And don’t mention ‘Double your house for half the money’ which mostly consists of a childless couple living in a large detached house, which ‘isn’t big enough’ (for their ego), so they spend another 100K on top of their mortgage to end up with a ‘lovely space’ (=large kitchen).

it’s become more generic designs than grand designs in my opinion.
lets get back to the genuinely inspiring and quirky builds rather than an another ego driven ‘design’

Recently, we’ve had a Japanese design in rural Wales and a metal hangar inspired design in a Scottish airfield. If they’re not quirky, what is?

Not this series but the converted lifeboat station at Tenby was good too.

In last nights build they kept nothing of the old building they used. They might as well have knocked it down- would have been cheaper and faster.

Why does it come as a surprise to anyone that extraordinarily large triple glazed danish windows delivered by negotiated access through a public park and a team of 14 people to fit them cost a stupid amount of money?

Big glass costs a lot of money, they could have done it for a quarter of the cost by using a series of smaller glass panels with more solid uprights or worse still extensive framing but that wouldn’t have given them the open look that they wanted. They were lucky/hard working enough to have found themselves in a position where they didn’t need to compromise on what they wanted so they didn’t.

As for smug, if i were ever in a position that i was able to build a house to my personal specification in my favoured location without any major compromise I’m pretty sure I’d look as smug as a dog with two dicks.

Next week’s Grand Designs is a bit different.

Web site here Build Something Beautiful

The owner/builder is a mountain biker, not sure if he comes on STW though so I’ll do the promotion here.

My practice has done the structural engineering (but not me personally).

Grand Designs clashes with our mid week night ride, but I should be able to catch it on C4plus1!

They were lucky/hard working enough

In advertising and marketing. They’ll be first up against the wall when the revolution comes…

15 hours and 2 pages and no mention of the rear doors cost yet! Wanders away muttering “…..all fields”

Next weeks looks very interesting.

I liked the way they had combined both open plan design with the ability to then shut parts of it off. Seems that the architect actually understood both how people think they want to live and how they actually want to live.

Funny how we all love a couple failing miserably in Wales building an eco house and looking forward to at least a 5th winter in a static caravan and hate a wealthy “successful” couple building a well thought out and planned house in London. 🙂

I think the best one ever was the bloke who built his own house in his woodland, built just by him and his mates out of fresh wood and straw bales.

Kevin’s favourite as well I believe.

I identify with failures living in damp corners of the World 😉

Why does it come as a surprise to anyone that extraordinarily large triple glazed danish windows delivered by negotiated access through a public park and a team of 14 people to fit them cost a stupid amount of money?

It’s not surprising – that’s the point. The most interesting projects have been those where the owners haven’t just thrown vast quantities of cash at a narcissist’s palace.

just catching up on this

she’s a horror aint she and he’s probably not that bad, but him wanting to keep her happy makes him a **** right?

I quite fancied her, that’s the way you manage a fixed price contract.

I even liked the house, I’ll get my own coat.

I really liked it, there were lots of thoughtful little details, like the snug rooms, the skylights letting light into otherwise gloomy areas, and I really liked the location. Having a very large park virtually as an extention of your garden, in London, for what they paid? Christ, you’d have to make me suck lemons to wipe the smug grin off my face! The level of small-minded jealousy on display here is even more nauseating that the alleged smugness of the house owners.
Some people really ought to go and have a quiet word with themselves… 🙄

Ha, well said Countzero.

He seemed OK, couldnt stand his lantern jawed missus, Architect seemed to tick all the stereotype boxes ie.Odd name,Interesting Specs,Trendy man-bag,arty comments on how light hits the spire!

Thought the house itself turned out well compared to what it started from but then again If I chucked £1000000 at it I would expect it to be nice and have a decent finish.

that looks like such an organic space – marvellous
😀

The level of small-minded jealousy on display here is even more nauseating that the alleged smugness of the house owners.

People have different opinion to you shocker.

So much jealousy.

Favorite Grand designs

1/ Earthship – in France

2/ Artists in puglia

3/ Wooden house on in forest, mentioned above

I guess the common theme is they were more self built.

House above looks quite interesting.

I watched it this weekend and quite liked the house, unreal that you can have something like that so close to London.

There was a hefty price tag though…

I can’t say I liked the couple (I doubt they’d like me..) but they were sensible enough to get a fixed price, and not give up successful jobs to get involved by becoming the “project manager”.
Why do the ppl in these programs ‘insist’ on doing this?
They still had ultimate control of the project but weren’t being smothered by the details of managing a timeline/materials/etc that they know nothing about.

I didn’t like the end result, but that my taste, but I did admire the location (well dependant on the church bells!) and they ended up with something they were proud/happy with.

I agree with the complaints about this and other projects ending up with no curtains (or blinds), why do ppl do that?
The other complaints we’re always discussing, is that these open plan homes are so echoey. How can that be nice to live with, especially when you have young kids?

