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Really enjoyed the 25 year revisit.
Yeah, it was a really nice one. We laughed at how awful the original decor looked from a modern POV and were eagerly awaiting the shades of grey modern version (so we could make fun!) but were pleased to see that it looked the same, only lived in, AND looked really good. They were a nice couple, seemingly. Also, how fantastic to be able to fly with your falcon!
Yep, show's changed a lot since back then. Not sure anyone would want Kevin suggesting gold leaf squares for their kitchen wall these days!
"Sure son, you've no experience but I'll trust your hexagonal wooden barely held together concrete moulds."
Edit: Perfectly formed octagonal columns.
This has been on before. What on earth was wrong with doing it the normal way with cardboard formwork tubes? Cheap, quick, reliable and the time / wood could have been used elsewhere.
Yeah seen this before. It was all like deja vu until I saw the train track and I knew it was a repeat. The fact it looked like present day Kev just confused me
Was it a revisit or just a repeat? I recall it from the original airing and was confused at the end when it (still) wasn't finished.
Nice though
New series of GD starts tonight ...
We've been watching the one at Shoreham progress over the last couple of years. Hope it's not a spoiler to say as usual some of that progression was glacial. 😊
This seems a recipe for going over budget nicely.
The initial chat over costs didn’t disappoint:
”what’s your budget?”
”£385k but we’ll be uncomfortable at £450k”
What could possibly go wrong?
Extract massive boat from mud and purchase crane, could be a classic
Zumwalt-upon-Adur
It looks bloody awful inside and especially outside, doesn’t have a huge living space although, twice a day, it has lovely views. But, twice a day, it’s also low tide, it looks like a junkyard and will bloody smell.
I seems to have nowhere to to keep my boats and bikes, no car parking space and a long walk with heavy shopping. Good for looking at wadding birds. It's also an advert.
Not a great advert though. Yeah, we’ll design and style your house but it’ll be 100% over both budget and timescale.
He did have ridiculously blue eyes though - he put Paul Newman to shame.
He did have ridiculously blue eyes though
first thing my wife said too 😀
I thought being over budget was standard for architects?
I seems to have nowhere to to keep my boats and bikes, no car parking space and a long walk with heavy shopping. Good for looking at wadding birds. It's also an advert.
Adverts are supposed to promote. This does the opposite. The location is awful. Those mudflats must smell awful. No idea why they bothered or didn’t just use houseboat techniques is a mystery to me. No wonder it’s not mortgageable
He did have ridiculously blue eyes though
Presumably they used the same lens filter that had the river looking like something out of CSI Miami
Didn't mind the inside. The gas strut window was cool. From some angles I liked the outside, from others not at all. Will see it in person a some point, being relatively local.
It did give me the inspiration as to where I could put a 20ft surf-ski that would be too long to go in the garage - Mrs DB was less impressed though
I seems to have nowhere to to keep my boats and bikes, no car parking space and a long walk with heavy shopping. Good for looking at wadding birds. It's also an advert.
I noticed he was keeping his welder in the lounge.
I noticed he was keeping his welder in the lounge.
TBF, he had pretty neat welding skills for an architect – I believe aluminium is harder to weld than steel too?
I was impressed with his welding and her joinery, but not much else. I could almost smell the esturine mud just watching it and the intereior looked like B&Q. The front door was pretty cheap and nasty and the idea of having a workshop in your kitchen-diner was unusual to say the least. In Europe they make houseboats based on a foamed concrete base, could have been fun to see them try to make one of those 🙂
They seemed to be pleased with it though, so good luck to them
Some of those houseboats aren't connected to mains sewage. 👀
It is an awesome place in Summer though, a proper little community.
In Europe they make houseboats based on a foamed concrete base, could have been fun to see them try to make one of those
Didn't they cover that (or do you mean something else)? They showed the weight difference between foamed concrete and foamed fibreglass and explained about the lifting/manoeuvring with the crane over the path.
Just finished watching it.
I liked it.
Pity there wasn't any explanation of utilities.
I guess it'll just be a holiday home for them regardless of what was said about it being their home.
If you can afford to burn through £500000 I reckon they'll have plenty of cash and house options elsewhere.
Anyone seen a listing for it on any holiday rental sites? 🤔
I also liked it. Very impressive engineering, design and practical skills from both of them. Also liked the sculling boat hanging from the ceiling.
