[Closed] Last night's Grand Designs...

Yes makes a cheeky bike up grade seem quite miner

Not sure if seen an end with one owner quite so glum

Shame about their new view.

Shame about their new view

I'd have had to make the bed room into a living area

Characterful guy, obviously passionate about it and worked hard for the money. I though it was great, but a shame his misses was so dismissive about such a stunning design and build. Each to their own, hopefully she will warm to it.

Yes, lovely couple (but slightly mad) and lovely house. I like the 'I need a new workshop, so I'll build a new house'

'I need a new workshop, so I'll build a new house'

A lot of new bike builds start in a similar way... "Hmm, I have a spare headset, what shall I do with it?"

...before you know it 2k has been spent on shiny bits you didn't need!

A refreshing change from the usual ego-fuelled chequebook waving. Stunning house! And I don't think he'll ever be accused of being pussy whipped! I have taken your opinion into consideration, then ignored it, and done what I want anyway! 😀

I'd have liked to have seen the price for one of the identi-boxes they'd built to spoil his view. It wouldn't surprise me if they were going for more than his amazing build coat

Too 'visitor centre' for me

I liked it. Lovely couple, too, not like some of the usual mob.

Roof needed a bit of weeding, though.

I'm glad I recorded it while watching it as next time the wife bitches about bike purchases I'll make her watch it and tell her I need a new man-cave too!!

A lot of new bike builds start in a similar way... "Hmm, I have a spare headset, what shall I do with it?"

Too 'visitor centre' for me

Agreed, wouldn't want to live there as felt like a commercial building.

Too 'visitor centre' for me

I can't think of any visitor centres that look like it?

Guess you need to visit more places.

You have to admire her honesty. I thought they were a lovely refreshing couple and I am sure that attitude is just part of their dynamic as a couple.

Stupendously disrespectful to go ahead with such a large project considering that the person you love the most is dead against it. Perhaps, as he's a GP & most likely the main breadwinner, he just says like it or lump it. Plus, the quality of the cladding installation was pretty poor & if any of my lads did that then they would be ripping it off & starting again.

Other than that it was nice though & i loved the timber engineering aspect.

As I said above, I suspect that is their dynamic and I don't think he was necessarily being disrespectful.

Met him a few times, as he used to be a GP at the same Practice as my bestest mates other half. Seems like a pretty decent chap, and he's really into his flying, keeps his planes at Turweston Aerodrome 😉

I think she enjoyed pretending that she didn't like it so that she had something amusing to talk about.

They got that great house for the same price as their old one.
They have the same amount of savings pretty much
They have a more valuable house than before

He has made them more asset rich

They have a more valuable house than before

Guess you need to visit more places.

If you have some suggestions...

Guess you need to visit more places.

If you have some suggestions...

How about that nice house that was on Grand Designs last night?

How about that nice house that was on Grand Designs last night?

Lovely, wasn't it? I'm still waiting to hear about the visitor centre it looks like.

Lovely, wasn't it? I'm still waiting to hear about the visitor centre it looks like.

Bloody tons of 'em. Wood, stone, grass on roof, gentle curves. Yeah some of these are visualisations but I didn't make them up and I can't be arsed spending all day searching Google images (this is three mins worth). You sound like you're looking for a fight though, so don't bother posting a response (cos you're wrong ;-))

[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

You sound like you're looking for a fight though, so don't bother posting a response (cos you're wrong ;-))

Well gosh, that's me told. And you managed to find pictures of buildings with roofs, windows and walls - well done you!

Scuttler winz

I thought it was dull, nothing exciting about it at all. The office I work in has that wood cladding style, so I agree with the comments above about it feeling like a commercial building.

I knew it reminded me of something!

Edale Visitors Centre

[img] [/img]

Whatever, I still liked it.

The reason there's a similarity between many of those buildings is the criteria behind them, methods of construction, Eco-friendliness, etc. it's entirely possible the owner had seen various buildings that caught his fancy and decided he wanted a house built just like it.
I don't see a problem with it, it's still a hell of a lot more individual than most of the "executive" style houses all over the country which are just much more expensive versions of the identikit boxes that blighted the view from the round house.

