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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To be jealous of couples on Grand Designs...

155 replies

MrsKittyFane · 16/04/2012 20:07

Who build their homes, borrow zillions, take a risk.
DH and I struggle to change a lightbulb.
(watching repeats on More4!!)

OP posts:
SingingSands · 16/04/2012 20:32

I'm not jealous. DHs cousin built her own home and by her own admission it was hell. She said that she never stops thinking "oh I should have done x y z ".

Also I couldn't live in a caravan on site for months/years. Or beg the bank to lend me megabucks.

MrsKittyFane · 16/04/2012 20:36

mayaswell I loved the man in the woods one too! He was lovely and it really was a labour of love rather than money (although I suspect he had a bit of money too - rich parents maybe?)

OP posts:
Jajas · 16/04/2012 20:37

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MagsAloof · 16/04/2012 20:39

Hell, no. Always seems to be some mad professor type architect bloke and a long suffering woman who is forced to live on a building site for 2 years an then comes in at the end to chuck scatter cushions about and other crap to 'give the place a feminism touch'

We renovated our 4 bed semi a few years ago and it nearly cost me my sanity and our marriage, FGS Grin

I am jealous of people who live in hotels. Keanu Reeves has lived in the penthouse suit of a 5 star hotel in LA for years, apparently. Bliss!

EdlessAllenPoe · 16/04/2012 20:42

i usually either like the house based on the people. the two correspond quite a lot.

the ghastly London couple building in the violin factory that blew £20k on an oven they very blatantly were never going to use (as he was working all hours to pay for the build!) ...awful, soulless build....

the lovely Ben Law - you can stay in one of his builds in a sussex 'Canopy and stars' site - though his planning took ten years and was over the councils dead body!

I also loved the medieval pile (the one that partially collapses with Kevin onsite!) that the guy mortgages himself up to the very hilt to re-build in a loving, unpretentious fashion, whilst his wife patiently says 'oh well, it's his dream' ..they were great. i loved the end result.

the current one - it's lovely, quirky, way more difficult than it needs to be due to the hobbit-hole styling..the people seem like really gentle, thoughtful types...

and i thought the water tower was great - the retired couple going for a very modern steel and glass design that really looked unique, and of a piece once built.

I loved - and Kevin tutted about - the builder who re-built the methodist church, his wife scrubbing panes of stained glass for over a year! they input a pool Kevin hated (but it was for their kids hydrotherapy) but i loved that they were building their own home, a place to live, not just something to be a 'concept' or status symbol. That man worked his arse off on the build too - nights, weekends, holidays for the whole time. Their kitchen was just stunning. I thought they were genuine people with a respect for history, and an eye to the practical.

HairThieves · 16/04/2012 20:43

I agree Mags. I never understand celebrities that complain about living in hotels.

I like the idea of having no responsibility for my surroundings whatsoever Grin

MrsKittyFane · 16/04/2012 20:43

Jajas not sure but I saw that too. Man in woods chopped his own trees down and built house from them! I think he had worked with trees in the woods and lived there for ages so got planning permission against the odds.

OP posts:
Mirrorball · 16/04/2012 20:45

Love Kevin, and yes I get soooo jealous and it preys on my mind for so long, I stopped watching it. The couple years ago who built that house over a Loch in Scotland - SO homesick and to live ON the water... ahhhh!

EdlessAllenPoe · 16/04/2012 20:46

there are non-grand designy house boats made from scrap at Shoreham, should you want to look at some completed ones. during the Adur festival you can go inside some too :)

doctordwt · 16/04/2012 20:46

I'd love to, but it would break me. Honestly. We would be the episode where we got to ten months in and decided just to stay put in the caravan Grin

MarshaBrady · 16/04/2012 20:48

Ah yes I know one lovely couple generally liked and oft mentioned, as below.

I didn't know and one night I was idly flicking through channels and it was a surprise to see their beaming faces. Smile

EdlessAllenPoe · 16/04/2012 20:49

which ones marsha

hopefully not the ones i dissed!

EdlessAllenPoe · 16/04/2012 20:50

omg still going after 4 years! that would drive me crackers.

that carved beam is beautiful.

SeaShellsUnderCanvas · 16/04/2012 20:56

Ben Law's house was absolutely beautiful. You can stay in one he has built (it is on Canopy and Stars' website)

I would love to build my own house. Dh and I sit through each programme going " ooh we would never do it like that" Grin I do marvel at how they have the money to do it. Just to have the land over here costs £100,000s . We have quite a few friends who have built their own houses, but the land is so much cheaper and more readily available, so much more possible.

I do snigger at the repro gothic ones, and the ones with spot lights 3 stories up Grin

Kevin is actually the stork though. They all get pregnant!

SeaShellsUnderCanvas · 16/04/2012 20:57

Mirror ball-that one was up for sale last year if you have a few million to spare Grin

MarshaBrady · 16/04/2012 20:58

Ha Edless no. One of the ones Marshmallow likes. One of my dc is v good friends. Skating rather closely to non-anonymity saying that! . They are really lovely people.

SeaShellsUnderCanvas · 16/04/2012 20:58

www.canopyandstars.co.uk/britain/england/sussex/merrion-farm/withyfield-cottage

Now don't all book it up as I want to take dh and the kids there!

Beautiful isn't it :)

Sparklingbrook · 16/04/2012 20:59

OOh Australian Grand Designs now.....

Oh he's no Kevin is he? Sad

EdlessAllenPoe · 16/04/2012 21:07

tis lovely seashells

another of my favourites was a master joiner who built with a tree serving as the staircase main post... watching him use a router to do detail work was an education. Dh would spend weeks doing the same work with a chisel and a carefully sketched pattern, that he was doing freehand with the tool...real skills learned over decades.

oopsi · 16/04/2012 21:19

what I don't get is that they nearly always have a financial crisis whereby the whole build is in jeopardy, long befor the' wind and watertight' stage and then you see the finished house article all finished to the very highest spec!

Moln · 16/04/2012 21:19

Some of the couples yes I do too.

Though the majority make my eyes roll and shout 'oh of arfs sake' as I think are self-congratulatory people / revel in their won brilliance and think everyone else does too and think everyone should admire them - maybe this is the reason for the huge windows...

There is a slim change I'm basing that the one I'm watching right now.

I haven't ever seen the Ben Law one - would like to now. One episode that I recall was a couple who restored an old house to what it would have been (she was a make up artist and worked on films/tv) they uncovered really old wall paper and restored a old fireplace. I liked them.

All the people have oodles and oodles and OODLES of money though don't they?

oopsi · 16/04/2012 21:20

My favourite one was the castle in the yorkshire dales and that huge internal wall falls down.

MarshaBrady · 16/04/2012 21:23

I always remember the beautiful very large study with huge windows and book shelves covering the entire wall.

The guy was a designer, chubby in braces and they had bee wallpaper in the bedroom.

cobwebthegrey · 16/04/2012 21:28

To answer the op, not jealous of the rich ones, but VERY envious of the ones tonight that build that gorgeous thatched job with the land and all the animals. DD would have loved sitting on the roof like their daughter did juts taking in the view and sussing out the world in her head. Envy

EdlessAllenPoe · 16/04/2012 21:29

well, i think some of my favourites didn't cost much at all, in the grand scheme of thins -

Ben Law came in at £28k with his build IIRC

the water tower was a pretty tight budget at £150-200K (which buys a teeny house round here)

the Birmingham church dude bought his church for relatively little, and the build was really a shoestring/ ebay affair..i think the church must have known he'd lok after their building properly.

the twats in the violin factory spend about half a mill IIRC...and they still hadn't finished the legal wrangles..

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