I quite enjoyed it! Liked the house in the end too…. except for having the kitchen/dining room in the underground carpark.
What I did appreciate was the quality – they clearly spent A LOT of time and money on the design, and having the architect design the interiors resulted in a really exceptional finished product.
Having said that, as a home to live in…… nah.
The bloke seemed ok – but just lacked basic project management skills. I suspect (due to his industry culture) had a vastly overinflated sense of his own capabilities. I agree with the above, that the project turned at the point that the Latvians couldn’t use their “cassette” building technique with the complex steel frame, by their own admission this would quintuple (?) the time/budget required. We don’t know who’s fault that was – maybe they weren’t diligent enough when scoping the job, or maybe the client changed the design so much in the 7 years they were planning it and the builders weren’t consulted.
Regardless – at that turning point there should have been a conversation – “we can’t deliver this project within time/budget”, and work stopped until it’s resolved. Worst case, you pay a fair rate for the work done to date and everyone walks away. What seemed to happen was that everyone just bimbled-on with their head in the sand, knowing that, at some point, the number of hours in the builders budget was going to run out. Sounds like the deposit for the glass was used to pay for labor costs – it wasn’t expressly said whether this was/wasn’t agreed, but I suspect this paid for the Latvian workers to return that second time.
I’m from a (non construction) project management background, and most of my time now is spent building project budgets, troubleshooting/costing changes, and managing the fallout this causes with (often inexperienced) clients – and was finding myself triggered throughout that episode!
Was a big fan of the wife though.
