today
Today the kit house has evolved to incorporate these people-pleasing measures, to include homes seemingly of breathtaking flexibility and beauty, while at the same time offering quick and low impact builds.

Yankee Barn
Barn architecture has long given aficionados the sense of space, textural warmth and open plan freedom that they crave. However, the UK’s stock of truly beautiful barns ripe for conversion is already drying up. In the USA barn fans get past this by taking the principles of barn living and adapting it to new build.

Yankee Barn Homes has been designing and building post and beam homes across the USA since 1969. While over a thousand Yankee Barns have been built, the company is proud of the fact that no two are exactly alike, and that each hand-crafted home has been created to be a personal statement by its owner.

To create that unique look, homeowners work with a company designer to create a home to fit their lifestyle. Then the post and beam wall floor and roof panels along with any speciality millwork are constructed in the controlled environment of the company workshop to protect the integrity of the timber. The Yankee Barn will then be packaged and shipped ready for erection on site – a process taking between eleven to thirteen days. Once weathertight, the home can then be finished at the owner's leisure.

Yankee Barn is based in Grantham, New Hampshire, but already is beginning to extend its aesthetic appeal overseas. A Yankee Barn is coming soon to Ireland, and after that, perhaps to a vacant plot very near you.

Benfield ATT
If it’s a more home grown aesthetic you’re after then Benfield ATT offer numerous variations on a theme. All Benfield ATT’s self-build houses are available in 'kit' form in so far as they deliver the timber frame panels and beams, but do not erect them, leaving the self-builder to do it themselves if they so desire. Typically, however, the company will erect most of the buildings at the homeowner’s request due to the technical complexities of getting it just right.

Benfield ATT are wholly committed to timber frame construction, which they consider a dry method of construction in comparison with brick and block wet build which may utilise thousands of litres of water. Benfield ATT are also the only company in the UK with FSC certification, which means that they are authorised to build timber frame structures from timber which is endorsed by Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and WWF.

Again Benfield ATT offer a much reduced build time in comparison with other methods of building, and off-site quality control. Prefabricated wall sections incorporate vapour check membranes and can include factory fitted insulation and service duct systems as standard. They also offer a bespoke service to give as little or as much help as needed from individual tailoring to complete turn key project management packages.

Future Present
Fancy a touch of Scandinavian romance? Perhaps the drama of the great Canadian outdoors? You do? Well here it is, distinctive, from sustainable sources, and from Sheffield with love.

Mbarkk
Mbarkk designs and builds handcrafted log homes to your own specification. Enduring and evocative of a simpler way of life, each home is built for comfort and convenience, and can be tailored to your individual requirements from a wide range of appealing packages.

Whatever scale your project, from an office or extra living space in the garden to a leisure or commercial project or a bespoke new home, Mbarkk promise solutions from start to finish. The cost of the log homes includes the log home kit, transport to site, installation, double glazed windows, internal and external doors, and 150 mm insulation to floor and roof. Mbarkk offers a 5-year warranty, which can be extended to ten years. An average log home kit will cost from £40 per square foot, though any size of home or layout can be designed to meet your specification.

Ikea
Dinner party conversations have long been awash with rumours that Ikea are to invade and dominate the UK kit home market in the same stylish affordable if a little contrary and inaccessible way that they have long dominated the flat pack furniture scene. While Ikea does indeed have its housing arm and has provided flat pack kit homes successfully in Scandinavia, the price of land in the UK might yet be a stumbling point for the stylist Swedes. If and when it does happen here, expect something cheerfully modern in pine, and built to the exact proportions to best suit the company’s range of furniture.

M&S
As good old Marks & Spencer's formerly reliable fashion sense has seemed to falter, its eye for a good interior has never been better. This expanding interest in all things 'home' reaches its natural zenith in the "Lifestore" in Gateshead.

Lifestore
Intended to 'revolutionise the home retail market' Lifestore Will feature more than 12,000 products from cutlery to garden benches. Clearly picking up on some of the success of Ikea's themed interiors sets, the 70,000sq ft megastore close to Gateshead's MetroCentre will showcase themed 'worlds' dedicated to relaxation, play and the outdoors.

Centrepiece of the store will be a complete two-storey house designed by award-winning architect John Pawson.

The plans of the house are even available to buy at a cost of £1,000 with building costs estimated at over £300,000. With the cost of the land on top this could be a very stylish, but not altogether affordable for fans of modernist architecture.

Timber, Steel & Glass
Huf Haus
Based on medieval German designs, the Huf Haus (recently featured on Grand Designs) offers a kit home with a very recognisable external profile, but inside a space limited purely by the confines of your own imagination. Again, the company’s architects work with you to create the home of your dreams, the property is then constructed off-site with just the basement being rapidly put together by Huf’s own technicians on site. The build is roughly ten days.

But while wood clearly dominates the self-build and kit home consciousness over here at present, interesting things are beginning to happen in the fields of steel off-site manufacture in Australia and America.

Steel is gaining in favour as more than just a useful material for building frameworks for what advocates claim are largely very obvious reasons:

• It possesses the highest strength to weight ratio of any building material currently being used
• It is non-combustible
• It is non-organic and thus not prone to rot or elemental distortion
• There is a factory-governed consistency of quality
• Advocates claim that there is less waste in construction
• Once made the material retains its shape, meaning no sudden sticky door or window frames
• Steel is surprisingly lightweight making it easier to handle

Northern Steel Cottages
Northern Steel Cottages specialises in precision-crafted panelised steel building systems, for assembly anywhere in the world. All of its building systems are pre-cut, pre-drilled, & pre-marked for the do-it-yourself end user. Reassuringly for first time kit builders the cottages can be easily assembled with no special tools and no heavy equipment. Though quick to erect, Northern Steel Cottages promises their homes will ensure decades of maintenance-free, energy-efficient comfort and safety.

If the idea of a steel house doesn’t meet with your aesthetic ideal, be reassured, your home can be finished with a stucco, shingle, or even a wood effect exterior to blend in with your surroundings.

Steel homes are also alleged to be good for allergy sufferers, utilising none of the resins, adhesives and chemicals used in other construction techniques.

Whether it be wood, metal or papier mache and spit, a self-build home offers the opportunity to do right by your own dreams and also the environment.

The Environmental Path
Eco measures it is worth considering when designing your home include:

• Orienting and designing your home to make the most of passive-solar heat gain, and to use materials like concrete or ceramics which store heat
• Source timber from dealers using wood from sustainable sources
• Comprehensively insulate, wherever possible with green materials. Use double or triple glazing to help insulate and cut fuel costs. Also think about using either natural roofing products like slate or tile or turfing your roof, to insulate and also create a small natural habitat for wildlife
• Use paints and solvents approved by environmental experts
• Recycle water
• Use solar energy for long term energy gains or investigate the possibility of using geothermal energy
• Seek out utilities providers with green credentials.