Mildly annoying bloke? Check.
Crap sounding idea? Check
Hope that he fails? Check

Edit:

Hope his carbon fibre bath breaks the container the first time he fills it? Check

Did the wife get pregnant halfway through? That usually happens on grand designs...

I really like that. But I think he ruined the whole ethos with the bath. >10% of the cost of the build was a bathtub. I could have made him one for a fraction of that.

Living in a caravan onsite with the onset of winter looming, and all those tradesmen around, things are bound to happen, dave_rudabar...

Was it me, or was it just four shipping containers clad in steel and filled with insulation? Looked like a nice enough place, but he could have saved a ton, both in terms of money and steel, by arranging them as, well, shipping containers and making use of their designed in strength. Remove the silly bath, and you have a monolithic, architect designed, structure for £90k.

Loved that, would have left the bath in raw carbon (well wouldn't have spunked 16K 😮 on a bath in first place) everything else was brilliant.

Couldnt find the other GD thread.

Already shaking my head. £65k for a couple of feet on a tight budget.

Could a burglar use a blow torch to 'melt' there way in?

well the £65k seems nothing now they have completely blown the budget..

Should have used containers.

1 million quid 😯 Some interesting features, but overall a bit Meh.

LoCo - Member

1 million quid Some interesting features, but overall a bit Meh.

400K for the land understandable in that area but 600k for the house! 😯

stark contrast to what was achieved last week for a tiny budget.

Under the flight path surround by houses wasn't it?

I liked the industrial look of the London build, but the container build in Ireland was spectacular! I loved it to bits, and especially for the money; having said that, he was really lucky to have the site for free, anyone else would probably double or treble the cost just for the site.
And I think I might even have splurged for the bath if I'd managed to build a house for that price!
If I had the money, and a site, I'd get the Irish bloke to do a container house for me, it pretty much fits all my requirements.
Now for the lottery win...

I'd hope a million quid budget could stretch to some gutters - or is getting wet a design "feature"?

Am I the only person who thinks most of the buildings are interesting but most of the owners are a bit of a pain in the t*ts?

Sorry. Running a bit behind as we watch them recorded. Talking about the round house.. (Can't we have one thread per show? 🙂 )

Too 'visitor centre' for me

For a 600k build and fit that was depressingly bad. Not just the building itself but where the heck did 600k go? (I missed the first half)

Last week's "100k" one with the containers was great, but I do wish they'd normalise the costs across all the builds. In that case the land and his professional time as an architect / PM.

The thing I didn't get was the lattice work paving (?) at the front. That must fill with water and muck pretty quickly. I was also expecting something a bit more bohemian from them, or was I misjudging them??

SD +1 cant be easy for the dogs to negotiate at any speed above tip toeing?

I realised last night that my perception or at least anticipation of the final house is very much affected by the owner(s). I took a pretty instant dislike to the people last night and hated the house and had a little shadenfreude about the massive overspend.

Last week, I kind of warmed to the guy despite his silly hat and ridiculous bath 🙂 I really liked what he built. I'm trying to think how I'd have felt about both if the owners had been the other way around.

Or was that "lattice work paving" really some ski slope dendix matting??

Wow, all kinds of ugly... IMO of course, still they seem to like it!.

You say that but I felt like they were really trying to convince themselves of that (or at least that it was remotely close to being worth what they spent on it).

I guess it will be worth it to the right (batshitmental, imo) buyer, should they sell. Limited market though...

Just watched last nights.

It wasn't great. Bet it's a bit chilly and a bugger to keep clean.

I wasn't that keen on it.

Saying that, I watched Location tonight and what the two couples got for £400k (ish) puts it into perspective.

I'm not sure how they managed to spent 600K on a building (Not including the land) made out of really quite inexpensive materials..... OSB floors ffs!

Not saying I didn't like it - just that it didn't look like 600K building.

