It all started with a simple question in an email, "...why don't we start our own site?".
A small group of five people, who'd all previously worked on a council house exchange site, had kept in touch with each other via email. After a flurry emails it was decided to go ahead, after all, how hard could it be?
I already had a website, so it was easy to install forum software there and hide it from search engines and the rest of the web. The plan was to develop the site into a useful resource before it was launched rather than jump in feet first with little more than an empty forum to show the world.
Having a test site up and running proved to be invaluable, it meant we could communicate easily and quickly see the results of any changes, which were being made daily.
We made several decisions about what we wanted to do with the site and how we intended to moderate it. From the start we stayed away from labels, there wouldn't an owner, this was almost a website run by a committee without a chair. I had my doubts, as did others, but the team got on really well with other, although actually coming to a decision could take a while.
Three months in and we were still going strong, the structure was in place and content was being added daily. A lot of our time on the test site was spent just chatting with other, but it did seem to be growing and starting to look like a proper council house exchange site.
Eventually, after 5 or 6 months we decided it was time to launch Under One Roof. There was still more to be added, but we felt it was just about there and if we didn't launch soon, we could be fine tuning it for ever.
So a domain name was purchased, a hosting account set up and the entire site moved to it's new home. Under One Roof launched on March 17th 2006.
