Loved the idea of the pool and how it encouraged diversity. Looked amazing. One of the few GD houses I would love to live in.

Another ‘look how much money I’ve got’.
Why not redo the old house? Spend £200k on that, dig a pond, put the tennis court in and save £300k.
Added to that, what a waste of a house and the cost in carbon emissions of the new one.
But it did look very nice.

Well it was certainly Grand.

Jealousy, money, waste of original house and everything aside I thought it looked pretty amazing from the outside with the ponds and landscaping (ignoring the tennis court). Inside was nothing that different too many big designs other than the access to the pool.

I was amazed they did it only 8k over the 650k budget when you think that one storey box without the ponds/pools and landscaping cost 450k last week.

The house I own is a mid terrace worth 70k tops. It’s another universe!🤣

Anyone know which area that last one was?

They mentioned Chichester in the programme, but I may not have been paying complete attention.

I was criticising throughout as usual but fair play it did look lovely at the end. I bet Mrs doesn’t resent the fact she had to make lamp shades out of sushi mats as Mr had spanked a load on ‘truck stop’ sized tennis court 😄

And why is it almost always the bloody windows that cause delays?

I wonder how much it would’ve cost to bring the old house up to anything like that standard – bare minimum seemed to be insulation, windows, rewire, boiler (and full heating system) and that’s before you uncover any structural issues, all to live in a 1930s layout. The fact that nobody had bought the plot before them was potentially as much down to the issues with the house as with the old drainage pond (which had clearly had some work done before the film crew turned up).

And I had good money on sprog #3 arriving!

Anyone know which area that last one was?

They mentioned South Downs, just had a nosy on Google maps and Thorney island is a good fit. The Wide shot of all the boats is definitely the Thorney Channel

Anywhere in the Chichester Harbour area. Chidham, Bosham, Southbourne etc

Would you be paying someone to do laundry if you were that rich?

(Genuine question – I’m not sure at what level of wealth you start having ‘staff’. I did also wonder whether there was a nanny’s quarters somewhere we didn’t see. I’d probably have gone with one with three kids!)

YEs – in which case having double machines makes even MORE sense as the cleaner/housekeeper can rattle thru e.g. all the bedding in half the time (and the person time is expensive compared to the machine cost)

Would you be paying someone to do laundry if you were that rich?

I am not sure they could be classed as rich – very comfortably well off yes, but a £650k budget (which meant they had to sell the one asset they had) doesn’t necessarily mean they have the disposable income to spend on such things.

I am not sure they could be classed as rich – very comfortably well off yes, but a £650k budget

£650k on top of the original £800k to buy the original house. Pretty sure having a £1.45M house counts as rich.

Very nice from the back but from the brief view a fairly average McMansion from the front. Not that anyone’s going to have to look at it from across the road:

https://www.google.com/maps/@50.8210965,-0.8488429,276m/data=!3m1!1e3

I think there must be some special TV programme way of accounting when these people say what they’ve spent, a bit like on Homes under the Hammer when they do up a wreck with new kitchen and bathrooms and rewiring for “£2K”. Probably excludes parts and labour…

Looked lovely, the pond was cool, but…

1) why are these houses always so large? I appreciate the clue might be in the program title but surely it will be a nightmare to hear etc.

2) the second pond that the storm drainage goes into.. i hope that’s just the surface water drainage, but either way I can imagine at some point that drainage will get in their fancy pond!

The best GD in a very long time.
I really liked the house, the pool and the connection with nature.
I could easily live without the tennis court though, maybe I’d put an underground bike cave/gym/man cave in its place.
A likeable couple too.

I concur – best build for a while, both in terms of the final product, but also how they got there.

They didn’t just spaff a load of money at it, really put in some hard graft and made sacrifices to make it happen.

A couple of things that struck me:

What a good job of designing/costing it they had done. To deliver a project like that (over such a long period) and only go 8k over is incredible. The money constraints that they had weren’t related to over-running costs – it was about the availability of capital.

The pool was amazing – really amazing. The decision to hire a consultant for it was a really good one…..if it had gone wrong it would have been a total frikkin nightmare.

Didn’t really understand the tennis court decision – but I guess it was made when they thought they had 100% of the money to finish (see above) – and so it wasn’t a competing priority. Foolish perhaps not to hold that money in reserve.

Called the window issue as soon as I saw one of the fitters with his face blurred-out…. a sure sign the relationship was going to turn sour!

Seemed like genuinely nice people – found myself rooting for them to succeed

Puppy was super cute

Why was Kevin wearing his socks in the pool?

Kitchen looked sh*t

The pool was awesome, tennis court was stupid.
I thought the house was too big as well but it looked nice

They probably played a lot of tennis.

If one of us did it and had the land and the funds we would no doubt have a Pump Track that would attract negative comments on the Tennisbatworld.com chat forum.