No gutters? The rain will hammer into the dirt in the concrete lattice and make that polycarbonate absolutely filthy.

Seems short sighted to omit gutters, presume it's done on aesthetic grounds, bet they regret that.

Saying that, I watched Location tonight and what the two couples got for £400k (ish) puts it into perspective.

I'm actually starting to feel sorry for some of these poor London sods... but sorry enough for them to come up here and bollocks our housing market.

I'm actually starting to feel sorry for some of these poor London sods... but sorry enough for them to come up here and bollocks our housing market.

That 100k container house also had a 30k+ kitchen and a 20k bath, so, actually more of a 150k house.
Is any anyone else sick of ourKev?

johndoh - Member

Very true. I was genuinely very shocked at the price of the properties when they weren't in what I assumed were the popular parts of London.

We're not yet on the property ladder and live in Croydon (Greater London/Surrey). The prices here are absolutely shocking. Ex-local authority 3 bed houses going for £300k. We've been toying with the idea of moving away for years but it seems like if we want to buy a house, that's something we'll have to do.

I thought the container house came in at about £130k including the kitchen and bath?

Not sure, I think there was some vaguety on the numbers, possibly a bit of CIH going on.

£600K is what it costs to build from an architects layout drawings with the rest made up as you go along.

The cow shed was a ahocker wasn't it! Cheap materials that look cheap and won't last. I predict when the hippy pair sell it will be demolished for something new in its place. I wonder.... A 80 year old Kevin ...no, a 60 year old Kevin, back on site talking about the ultimate recycling of the....site.

And you would be pretty pissed off if you were one of their neighbours - fair enough they didn't have *much* of a view before but what do they have now?

And you would be pretty pissed off if you were one of their neighbours - fair enough they didn't have *much* of a view before but what do they have now?

...and you just knew they used that courtyard for sneaky storage/BBQ/parking etc.

I don't think many single mothers with part time cleaning jobs round here can scrape enough together to build a house. Neither do I think their idea of "living on an estate" is quite the same as last night's subject.

Was I missing something?

Did you see here childhood home, she was clearly a member of the landed gentry!

Just saw this Top Tip on one of my rare visits to Twitter -

PRETEND you’re on Grand Designs by asking a film crew to meet you on a building site with your pregnant wife.

🙂

Ironically given it was a code 6 house, I didn't warm either to the design or her. The builder seemed a more interesting subject. And again, another suspiciously bargain build. At least she was working class eh? Kev getting down with the masses.

Kev getting down with the masses

Hope there is room for a nursery in 9 months then.

I liked it- there should be a great deal more Code 6 homes and it was certainly a lot more pleasant than some of the big house builder's efforts-

[img] [/img]

They clearly need to change the rules for smaller sites, though- building a shower block would surely be more environmentally damaging than not building it on a site as small as that.

Did you see here childhood home, she was clearly a member of the landed gentry!

And I quite liked the build - she was very fortunate to be in the position she was in though - family friends with the land owner whose son was an aspiring architect (which meant he was helping his son as much as her) even to the extent of giving her timber from their own wood.

Certainly has got me thinking as my in-laws own a pretty large field on green belt land....

£338k [i]is[/i] landed gentry territory...

£338k is landed gentry territory...

[url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landed_gentry ]Landed gentry[/url]

Really?

How many single mums do you know with 340k odd in savings who's profession is "Housekeeper"...

I liked the build, certainly an advantage that the land was sold to her to help out the son and I would imagine with no objections re building. Good PR for him.

The big house belonged to her parents.

@matt this is why any mansion tax should be based on land / property area and not on price

Really?

How many single mums do you know with 340k odd in savings who's profession is "Housekeeper"...

She is a single mum - perhaps her partner died and he had a plan set up? Perhaps they split up and she took a share of the sale of the marital home? Perhaps she bought a house 20 years ago and realised it's current value? Perhaps her parents left her an inheritance? Perhaps she is a high-class hooker and her kid is the illicit child of a Premiership footballer?