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Very nice on the outside. Short people only on the inside
Did she actually do anything physical towards the build ?
He didn't seem the most practical. Levering a 12" thick x 4' diameter mill stone with a pickaxe with a mini excavator behind him.
That dining table seemed slightly less than practical too.
Did she actually do anything physical towards the build ?
Thought I saw her doing some plastering?
Anyway, balls to that, I’m watching John Cauldwell spaff £65mil doing up his Mayfair pad. Proper grand designs, complete with 8 car stacker.
They seem a bit daft. And annoying. Who'd have thought you might need some help with those millstones eh? Jesus Christ.
Edit: I'm being too generous. They're thick as ****. Nice that Kevin has some barely concealed disdain for the too
Naïve? Yes. But fairplay to them for getting stuck in, loved the exterior (barring the front door) Interior lacked character but no point in saving rotten wood just to keep the purists happy. I'd want the split beam underneath sorting though TBH
I liked it looked nicer and cosey inside and they'd grafted probably despite what a set piece to camera showed whilst living in a tiny caravan with two dogs.
Yeah Kev - I agree it would have been nice to save some of the old timbers but they didn't have the money and there wasn't exactly a cue of people wanting to throw loads of money at it before this couple came along.
Anyway, balls to that, I’m watching John Cauldwell spaff £65mil doing up his Mayfair pad. Proper grand designs, complete with 8 car stacker.
What a ****. Even his skint ex car sales mate thought he was still a **** and was glad to have a scruffy salesyard of scrap metal and his dignity than Caudwells gaudy slag palace of chintz filled with some big titted flange tastic skirted 'interior designers' idea of style.
That Mayfair gaff. Where was the kitchen? You saw a glimpse of an industrial kitchen they must use for ballroom functions nthat - but what about when you just want a pint of vimto and a round of toast..!?
what about when you just want a pint of vimto and a round of toast..!?
'Chef, rustle us up a pint of Vimto and a round of toast, would you?'
TBH, of all the billionaire mega spenders that you see on these kinds of shows, he seems the least of a ****. Ultra high standards, but honest and even reasonable about them. Even part of his reasoning for doing the place up wasn't wholly self absorbed. Could see me being able to go for a drink with him. His round, and not at his mirrored dance floor private nightclub, obvs.
The millstone tables were much thinner - had they had one stone sliced into two halves? That would have been interesting to see.
So with all the previous passive eco house talk, how much energy does the mill consume for 2 people?
that table was a nice idea but looked awful to use. expect they will rest a big piece of glass on top eventually? but you would stick knock your knees on the stone...
I suspect it will be freezing cold and damp. Didn’t see any insulation on the walls. There may have been some under the new slab but it wasn’t filmed. Being over a stream is going to make it pretty damp. Perhaps you could get the mill race running to generate power but that has got to be a very expensive option
Amazed they did that for a whisker under £300k though.
The millstone tables were much thinner – had they had one stone sliced into two halves? That would have been interesting to see.
Iirc they said a planning condition was to keep at least two of the millstones in the property so I presume there were a few to choose from. Nice house but seemed to be for shortarses only. I thought they did ok with it though and I didn’t really get on with KMcC sneering about conservation on the lower floor timbers, as mentioned above nobody seemed in any rush to save the building before them.
Wife and I also thought Kevin was really over doing the lack of conservation inside. I'm sure they said it was listed, presumably only the outside. That's a guide for me, the inside is 'chatacter' but not historically important, and given the cost... Okay maybe they could have saved or reused a few but better to save the building now then risk it collapsing in another 20 years waiting for some fools with more money.
Overall, nice outside, inside should work for them, hope it does.
I thought Kevin was being harsh too. A lot of that timber was dead and past the point of being conserved. It would have been nice to keep some but I feel the building wouldn't have been long for this world anyway.
Plenty of other Grand Designs have done a much better job of saving rotten timber so saying its expensive or hard is a bit of a cop out. I see why they did it but I agreed with Kevin pretty much all the way. I think they might have even regretted it a bit once they had the finished loft room.
I’m sure they said it was listed, presumably only the outside.
No such thing as a partly listed building. Once it is listed the whole thing is covered
He looked broken at the end. Poor bloke.
I hope they're happy there
I too thought the conservation bit on the wood was overdone.