I did hate how they sanitised the garden, it had lovely wild flower growing at the start with lots of tree but a rubbish boring cricket green at the end (and hardly any tree’s).
Why? Why would you do that?

PS: I wish GD would actually show us the insides of these houses, we hardly get a glimpse round now.

PPS: Next weeks looks brilliant!

Favorite Grand designs

1/ Earthship – in France Francis’ Castle in Yorkshire

2/ Artists in puglia

3/ Wooden house on in forest, mentioned above

Amended your list to the definitive list (obviously you are allowed to disagree)

PS: I wish GD would actually show us the insides of these houses, we hardly get a glimpse round now.

he doesn’t need to on the london ones as they are soon on the market and you can see the pics on rightmove.

So much jealousy.

Nothing to be jealous about, unless of course you like taking one old soulless(Vicarage 😉 ) box and turning it into a modern day version of a soulless box.

The idea of changing houses of this type of design is a good idea.

@ Klunk

I quite liked the house actually, and for a couple that have the professions that they did, they didn’t come across particularly dislikable.

As for the cost of it, pretty good value I say, I know of a rundown 3 bed detatched house (in Putney, and needs a ‘lot’ of work) with a similarly size garden that has sold for a fair old bit more than they paid.

I can’t say I liked the couple (I doubt they’d like me..) but they were sensible enough to get a fixed price, and not give up successful jobs to get involved by becoming the “project manager”.
Why do the ppl in these programs ‘insist’ on doing this?

Because it would be really boring if it was just people employ architect, people pay builder, builder builds house, people move in.

Its the mistakes and journey through the build that is the entertainment, not the completed project.

£60k for windows? That’s not that bad.

I’ve just done them on this little place (new build and sadly, no, not mine!) and it’s not far shy of that.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-43432667.html?premiumA=true

I’m quite fortunate in my line of work that I see a lot of very nice properties. The one that’s particularly blowing my mind at the moment is a tree house, that costs as much to build as I’ve just sold my house for!

Its the mistakes and journey through the build that is the entertainment, not the completed project.

That said though, the number of ‘projects’ that say:

‘John and Jane intend to build a 5 bedroom, 12 bathroom, gothic glass box. Their mate Fred had done a drawing on the back of a napkin, they don’t have planning permission and havent hired an architect/PM/main contractor. John intents to do most of it himself, despite having never even put up a shelf, but has seen some videos on the internet. Their budget is £15,000, that they are off to the bank this moring to get a mortgage for and the timescale is 6 weeks.’

Get pretty tiresome, as you don’t see a finished house, and it’s a farce from start to finish.

^^^ +1

…but a stupid amount of money to put it right (way over budget) after they’ve **** up, and will now spend X years trying to pay off the mortgage when there supposed to be mortgage free with this project, and spent even longer than necessary living in a cold nasty caravan… yep that’s a great journey 😯

As I said, just because your not the project manager doesn’t mean you have no control. I mean who agreed the original design, picks the materials, etc, etc. When you get to this level of build, it’s hardly a like you building just another box is it?
You employ experts.. well you know because there the expert….

EDIT: I don’t totally disagree with the ‘journey thing’ BUT these ppl where being criticized for being sensible and bringing the project in “on budget”, yet still ending up with a result they wanted.

The other common theme in GD is the delay caused by windows being delivered to site. Why do window manufacturers (in this program) always seem to miss their deadlines by months?

Its not just in this program. windows are normally on long lead times and A main contractor will often want to measure a structural opening before ordering rather than relying on drawings. Also a contractor may well suffer from cash flow problems if they order x thousand pounds of windows right at the begining of a job so go and leave it to the last possible minute, and then over run.

ajc – yes and yes to both of those. Windows are actually pretty complex, and they are never the same size twice. The actual manufacturing time is also not what you’re waiting for, that’ll be the production slot.

Anybody else watch Restoration Man? I find it much more appealing(/less pretentious) than Grand Designs these days…

Nah though some of the houses George has highlighted have been ace (and I’ve seen very few of his programs), he’s too “nicey nicey”, part of the GD fun is shouting at Kevin for being such a rude cock 😀

I liked it, not keen on the location but then I’m not a Londoner. Where did they keept their cars though?

Good point, and it’s quite possible the don’t own cars, or they’re kept elsewhere. In London a car isn’t that important, because of the ubiquitous public transport, and they’d probably just hire through the business if they need a car for travel outside of the city. Bath is similar in a way, although public transport isn’t so great, the city is small enough to be able to get around easily without one, plus the increasingly draconian parking restrictions make having a car a pain. A friend lives and works there, and hasn’t owned a car for years; if she travels outside the city she uses train or bus.
If I lived where this couple lived, I’d think twice about owning a car. Oyster card FTW!