I really like that one – and I thought the kitchen area was brilliant…as well as echo the comments about the pond and garden. I would love to see it in 5 years time again,

I still find it amazing how much money some folk have – mid 30’s and spending £1.5m of what seemed to be cash on a build.

I still don’t get the hugeness of the main house area, it seemed an echoey and less welcoming hallway / main lounge – I bet 99% of their time is spent in the kitchen, snug and bedrooms…’welcome to my mansion’ statement?

TV has a way of not showing how snug the neighbours are to this build.

Puppy was super cute

Their dog looks very similar to ours – when it came running into shot I weirdly thought she had run into the TV set for a moment 🙂

I would love to see it in 5 years time again.

I know an early adopter of a natural swimming pond. A few years in now and it looks great with well established plants, lots of wildlife etc. But he has had to increase mechanical filtration as the original reeds/plant based filtration wasn’t quite enough to maintain the water quality. I think he may also be thinking about adding some PV powered background heating to bring it up a few degrees.

I still don’t get the hugeness of the main house area, it seemed an echoey and less welcoming hallway / main lounge – I bet 99% of their time is spent in the kitchen, snug and bedrooms…’welcome to my mansion’ statement?

The problem with big echoey open plan houses is surely that they are big echoey open plan houses, and nothing can really change that. They don’t work for a family, unless the kids spend all their time in their rooms (imo, of course!).

“Kids, would you mind not playing Roblox, while listening to that awful Youtube Vlog at max volume? I’d like to put on some Shostakovich while I parboil the oven chips. Oh, sorry, Mum’s just decided she needs to practice the harp now, pass my headphone!”

I really didn’t like the glass cupboard on the kitchen walls, they looked like an after thought….. the wall looks bare let’s put something on it. Also thought glass was the most impractical material for them.

Apart from that I thought it was a beautiful place but struggle to believe it was only 8 grand over budget.

I really liked the house and pond. Though did raise an eyebrow at the kids running around!

Planning documents are here and a quite interesting read if you’re into that kind of thing…

https://publicaccess.chichester.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=OQHY7DERGK000

Interestingly, I see that the conservation officer thought it might be a reptile habitat, but before a survey could be done the site was raised! Accidentally on purpose…

Interesting one tonight. Enjoyed it. but £300k my arse 🤔

He’s our architect and an all round good lad

He’s our architect and an all round good lad

So has he spilled the beans about what it really cost, whether they’ve got an electricity supply yet or what a diva Kevin is while they’re filming?

They looked properly knackered at times, but as usual it seemed far bigger than it actually needed to be.

Last week’s kitchen and living area would have been great with a bedroom wing. No need for 3stories. Would have been under budget without the tennis court.

No but then I’m not his therapist.
It’s not finished yet but not far off. I believe him on cost though.

Pulled some good sized trout out from under that bridge when I were a lad too.

Wonder if it’s flooded yet.

It does look particularly susceptible to the yearly once “every hundred years” weather we now have.

I liked it but just couldn’t understand the logic (from English Heritage or whatever they were) telling them the old building was unsafe and had to be demolished…and then rebuilt. The guy said himself it was never designed to last! So they built some fake ruins that have no historical value!

Fair play for all their hard work and imagination but in the end its yet another larch panelled larger than necessary monstrosity with added fake ancient outer & exactly how many days are you gonna use a roof terrace in that location?

whether they’ve got an electricity supply yet

I thought they were going to come up with a clever system to make use of the raging torrent outside their back door. Was a bit disappointed to see it had turned into a trickle later in the episode.

If one of us did it and had the land and the funds we would no doubt have a Pump Track that would attract negative comments on the Tennisbatworld.com chat forum.

This.

My OH has a Tack Room and a few years ago I put in a bike wash area – looks a bit like ones you see at any Bike Park, needed a mini-digger to put in a 20m trench to get the water there. Already have a dedicated workshop.

Well, I really liked it. Seemed to put most of the effort in themselves and they made the best of the surprise demolishment mandate.

Personally, I would worry about the flood risk.

I was envious of the location, but didn’t like the build at all. The roof garden area with the high gables looked very odd and the ‘fake’ rebuild of bits of wall with lead flashing looked awful. I’d rather have a reclaimed stone building, or a modern timber one.

Was a real shame about the trees too, but I know it will soon green up and grow back with natural regen or supplemental planting.

I think last night’s would have looked better if the timber panelling on the new structure had sat inside, rather than flush with, the top of the ruined walls. And the lead flashing didn’t really work, although I can see why they did it the way they did for convenience.

Also totally agree it didn’t need to be the size of a factory.

Nice couple though.

I thought as an architect he/they would have had a bit more idea that services would cost a lot and take forever to get installed. also the discussions with heritage people must have been interesting
yes of course we will sell you that pile of stones down by the river £110 K ? brilliant… dont tell them it will have to be demolished! and that all the massive diseased beech trees need dropping, having said that its a stunning spot till 1 month of rain lands upstream overnight. Kev losing his special ‘touch’ again this week.