Ultimately they have saved a structure which would probably have been cheaper to let it fall down and rebuild.
I thought it looked amazing from the outside and great from the first floor up, ground floor seemed a bit hobbity
Loved how it looked outside once done. As mentioned them taking it on and rescuing it is better than another 10 years of falling down.
Inside was a bit meh and I suspect once the timbers were condemned they just didn't have the budget to do a higher end / more sympathetic finish. Th mill stones should have been reset into the lowered floor inside/outside or both as those tables looked daft-lethal.
I got the impression that after KmC went to town about the internal timbers they were really really upset with him. I know it was Covid times but there was then no more site visits between that early build stage and it being finished. I wondered if they kicked the programme makers out and only agreed a final look around if KMc said nicer things.....
saying its expensive or hard is a bit of a cop out
That really isn't fair. Their budget was very meagre for the job in hand... I was expecting it to go from £250K to £400K during the project.... they kept it to £300K by making some hard decisions... losing the top floor rooms and replacing lots of badly damaged historic wood with new soft wood. That was the kind of cold hearted decision that meant they got the job done without magically pulling a £100K+ out from down the sofa, like so many other GD builders seem to manage to do.
That really isn’t fair. Their budget was very meagre for the job in hand
That's still saying that didn't save it because it was expensive or hard. They had a pretty relaxed attitude to conservation right from the start when talking about the original features. It certainly didn't seem like they took much persuading to bin the lot. All that history has now gone into the stove over this last winter. I'm sure it was naivety rather than callousness and they did a decent job of some bits and the building is now saved so fair play to them. I just think on this issue an opportunity was missed and its now gone for good.
Does anyone know where you can buy that wood burner? Would fit our house really well
I wonder if this is where they bought it there’s a picture on the front page but I can’t find it in the site
I'm always of the (uninformed) opinion that if otherwise a building would fall down, so long as the outisde is sympathetically renovated, then whats inside doesnt really matter. At the end of the day, whether private house with modern internals, or boarded up derelict site with original and rotting features, the general public can't see what's inside.
The millstone tables were silly in my mind though.. mainly because they loooked highly impractical
All that history has now gone
All that history, that nobody gave a toss about, has now gone. (FTFY 😉 )
I thought it was one of the nicer ones, really liked it. Its all very well saying conserve this that or the other but they couldnt afford too. Much better than the usual rich ****s with £100k to spend on a window.
I think it’s like they said on the show, the want to preserve the original features, vs the want of having a house. They wanted a house, they have a house. I also think they got lucky, that could have cost orders of magnitude more than I did, to get to the same outcome. I wouldn’t commit to sinking everything I had into that might leave me homeless, but with a lovely shed.
It’s a shame they didn’t use more sod the discarded wood as non structural decoration (I think they did a bit, but not much?) and I’m pretty sure they burnt the rest of it to piss Kev off.
Surprise at the thing that is designed to be big and heavy being big and heavy made me laugh too (the millstones)
It was a planning requirement that the millstones were incorporated inside the finished house.
I wouldn't be surprised if the cheap wooden legs end up in the burner and the stanes end up in the garden.
The bottom line is that all these GDs are given lots of dramatic spin for the telly. If those timbers could have been retained they would never have got listed building consent to take them out and I’m sure that was known at the outset when they bought the place with LBC for the conversion.
As per comments above, I thought they did pretty well to do it for £300k as those floors looked like oak structures, not softwood.
Overall though I thought more Escape to the Country than Grand Designs. Good on them for rescuing a knackered listed building though.
£300k isn't a lot of money for restoring a building of that size and structure, so expect it was down to their graft was where they saved some money.
I'd have recessed the old millstones recessed into the floor - that table was hideously impractical
Lack of insulation would make it a pretty cold house - fuel bill will probably be horrendous.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the cheap wooden legs end up in the burner and the stanes end up in the garden.
I would have used them to make a feature "statue" outside
Well Kev came across as a proper superior, sneering **** during that.
I think he’s got far too used to watching rich people just lob endless amounts of cash at things.
He seemed to have no understanding or sympathy for the fact that they couldn’t just go and shake the lower boughs of the money tree and magic up another half a million quid to apply a balm to His delicate aesthetic sensibilities
He’ll need to get back to his half million quid windows imported from Germany on some visitor centre that’s gone 2 million over-budget ASAP 🙄
I think at the start they said they would save most of the building and the internal wood. They obviously didn't realise it would cost a fortune to do that.
