The Grand Designs t...
 

[Closed] The Grand Designs thread

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What the hell have they taken on? 😯

Oh, and with regards babies, doesn't look like Kev's usual!


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:18 pm
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I want to kill her already.


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:19 pm
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She's got a nice hair style hasn't she.


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:22 pm
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Is this series all about visitor centers ?


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:24 pm
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gotta love the Hammer of Odin!


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:25 pm
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Bloody hippies.


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:27 pm
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I, too, blame the Georgians.

The woman's not that bad, or are my standards slipping?


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:28 pm
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standards boy, standards!


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:29 pm
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Right, I'm going to have another look at her and think about what I've said. 🙁


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:30 pm
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Love the way that they don't want to feel slaves to a big budget /mortgage and yet take on a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge project. muppets.


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:32 pm
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Fugly building


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:35 pm
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Good god that roof looks ugly - good idea for light though.


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:35 pm
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What we appear to have done is restore a barn... and I wasn't quite expecting that!

Nice.


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:37 pm
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Ok anyone want to bet how much over the £600K budget they go?


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:37 pm
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Jeepers, what muppets!


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:38 pm
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Mrs 16 contributes:

If you had the chronic runs and you had guests downstairs, they would totally hear everything.


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:40 pm
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I guess nobody will be invited round for a curry night then!


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:41 pm
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£3k kitchen..... nice


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:43 pm
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Hair change


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:44 pm
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I turned over after they got all ****y about not having two bay trees either side of the front door... and other such pretentious toss.


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:44 pm
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Same face. 🙁


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:44 pm
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what does mrs16 say about your standards?


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:45 pm
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for artistic people, they're crap at painting!


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:45 pm
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what does mrs16 say about your standards?

As long as I close the door when I have chronic runs, she's happy!

Re the ladies, she gave up on me when I confessed to a childhood crush on Maryam D'Abo!


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:49 pm
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Are they actually mentalists?


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:52 pm
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Like living in a low rent medieval tate modern, with an en suite in the turbine hall, they should invite Tracey emin round to camp out in their living room and it would be complete


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:53 pm
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Apparently, changing your hair colour all the time means you're bi-polar... a strange woman told me that once.


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:53 pm
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My god, looks like a warehouse selling tat........


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:53 pm
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Call those bedrooms "conventional" I think not


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:55 pm
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...upcycling of cheap materials into things of great value and freshness...

WTF?

Where's Planet Kev?


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:56 pm
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Is an extractor hood over the oven really necessary when the ceiling is about 90ft high!


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:56 pm
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Oooooo it's all so arty...... arn't they so trendy and hip......


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:56 pm
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They are living in a big garage full of crap.

Jeepers, that's bad


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:57 pm
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She looks like Rob Brydon


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:57 pm
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Why won't Kev ask them how many splinter's they've had since they've moved in?


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 8:58 pm
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£850,000 down the drain.....

Who will they sell that to in the future?


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 9:00 pm
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That is fantastically poor value for money


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 9:01 pm
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£850,000 down the drain.....

Who will they sell that to in the future?

Well at least they get free publicity for their arty commissions, if all else fails they have Mummy n Daddy to fall back on...


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 9:02 pm
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Wonder if the cows will appreciate it when they spend winter in there?


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 9:03 pm
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I think they got what they deserved....a huge bill and a heap of poo


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 9:03 pm
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Struggling to find anything I liked about that. An ugly building in ugly immediate surroundings and a messy, I'll-considered interior.

The spiral staircase was nice (probably one of their biggest single expenses) - but hidden in that awful concrete.


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 9:12 pm
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Mrs S-S made the point that rebuilding the concrete grain silos probably cost more than wacking a stud wall up. False economy recyling.

and bloody ugly.

I liked the farmhouse though. Wish we saw more of that.


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 9:20 pm
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I liked it. At least its not yet another modern glass box/shopping centre

I liked most of the stuff they'd collected too, especially the robots. 🙂


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 9:25 pm
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I quite liked it too. Wouldn't want to live in it, and there was lots to not like, but I liked the approach they took.


