As part of our Self-Build Stories series, we continue to follow Munish Datta's self-build journey in Cambridge.
With the groundwork complete and the prefabricated elements ready to arrive, Munish reflects on the moment his future home was assembled on site in just two and a half days.
"I'd heard from Baufritz and other clients, exactly how construction day would unfold. But nothing prepares you for living through it yourself.
It started almost like preparations for a show. Banners went up around the site, screening our neighbours more carefully than the groundworks ever had, and a beautiful, solar-powered site office arrived, greener than anything I'd seen on a building site before. Then the crane came: a 150-foot arm swinging up into the sky above our plot. I'll admit I was intimidated, and a couple of neighbours told me they found it frightening. I reassured them the anchoring was rock solid, and that the team monitored the wind constantly, stopping the moment conditions changed.
The first lorry arrived carrying our house wrapped and braced like the most precious cargo imaginable. I had a drone in the air, ready to capture the first piece being lifted into place. It happened on the hottest day of the summer, so all I could do was keep the crew supplied with cold drinks and ice cream; they never once slowed down. Watching them, it struck me they were assembling it with the same care they'd give their own home.
By day two, the ground and first floors were complete, and the still-open roof was wrapped in the largest sheet of tarpaulin I have ever seen, just in case. By day three, it was done. Ten years of planning arrived at that single moment, and watching the drone footage of the last roof piece coming down, I felt every bit of it.
Stepping inside for the first time, the house already felt bigger than I'd imagined from the slab alone. It was ten degrees cooler than the heat outside, and the thickness of the walls told me everything about the quality we'd been promised. But the real highlight was the staircase: a complex spiral piece of timber, craned onto the first floor and guided into position by six or seven pairs of hands, lifted, nudged, and lifted again, until it slotted home perfectly. I watched it all through my drone screen, and I doubt I'll ever see anything quite like it again.
Looking ahead, our anticipated completion date lands almost exactly on my late father's birthday, 17 December. Nobody planned that. Baufritz would never admit it, but I'm quietly confident it might even arrive a little early, which he would have loved.
If I'm honest, construction day was never about watching a house go up. It was watching everything my family had hoped for, patience, precision, and no small amount of love, finally take shape above the ground."
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