I didn't really get the tables, surely if planning says the millstones should be incorporated back into the house, that should be in the structure as they were before. Easiest to bed back into the floor/wall, but seeing as they had a round hanging stove, they could used one as a hearth.
Also I didn't see any of the old cogs and pulleys apart from the one outside the front door, they could have been bolted back into the walls and new ceilings.
Quite liked the inside, in a alpine chalet way. The wood internally was a lost cause. It pretty much started to collapse when folk started working on the building.
Wasn't really a fan of the outside, would a mill have been whitewashed? Looked like remnants at the start.
Stone tables were horrible I guess you could make it nicer with that epoxy filler an some of the old wood to make it rectangular but it'd be a bugger to move for hoovering.
I get KMc being all "I'm a purist" but as has been said. It's easy to say when it's not your budget.
They saved the building, the question of it being worth saving is secondary.
I liked it. Pleased there are still people who will take a risk like that.
All the talk about restoration was over the top imo. If the building had been been maintained over its life either timbers would not have needed replacing or they would have been cut out and repaired, just like Trigger's Broom.
There is a lot of debate about Tally Ho or Hawker Typhoon JP843, are they replicas, are they restorations, are they rebuilds? Ultimately they (and the mill) are about saving something that otherwise would not exist. Anyone who is prepared to risk money/happiness trying to do that I'm willing to cut a little slack.
https://britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/101312448-lametton-mill-st-keyne#.YBQblFX7SUm Grade 2 listed.
I really liked the outside, didn't like the inside. Also thought it would be very cold and would twitchy about that un fixed culvert.
That being said, they seemed nice, and I was amazed they got that done for that budget given how many people were working at it at times - guess builders are cheaper in the SW!
Nothing in the planning about the mill stones that I can see - however they got permission in 2007! Been a while coming I guess! Also they somehow got permission to remove bats - quite surprised by that. Also they're meant to have rebuilt a water wheel but didn't see that in the programme.
One of the conditions was get a historic statement comissioned, which gives some interesting history on the mill: https://planning.cornwall.gov.uk/online-applications/files/C4C6284F14C79D941A97847751AEF913/pdf/PA18_10704-WRITTEN_SCHEME_OF_INVESTIGATION_FOR_HISTORIC_BUILDING_RECORDING-4185627.pdf
Must say I've found this series to be quite good so far!
I quite liked the latest one, ordinary people with a more ordinary budget and they ended up with a great house to live in.
I think Kev was a bit harsh with them, they were trying to turn it into a house rather than a museum. That handrail that he went on about was old and had a lot of history but it wouldn't have met building regs. Not sure what he wanted them to do other than put it in glass case somewhere?
Tables were a nice idea but not practical. Perhaps it will evolve over time.
So where exactly where the failed beams in relation to the house? If they collapsed will they come down to find half their kitchen disappeared? All seemed to be glossed over a bit.
Oh and obviously not being lived in because (for a change) there were non compliant stairs - though some had glass balustrade panels so perhaps they were really going to finish them this time.
Is that it for this series too? Some Sandi Toksvig thing on next weds at 9?
Thought Kev was a bit sniffy about the stripping out of the old timbers, although he did seem to come around in the end!
Nice to see they used some of the old timber in the finishings. Top floor looked a bit impractical with the angled trusses and low ceiling height. I would gladly live there though!
Could they not have sold a lot of the old beams to a salvage yard?
Wasn’t really a fan of the outside, would a mill have been whitewashed? Looked like remnants at the start.
Leslie who did the outside is mad passionate about his work uses traditional methods - so it would've probably looked like that when new.
Spoke to him about it a few years ago when I did the vehicle graphics for the van.
Would be interesting to re-visit as others have mentioned the damp in there would be a nightmare. I didn't see any additional insulation & every house I've lived in, in Cornwall struggles with damp.
I thought they did a fantastic job, maybe the interior didn't quite live up to the exterior but none the less, bravo.
Yes it's a shame the original wood couldn't be saved, but it looked in a horrific state and would surely have cost tens of thousands to save/repair. They simply didn't have the money to do so. I think Kevin was a bit unfair in this regard. The building was on the verge of collapse and obviously nobody else had put their hands in their pockets and saved it over the last 50 years or whatever.