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 9:35 pm
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Mrs S-S made the point that rebuilding the concrete grain silos probably cost more than wacking a stud wall up. False economy recyling.

Isn't recycling not simply about pound/shilling/pence savings?
I like open spaces but that was biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig. Too much wood for me too, inmteresting roof idea too. A huge amount of money, I hope they've got something left for heating.


 
Posted : 05/10/2011 10:02 pm
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I hope they've got something left for heating.

They have got lots of wood...

😉


 
Posted : 06/10/2011 8:20 am
 LoCo
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I like it, well apart from the ridiculous amount of concrete in the floor, not very eco, and the toilet without a roof so everyone can hear your morning constitutional isn't great either.
would happily live in that as it'd be great to be just next door in the workshop.


 
Posted : 06/10/2011 8:30 am
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When they said some things cannot be done, for example keeping the gable end wall with the light streaming through it, I just thought that with a bit of immagination they could have lined it with a glass curtain wall. And then I fell asleep 🙁


 
Posted : 06/10/2011 9:06 am
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I was a bit meh about it, but keep coming back to the £850k it cost and then it leaves me feeling profoundly depressed. EIGHT HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND POUNDS, they could have done so much better.


 
Posted : 06/10/2011 9:11 am
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Going to have to fire up 4-OD as I obviously missed a good one!!


 
Posted : 06/10/2011 9:17 am
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I bet the vast, vast majority of the £850k went on repairing the wood frame itself.


 
Posted : 06/10/2011 9:21 am
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jeepers what a bunch of conventional bores you lot are!
yeah they had too much cash and she was a bit annoying but it was very inventive and interesting and challenges the idea everyone in this country seems to have about how its ok to live in pastiche mock georgian/victorian/edwardian noddy toy town boxes!


 
Posted : 06/10/2011 10:06 am
 LoCo
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Fenboy why you hating the Barrett Travel lodge style? 😉


 
Posted : 06/10/2011 10:08 am
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LoCo, they conform to the lowest possible standards of spatial quality, aspiration and lack any thought and with the change to planning laws will be popping up in fields near you all once the economy starts moving again! 😕


 
Posted : 06/10/2011 10:13 am
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challenges the idea everyone in this country seems to have about how its ok to live in pastiche mock georgian/victorian/edwardian noddy toy town boxes!

It is ok to live like that. 🙂

I'd argue that if you feel that you have to actively try to be different by doing something way out then you're actually probably more conventional in mind than those who don't need to try to be special to feel special.

Of course, the people who really are inventive/interesting may well do things very different but not in an attempt to be so.


 
Posted : 06/10/2011 10:14 am
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as i said the building in the programme challenges this notion no matter whether thats the participants actual motivation or not. and born out by the majority of comments above.

if you draw an analogy to mountainbikes, we all upgrade constantly and are consistently drawn to the latest design led innovations all of which happen to enhance the experience of mountainbiking. Then why shouldn't we strive to enhance the experience of living by seeking out the best designed homes we possibly can! which the average developer led housing development is not! and the issue of cost does not come into it as you can build a well designed home for the same price as a poorly designed one.

thats all i'm saying as i'm off to enhance some peoples living experience


 
Posted : 06/10/2011 10:25 am
 LoCo
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fenboy, see my first post, they won't be popping up by me as surrounded by my extensive estate 😆


 
Posted : 06/10/2011 10:30 am
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LoCo, I'm with you 🙂


 
Posted : 06/10/2011 10:33 am
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I didn't find it a very inspiring programme - which is what I usually look for from a Grand Designs.

They got given a huge barn, through lots of money at it, didn't really "design" the interior much (surely the point of the programme) and ended up with a fairly strange part empty building.

£850K for a two bed barn conversion is poor VFM but that's their decision. If that was round here they would certainly make a profit selling it.


