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

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?

Are we on about mad tattooed woman from last week? I thought more ageing trustafarian than landed gentry. Whatever she was, its not a bad position to be in, to be able to shake the lower boughs of the money tree and rustle up another £400k

The end result was absolutely hideous. It looked like an empty builders yard.

Missed last nights. I'll have to watch on catch up tonight.

FWIW, If I sold my house now and paid off my mortgage, I'd have around £310k - I'm 47, bought first house at 28 and had an inheritance of £80k just over two years ago.

I'm hardly landed gentry and I bet loads of people on here are in similar positions to me....

Binners - no we aren't talking about the Steptoe & Son yard, it's last night's episode we are 'discussing'.

No binners, we're not. You need to write literally get working programme

Oh... ok... sorry... I'll try and keep up.

johndoh - Our kids modest 3 bed house in central London, bought 20 years ago, is now worth the same as all the property in Rochdale combined 😯

Perhaps not 'landed Gentry' but certainly from a "privileged" background...

While I found the whole Eco-build thing interesting, quite liked the final house and did end up interested the system of point scoring for Code 6 acceptance, Yet again it was a build that demonstrates more than anything it's financing that makes these things happen... Don't bother even dreaming if you ain't got the money.

The most interesting Grand designs for me are still the ones where the budget is tighter and they still pull it off, best one is still the fella who built his house (for ~£25k?)in a coppice in the first series, that one was pretty "Eco" too if IIRC...

Our kids modest 3 bed house in central London, bought 20 years ago, is now worth the same as all the property in Rochdale combined

Nice rant earlier by the way.

Code is currently been wound up by the Tories. Parts of it are been rolled into the Building Regulations but a fair amount will no longer be required.

Will this makes new houses cheaper - No.
Will this make new houses better - No.
Will this make major House Builders (who donate to the Tories) more money - Yes.

Perhaps not 'landed Gentry' but certainly from a "privileged" background...

As I said, I could raise around £310k and I am in no way from a privileged background - indeed I took loans out to help my parents from having their house repossessed when I was in my mid-twenties, didn't have a holiday abroad until I was 16, wasn't allowed to go on school skiing trips because my parents couldn't afford it. I just struck lucky in being reasonably good at my job and getting a fair wage that allowed me to buy a property (with zero financial help from my parents, but they did spend ages helping me sort the house out) before the silly housing boom - when was that? About 1997?

johndoh - Member
FWIW, If I sold my house now and paid off my mortgage, I'd have around £310k - I'm 47, bought first house at 28 and had an inheritance of £80k just over two years ago.

I'm hardly landed gentry and I bet loads of people on here are in similar positions to me....

Hmmmm, 47 and able to cash in for upwards of £300k eh?
I'd group you in the tail end of the [i]"Pulling up the ladder"[/i] generation TBH...

35 here, bought our first house 5 years ago for under £190k we got a good mortgage deal but we still spanked all our savings and had input from my parents for the deposit. It's gained a little equity but honestly I don't really see how we'll ever be in the sort of position to pull 300 grand out of our arses...

Most of my peers still haven't bought, and as for my children's generation goes, I think they can pretty much forget owning a house...

I think the generational wealth gap cut off point is probably being born after about 1975-ish...

I'd group you in the tail end of the "Pulling up the ladder" generation TBH...

My business partner is 10 years my junior so I can appreciate your position - he did all he could to get on the property ladder about 9 years ago but his property is barely worth any more than it was when he first bought it.