I liked it as well, but, as pointed out, there are the usual problems with the house, or maybe the episode. Where's the storage? (They rode bikes, from the way the dressed, so where were those). What happens when something big lodges under the house? Is it possible for the house to settle in a lopsided fashion? For the first time ever, I got interested in how they were planning to take poo off the boat and get utilities on. And, did they say 4 bedrooms, with 3 bathrooms right opposite, or did I mishear that? If I heard correctly, then why would they think it necessary to have a row of toilets when that space could be used more wisely?
and purchase crane, could be a classic
Good choice, would have saved a fortune over hiring one for that long a duration.
Noticed it was still there at the end of the programme. I wonder if they were planning on doing more, or just not got round to selling it yet.
I liked what they did with the base, but I think I would have had it all made up somewhere suitable and got it floated round into position. Then a mobile crane in to erect the steel frame. Proper firm would have had that up in a couple of days.
Overall i liked it, nice and quirky . I'd stay there if it was on Air BnB
I got interested in how they were planning to take poo off the boat
Very brief view of the soil pipe emerging on the starboard side with a decent fall-presumably so that at low tide it iwill drain and with a flexible joint to the shore. I don’t think it was anywhere near finished as I would have expected that to have been boxed in/ insulated?
In Europe they make houseboats based on a foamed concrete base, could have been fun to see them try to make one of those
Didn't they cover that (or do you mean something else)? They showed the weight difference between foamed concrete and foamed fibreglass and explained about the lifting/manoeuvring with the crane over the path.
I think they showed a polystyrene block coated in a sand/cement mortar that was quite heavy, that's why they went with polystyrene coated with fibre glass. Foamed concrete is similar to thermalite blocks.
^^^ Ahh okay, I understand now.
My limited knowledge of fibre glass suggests they may have problems ahead. I’ve been told by a few people that wetting out the fibres is essential and not easy for some one with limited prior experience. Did you see the huge delamination bubbles in his stand up paddle board?
But l liked the show. At least it wasn’t another rectangular block. I visited those boats at low tide and i didn’t smell anything. A colleague use to liver in one. I’ll ask her if it smelt
****ing polystyrene. Wrapped in fibre glass. Lovely.
They had a previous house on Shoreham beach that they designed and built, that would have sold for 2 million so I guess the money came from that. We've been watching it go on over the last couple of years and there were obviously periods when they they couldn't get on with stuff. My partner knows them through friendship and says they are really nice people and I like the way he said we'll only know in 10 years if it's been a success.
I know someone who's lived there for over 30 years, he's got 2 boats now, the first is an old MTB but below decks is too rotten and wet to use now but the top is a rehearsal space and his recording studio. He lives now on the boat next door. It's a great place and unusual in that you actually own the freehold of the foreshore hence why the knackered old landing craft was still worth so much
Noticed it was still there at the end of the programme. I wonder if they were planning on doing more, or just not got round to selling it yet.
Bits of the interior looked unfinished in the final walk through. My money's on they need to lift more materials over the sea-wall (the balustrade for the rear deck for one, they'll probably use glass is my guess).
Just watching this one now. Given they weren't building a boat would it not have been simpler to build a house shaped like a boat on piles rather than floating?
Or would there be access issues for the pile driving machines?
Probably more of a planning issue. They own a boat mooring site so they can put a boat on it without issues. Building a fixed structure would require planning and probably very complex building regs.
I've only seen pictures, but given it floats, and looks like a boat, wouldn't it be easier to build it somewhere where you didn't need to crane stuff over the sea wall and then just drag it to its final resting place?
Building a fixed structure would require planning and probably very complex building regs
Yes, that boat wouldnt pass any land based building regs, the thing I noticed was the lack of insulation, possibly 75mm in the roof and wall panels? Nowhere near enough to be efficient.
Walked by earlier. Looking from a distance (the footbridge) it sticks out like a sore thumb. Up close I don't mind it. Would imagine they've gone away on holiday to escape the Grand Designs tourists this weekend. Easily the nicest one to live in, I would have thought. There are all kinds of weird and wacky house boats along there. It's positively boring compared to some.
I feel like the last time I walked along there was so long ago the path was still a soil river bank, but not sure.
Seemed like nice people - and seemed to get stuck-in with the actual build too.
I wanted to like it, but I couldn't get past the fact that (because it's boat/superyacht shaped) you are expecting it to be sleek/refined - but then when you look at it, its actually built like a cheap tin shed - complete with grey soil pipes etc, poking out the side.