I get the feeling that Kev does 2 or 3 pieces to camera each time he visits; one positive, one negative, one optimistic but fearful. Then at the end of the build they decide what spin to put on the whole thing.
Really enjoyed that one. Chapeau to them they done a great job having no building experience.
Tables were a nice idea but not practical. Perhaps it will evolve over time
Would have been better with a clear resin top .
I expect the tables will get a glass top to pair them together at some point - I wouldn't be wanting to put a wine glass down on the corrugated grinding surface for sure.
Thought it a nice honest project shame that Covid restrictions kind of ruined filming at the most interesting time as there was a whole chunk missing.
Kev was very harsh over the beams for sure. The place was falling down and they rescued it within their budget. Full of admiration for them. No point being a purist standing outside a ruin that can only be used for stone reclamation & sold as a new build plot.
I wasn't too keen on the interior but give it another 100 years or so and I think it will look a lot better. And thanks to what they've done it will still be there. I did wonder with the culvert whether they could put a precast liner in there and then pump concrete around it to at least shore everything up and get a few more years without the concern of imminent collapse.
I know we didn't see any insulation going into the ground floor but I wonder if it did and that is why they didn't use the millstones in the floor as it seemed the obvious thing to do.
I know we didn’t see any insulation going into the ground floor but I wonder if it did and that is why they didn’t use the millstones in the floor as it seemed the obvious thing to do.
That was my thought process too, not enough clearance to avoid water ingress once the necessary clearnces and levels had been achieved if the stones were to be replaced in the floor.
I would have cast a resin piece for the centre of those mill-stones (blue like to river tables of the previous 2 builds) to rest the glass upon.
I know I slagged off this couple above but fair play to them for doing their own plastering. It just shows that in a rustic house you don't necessarily have to have a super smooth finish.
Still hated the interior though. Reminded me of a hostel with all that interior wood relative to the space
And the culvert issue surely was something else they could've anticipated before putting their money down?
The second episode of this series is still the most inspirational DIY insofar he did all his groundwork himself, with the help of some YT videos
Lack of insulation would make it a pretty cold house – fuel bill will probably be horrendous.
Probably still better than a lot of old housing in the UK - will have had good insulation on the new roof. It's all been repointed and the windows and doors will be new, double glazed and it should be reasonably airtight.
But I'm amazed that they were able to do a full refurb like that and NOT insulate the walls. It wasn't like there was any original internal 'listed' features being preserved.
Listed buildings are exempt from thermal regulations. Doesn't keep them warm but it is allowed.
I expect the tables will get a glass top to pair them together at some point – I wouldn’t be wanting to put a wine glass down on the corrugated grinding surface for sure.
Woe betide anyone who spills anything on them...
Thought Kev made a but of an arse of himself TBH and then they lost a year of footage. I bet Mrs Parachutes offered to chuck him out of a plane.
I quite liked it. Would have likes to see some of the metal work, chutes and pulleys back inside, but it isn't my house and I'm not paying for it!
A fiver says that those kitchen table stones and "re-purposed" in the garden with a couple of big planters on them as soon as he's allowed to have six blokes in to help him move them.
Stunning building so fair play to them for a brilliant restoration to a building that would have otherwise crumbled away to nothing. Really like what they did with the place.
It seems like they committed without any consideration for the the current structural integrity of the building. They were then surprised when lots of remedial work was required! I would like to know what they are doing about the collapsed timbers underneath in the water.
It was a slate beam that had failed so it wasn't going to rot away. I guess that they'll just have to dig it out should the need arise. Did it go under the road? If so would that be a job for the council?
The culvert was under the house and need dealing with from the top, according to the surveyors filmed. I was really surprised they completely ignore it, as surely digging a hole and throwing in a concrete lintel wouldn't have been ruinously expensive when they were already digging out the floor. Digging up their new concrete floor will make a hell of a mess, in house you actually live in, if it needs doing later.
Overall Kevin was being a idiot, no one was saving that inside wood, and they did really well with what I considered a tiny budget for that sized job.
Another series starting tonight. What dangers and delights will this one bring.
Any lockdown babies for Kevin ? 😀
Wise move to have the wife pregnant at the start.