 
Posted : 06/10/2011 10:34 am
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we all upgrade constantly and are consistently drawn to the latest design led innovations all of which happen to enhance the experience of mountainbiking.

bullshit. you are a marketing mans dream


 
Posted : 06/10/2011 10:35 am
 LoCo
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Fairly non conventional needs for their building studio, workshop and toy collection, so was different to the norm, just a shame they didn't put a Limecrete floor or similar in.


 
Posted : 06/10/2011 10:37 am
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jeepers what a bunch of conventional bores you lot are!
yeah they had too much cash and she was a bit annoying but it was very inventive and interesting and challenges the idea everyone in this country seems to have about how its ok to live in pastiche mock georgian/victorian/edwardian noddy toy town boxes!

I don't think it challenged anything - they just built something to suit their needs. In itself that doesn't make it a success and I thought there was much about it that was very ugly.


 
Posted : 06/10/2011 10:37 am
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m_f, it surely did challenge your views on accommodation/living hence yours and others posts about it here! you have an opinion about it, it made you think therefore you may may not question you're own living scenario, thats all i'm saying. ugly is subjective and not what i was talking about
LoCo yes limecrete would've been nice
tomthumb you'll be one of the few then!


 
Posted : 06/10/2011 10:42 am
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surely did challenge your views on accommodation/living

"Challenge" is one of those words often used to try and make something that someone doesn't necessarily like/agree with/believe in seem as though it's because they're boring/conventional.

The people on last night did things to deliberately be 'different'. They said so. They obviously feel that they have to consciously try to be different to actually be different. That I would argue is something that requires them to inherently be very conventional.

Designing things to suit yourself and enhance your 'living experience' is not the same thing.


 
Posted : 06/10/2011 10:47 am
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ok not challenge make you question then! most of the posts were about how the couple chose to live, their decisions are kind of irrelevant to the point i was making as yours would be if you were doing the same, if you did something differently then you would have your own motivations but if the result of that was that it made people think about their own existence and change it in a positive way for them but not necessarily the same thats good no??

Designing things to suit yourself and enhance your 'living experience' is not the same thing.

really? if you had the budget to design and build your own house would you not design it to suit yourself and therefore enhance your living experience


 
Posted : 06/10/2011 10:56 am
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It wasn't in the least inventive or interesting, they'd simply fixed a barn and stuck their possessions in it, added a couple of "rooms" and that was it. Massively environmentally unfriendly to boot. Isn't this what people did with warehouses in the 70's?


 
Posted : 06/10/2011 11:02 am
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i don't usually watch the show anymore as I can't stand that chap who presents it, but my main problem with yesterdays build is that it was so damn ugly!


 
Posted : 06/10/2011 11:09 am
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"question" in that context is also one of those words 🙂

My point being that people tend to go for similar things because they're popular or suit most people. Sure some people just choose things because they're the accepted norm but that doesn't mean that everyone else can't question, just that the answer is 'I don't need to do it differently'.

I think you misunderstood "Designing things to suit yourself and enhance your 'living experience' is not the same thing."

To use maths it'd be:

(Designing things to suit yourself and enhance your 'living experience') is not the same thing as being 'different'

Hope that's clearer


 
Posted : 06/10/2011 11:17 am
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so we agree..... sort of!


 
Posted : 06/10/2011 11:19 am
 ianv
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I really liked it, especially the two silos, the clever roof and the mix of old and industrial. Heating bills would be a nightmare though.

I don't think it can be called unimaginative as they have created a home that is a long way from the norm, has some inspired features and has loads of character.


 
Posted : 06/10/2011 11:22 am
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I don't agree that it was in any way imaginative. They simply made a big space for their workshops and added a couple of bedrooms at one end. They admitted themselves during the show to not have considered how to deal with the space once finished (although they did do some quite nice things - but that was by accident, not design from the outset)

I seriously think that for the thick end of £1million they could have (and probably should have) done something more imaginative, more challenging - especially considering they are both creative people.


 
Posted : 06/10/2011 12:24 pm
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At the start the barn and the wood frame made me go wow! 🙂

At the end, the result made me go Ugh!? :-/


 
Posted : 06/10/2011 12:33 pm