I preferred it more than some of the builds, and at least it was interesting - but it seemed like neither fish nor fowl. I suspect it was an office/meeting space for their practice, or being built entirely as a weekend airbnber
Watched it last night, a lot of impressive work went into it & very hands on at that, but I've seen the interior of far too many warehouses to want to live in one.
Would have been far easier & cheaper to build & almost certainly nicer to live in a regular rectangular box shaped houseboat, but then it wouldn't have been a "grand design" would it...
The whole thing to me looked like an exercise in getting on grand designs. Making your own shonky fibreglass pontoons when they could have had a more conventional solution built elsewhere and towed into position
I didn’t catch if the £500k included the berth or if that was just the build cost?
I didn’t catch if the £500k included the berth or if that was just the build cost?
The berth was £250k....
Having watched the whole thing now, it intrigues me that they spent almost 750K to build a pointy, floating, unsellable Screwfix branch.
Having watched the whole thing now, it intrigues me that they spent almost 750K to build a pointy, floating, unsellable Screwfix branch.
It is sellable. £200k?
I enjoyed tonight’s episode. She was one hell of a cow - leaving him to do stuff then questioning it, but they got something quite beautiful I thought.
it did look like for a while we we were on for our second Grand Designs divorce (after the lighthouse), but they seem to reconcile their design differences (the non homogenous slates were lovely an would of looked so much worse if they were all the same) and the end result was quite beautiful
Agree, the roof tiles were the best bit for me. I liked a lot of this one, but can't get away from the fact it's an obscene amount of money for a one-bedroom house (plus two studies). Just such an inefficient use of space. Where would the bikes go? The pain cave? The drying washing? And how do you heat such a vast space without seeing your bank account dwindling in front of you?
Also, why does it seem like the people on GD have never watched an episode? Constantly hoping for the best and budgeting for best case scenario. Surely one close inspection of that barn should have told them there was a ton that was broken beyond repair?
Couldn't warm to last nights place at all. The finished house looked like a mish mash of styles with a front door from the 60s which jarred with the contemporary attempt at the bay window. Also I wonder how much of the contractors generosity was down to the cameras as surely they should've checked things like utility connections before pricing the job?
How did it cost close to £50k to connect power and sewerage over a distance of about 20m?
Last night was strange. What was it, close to £900k? That is a ridiculous amount. I cant see how they spent so much. Why not just refurb the existing house, and fund that by selling the side plot and garden first? I think they had far more money than they were letting on, and if they were short, why not just sell the original house once the main work has been done, and rent for 6 months?
And where did the PM get the money to lend to them? And that PM needs far more experience, the old footings would be 3 or 4 days extra work, then £25k on coverall scaffold, its a good thing, but very costly. And surely they must have had an idea about utilities costs? And why didnt they interview the PM toward the end - I’d guess that tensions were frayed when she originally said it’d be under budget, then it goes 50% over.
How did it cost close to £50k to connect power and sewerage over a distance of about 20m?
Because the Utility Companies have a near monopoly and can charge what they want, and they do. They just pluck a figure out of the air, and see if the customer will accept it. On my own plot, they came with a figure of £6k to connect to the electric , they would connect their cable, which was 3 metres long, I would do all the digging and backfilling. Yes, £6k. I eventually got it down to £1500. They were here for around 45 minutes. There are independent Companies who can do it, but, they are not really interested in single houses, so give an equally inflated price, that is just below the DNO price. The water was a similar price, I did that myself without telling them.
Yeh seemed a bizarre situation to get yourself in when an update and rejig of the existing would have been better.
900k just seemed a bonkers waste of space and money.
We both thought it looked awful from the front and her bedroom was too cramped for if she needs more assistance in there in the future, where as the guest rooms up stairs were massive.
What a mess - front looked like someone had drawn the original house in crayon then faxed it to the draughtsman. Was clear it was trying to mirror the original building but the upstairs window was out of alignment, the bay was a different height and the barge boards were wrong. Just looked like it was designed by a moron.
curved brick wall was a vanity project for the architect
why was taking the window out of the party walk a massive surprise?
the builder was either incompetent or simply ripping the customer off. Curved wall aside that was a straight forward build, no access issue and Barnet isn’t like building in Notting Hill. Could have been done better and faster with no drama for half that money
Not had time to watch the last 2 episodes so I'll try to catch up before next week.