Project manager to quit by second adverts?
But I quite like it. Go big or go (to another) home!
Project manager to quit by second adverts?
Nah, probably fleecing making too much money out of it 😉.
Where were the timber beams in the finished project ? If it was going to be covered up then should have gone with a steel frame. We would have had the structure built in weeks not months 🙄
Wonder how much of the costs were "lost" in the restaurant and hotel build 🤔😀
Other than the environmental impact, I think that's pretty good.
Looked like a conference center from the outside, but I liked the interior.
Seems fuelled by just ego rather than passion for design or love for his family. A bit pathetic TBH.
Surprised he got planning permission on a paddock. Feel sorry for the people over the road who have had their view blocked by a half buried stegosaurus.
Great views but if I was dropping £2.5m on a house I’d like somewhere with less immediate neighbours.
Did he have 2 Lexus LFA’s? I haven’t watched it all, but assume his motivation is money, and all his other hobbies or passions are for the accumulation thereof?
Whoever told him you could build it for under a million was clearly deluded and never used zinc before! Anything that bespoke with that many angles will never be cheap or easy.
It was 70m long, assume 15m wide x £2,500 per square m for a moderate build it’s into big numbers. Add the bespoke nature I suspect true cost was nearer 5 million.
assume his motivation is money, and all his other hobbies or passions are for the accumulation thereof?
I thought more like ostentatious displays thereof.
I actually quite liked the building...if it was an art gallery.
It was certainly a Grand Design and something very different, be a cool building to walk past.
Didn't take to him in the slightest, no real interest or passion and could clearly just throw all the money at it. £120k on a kitchen? How??
Felt like it was all done so he could show off to his other rich mates. Said he was 35, if earning that amount of money ages you like that then glad I am poor!
At a time when building regs and new laws are focused on environmental impact it does seem obscene that it is still possible to build such a vast building to house just one family. But then again 4 of us living in a 4 bed detached house worth £500k would seem obscene to a vast proportion of the worlds population too 🤔
Surprised he got planning permission on a paddock.
At a time when building regs and new laws are focused on environmental impact it does seem obscene that it is still possible to build such a vast building to house just one family.
Given the start of the programme explained how he'd made his - presumably 10s of £ms - redeveloping old civic buildings in Exeter into offices, I'm sure he's already greased plenty of palms in the council.
The building (can't really call it a house) [i]is[/i] impressive, but then again it would be an appalling failure for him and the architect if they jizzed £2.5m on it and it wasn't.
I think it's a shame they didn't film (or chose to leave out) all the bit between the zinc going on and the moving in. She seemed distinctly unconvinced about it working as a home...would have loved to have seen all the discussions about that!
Oh..and I have exactly the same Dekton work surface in my new kitchen...which didn't cost £120,000!
4 ovens/combi ovens? 2 washing machines and 2 tumble dryers for a family of 5? I get the feeling they were just filling spaces in
I thought more like ostentatious displays thereof
Maybe, but none of what I saw involved depreciating assets.
2 washing machines and 2 tumble dryers for a family of 5
I certainly don't have the space for that, but of all the excesses in a Grand Designs build, I do quite like the idea of this.
Doing the laundry is a chore, and having double the amount of equipment running in parallel would half the install duration. Especially useful after a holiday when it feels like we have about 8-10 loads that take a few days of farting around loading and unloading every time we walk past the utility room.
Would you be paying someone to do laundry if you were that rich?
(Genuine question - I'm not sure at what level of wealth you start having 'staff'. I did also wonder whether there was a nanny's quarters somewhere we didn't see. I'd probably have gone with one with three kids!)
starting budget of £850k, ended up with £2.5M
that's still a fair leap even by GD standards.
quite liked the house, but assume being featured on GD ups the value for renegotiating the mortgage!
his problem was he built an "architectural designer's" wet dream, and didn't seem to be invested in it at all (other than financially)
isn't an architectural designer a part-qualified architect? (apologies to any on here if I'm wrong!)
Prefer George Clarkes less grand designs... that stable renovation this week was ace!
his problem was he built an “architectural designer’s” wet dream
I think being a stupidly rich client like that makes him the architects wet dream
wish they had touched on the heating/cooling aspect of the build, just a 20 second insight on how that worked.
imagine not being able to open a window though?