Also, why does it seem like the people on GD have never watched an episode? Constantly hoping for the best and budgeting for best case scenario. Surely one close inspection of that barn should have told them there was a ton that was broken beyond repair?
I routinely shout that at the telly when watching GD. It is only a budget if you have quotes for pieces of work and added all these up, just deciding it will cost a certain amount is an aspiration rather than a budget.
I know there are a lot of unknowns in building so it does take a leap of faith and some flexibility but at least start with a reasonable best and worst case scenario.
S
Yeh seemed a bizarre situation to get yourself in when an update and rejig of the existing would have been better.
900k just seemed a bonkers waste of space and money.
We both thought it looked awful from the front and her bedroom was too cramped for if she needs more assistance in there in the future, where as the guest rooms up stairs were massive.
I think the architect actually designed it for whoever buys it after she's gone, and can actually use the upstairs. Presume the son and daughter inherit a modern house probably worth a bit more than the original on the other side.
Son was very vague about final cost....8-900k is a big range.
PM - yeah I'll loan you the money and absolutely sting you on costs, happy days? Extraordinary to go so over budget on that build, even if you ignore the utility connection costs, it's still 30% over.
Why not put a lift in? She did not look happy.
The whole house looked shit. What not match the windows to the old house?
Surely one close inspection of that barn should have told them there was a ton that was broken beyond repair?
Going back to last week's episode, my first comment was that barns like that were never designed to be lived so what's the point in converting it. You just end up with unusable spaces. As someone already said, all the headspace might look glorious but will be a pita to heat, clean, redecorate, even change bulbs, etc. And despite the final section being filmed on a fine day, I noticed that the lights were on at the far end of the house from those massive windows.
As to the couple,
She was one hell of a cow - leaving him to do stuff then questioning it
was it a case of her bankrolling it, so being a damn sight pickier than him? I thought his job was mentioned as technical director, or similar, but as the show progressed he didn't seem to ever need to be in work or really have any skills to bring. I warmed to them both, though. They seemed more ordinary than some of the posers on GD.
I didn't get why they didn't modify the existing house.
Worried she'd die mid episode
Thought the front door looked awful, the zinc roof on the bay was out of place, as were the windows.
The rear sloping brick roof/ wall was an architects folly.
Overall waste of time and money.
I didn't warm the the PM either.
I didn't get why they didn't modify the existing house.
Worried she'd die mid episode
Thought the front door looked awful, the zinc roof on the bay was out of place, as were the windows.
The rear sloping brick roof/ wall was an architects folly.
Overall waste of time and money.
I didn't warm the the PM either.
900k for a facsimile house, with 50k spent on getting utilities to it. Why didn't they just remodel the old house with a stairlift - or just the ground extension from teh new house?
Absolutely pointless
The PM was the contractor's PM, not the client's.
I can't understand why people employ an architect to draw up a fancy design, then just hand it over to a builder to figure it all out and assume the quote won't change. There's an in-between step of.... will that big window need to come out for the party wall ... how are we getting utilities to the house and how much will that be.... will anything big/ awkward need getting to site... will the road need to be closed, if so how do we do that ...
That's where a proper client PM comes in. But hardly anyone values that skill.
Agreed that the lady could've had a discreet lift put in, and some modifications to remove steps over thresholds, better insulated windows, solar on the existing roof etc. which wouldn't have negatively impact future sale when the inevitable happens. All funded by the son taking out far less than he initially offered on his mortgage.
Bonkers.
I did like the 'here's what you could've had' house that Kevin visited part way through.
Watched the barn conversion episode last night, laughed out loud when the guy had a turn whilst on the scaffolding & wondered how he'd feel about doing the dusting once the house was finished.
Just watched the barn conversion. She did not come across well.
Why did they not get a structural/building survey before they started not from years ago?
I just don't get these huge building for two, heating and decorating must be hugely expensive. I did feel that I've seen several versions of that building over the years.
Usually I love the alternative "this is what you could have had" but the barn one did not look like a nice place to live.
Barn conversions are often hideous places to actually live, and it would be better to just knock them down and start over. They often seem to be just about getting around new build planning restrictions in pretty places.
But that's just grist to the converted mill of Grand Designs, loads of unsuitable, crumbling structures, often listed, which cost a fortune to turn into a mediocre dwelling.
Entertaining for the rest of us though!
So nothing from this series new houses that was worth watching without ample use of the fast forward button, there's normally one house where you can get behind it or the people building it. Not quite sure how on this weeks episode they managed to spend £900K on a semi where they already owned the land?
As ever another bad advert for the architect designing a house that couldn’t possibly be built for the budget. I really didn’t understand the groundwork’s part. The client and her husband had built the part they knocked down. Her late husband designed it. How did they not know where the foundations were and what spec they were. As for the PM the less said the better. She came across as completely clueless
So nothing from this series new houses that was worth watching without ample use of the fast forward button
I disagree. I've enjoyed the first two episodes, even if I thought the end results were dubious. Haven't watched this week's yet.
Just watched the 900k build. Poor Catherine's has had her pants pulled down. The build itself is 150 -200k.
And how do you get a house through planning and half built without getting a quote for services connection?
AND, that window they had to brick up didn't jump out of nowhere.
Very weird.episode
I quite liked the house though, personally.
I didn't understand that last one. Take a (probably) desirable detached in Brent.
Reduce its value by making a semi, lose the garage and half the garden. Copy the hideous porch door, add horrible windows and pay £800-900k.
Or you could modernise the original house, insulate, add a lift if desired and still have change (probably)
Actually liked this week's revisit for the completed build, and 'only' 550 for a interesting and challenging build as opposed to 900 for last week's mess.
The only thing was the lounge only seems to consist of a single sofa with it's back to the window and a dining table.
Not a house I'd want to live in, but definitely a more interesting build.
I couldn't help but feel that the building of the semi was some sort of inheritance tax fiddle just don't know how.
Building onto to music room built by her husband would have been nicer. They were over budget but went with a bespoke hand made kitchen and she would still have issues with the stairs which was the original issue.
The front was all to cock too. The roofline was level across both buildings but what the hell was happening with the window levels?
But again upstairs was too nicely specced to never be used by her just screams tax fiddle by the son.
I loved the red house. Really interesting use of space and shapes and colour. I did think there was very little storage though, so not sure how liveable it'd be.
The semi build was poor, apart from the interior which was lovely. That stairwell! A bit 1970s I suppose, but it looked incredible. I thought the PM was trying to influence her way through the project, Turkey Teeth and all. Felt sorry for the lady. I wasn't quite sure whether her kids got on.
The front was all to cock too. The roofline was level across both buildings but what the hell was happening with the window levels?
front was just ugly. The paneling around the front door looked weird. As did the timber below the bay. Window levels off. Just a mess. Weird as the back looked good and the interior was great.
though way over budget. If your costs go up on one thing you scale back spend elsewhere.
I liked the look of the red house, but as mentioned there did seem to be a lack of storage. Intrigued by Kevins remark that there was a 'lack of cement in the concrete'. Quite how they'd come up with that I don't know, I suspect the contractor just ordered the wrong concrete and Kevin got muddled up with the details.
Intrigued by Kevins remark that there was a 'lack of cement in the concrete'.
There are many grades of concrete. It seems like they used the wrong type, or, it was going off already when they poured it, or it was too wet / too dry when they poured it. Probably spotted later when dry and the shuttering is off, maybe crumbling in places, or voids etc. GD is skimming over such things, it’d take 30 seconds to say why it didnt meet the spec.
I remember they used to feature the heating systems and other parts of the buildings, but such things are rarely mentioned now, it seems to be all down to what it looks like rather than the way it has been built.
Just thought I’d add to this thread as I think we’ve got a definite Grand Designs project on our road.
Last year we saw the plans of a proposed house of which Kev would definitely approve. Built into the side of the hill on the land which was the mahoosive garden of a rather gorgeous grand old Victorian house. A definite whiff of Visitor Centre about it.
The plans looked amazing. Literally built into the side of the hill, full eco-credentials, local stone used as well as the compulsory windows from Germany, the full GD hit!
The usual busybody’s objected, but most of us thought it would make a great addition to the area, so planning was approved and they started work with earnest. The ground was all cleared - a big job as there was lots of mature trees - the excavations dug out half the hillside and then..
Nothing!
There’s now a massive hole in the hillside, fenced off, and…. that’s it. It’s been like that for at least 6 months now.
We’ve clearly been denied the sight of a heavily pregnant woman living on-site in a caravan and a financial director who’s inexplicably opted to manage the project himself.
I is disappoint 🙁