To be driven crackers by the people on Grand Designs?

[CruCru]

On the episode today, the couple have sort of fallen out with all their neighbours. The project is over budget (by more than £200k) and over deadline. The guy has sold his business to finance the project and no longer has work to support the family. And they all seem to live in the one studio flat.

Argh! I couldn't bear it.

[TunipTheUnconquerable]

What always cracks me up is that they're always smug about the eco credentials of their house then they fill it with brand new furniture.
Except for that ONE family that built that lovely hobbit hole in the Lake District (unless I'm getting families muddled up, but it was definitely in the side of a hill) and put their old stuff in it and gently explained the whole eco thing to Kevin when he objected.

[Goodwordguide]

My (least) favourite couple were the ones in west London (naturally) who pissed off all their neighbours by blocking up the mews road with diggers and cranes for over a year (they accidentally demolished one poor neighbour's wall) to build a modern house totally out of keeping with the rest of the road. They spent £15,000 extra because the wife insisted on having a disco floor in the basement - even Kevin struggled to put a positive spin on that. Such fun indeed.

[Goodwordguide]

X-post scrappy

I love all the 'eco' homes built in the middle of previously unspoilt countryside, miles from anywhere so the family requires at least ine, if not, two cars.

[Edithmark]

At the end did you see the trailer for next week? Some chap saying "I like to design rhythmic spaces"!! Can't wait for that....no idea at all what a rhythmic space might be. Me and DS1 crack open the Pringles and dip, and sit on our old sofa in our 3 bed room 1970s semi with mismatched furniture supplemented by cheapo Ikea and roar our heads off at GD. It's a real good night in our house!

[GrrArgh]

I love GD and mainly like the houses (but then I'd live in a brutalist bunker if I could, not sure why but I love them).

But yes, the children always seem to get a raw deal: teeny tiny rooms and in half those houses sound is going to carry like a bastard. I suppose most of us have small bedrooms but surely if you're going to build a house (well, in the countryside) you'd make an effort to give your children a proper room?

[LateBloomer414]

DH and I watch religiously, party out of envy but mostly to watch Kevin wrinkle his nose at design elements that don't have a 'dialogue' with their surroundings. Love the Jaws music that signals another £50k just got spent or the weather went tits up or the builders weren't German. They always want to be in by Christmas but alway have to put up a string of fairy lights around a bare twig in the muddy cold caravan. Endlessly watchable!

[DidoTheDodo]

We've got a GD "project" in the village where I live. It has already had to be extended as it was too small.

However, I love George Clarke. I'd like to work on a project with him. Fnar fnar...

[SixPackWellies]

There is a GD house for sale near us too, that was filmed quite recently.

The owners spent in total (including the initial purchase) about 600k, and it is on the market at £1.7 mill. The show was repeated again quite recently, and I thought that considering they were advertising it as a 'As shown on GD' the vendors must have been annoyed that the show quite clearly displayed that they were trying to make a £1 mill + profit.

[Bogeyface]

90% of these houses aren't for living in imo, they are for selling at a massive profit to allow the builders to buy something more traditional.

Five will get you ten that within 2 years Saskia and Mr Smug will be living in a 5 bed in Berks.

[BlueSkySunnyDay]

I think the familys with young children build them tiny rooms close by and probably, once they turn into teenagers (and the music and sleepovers start) wish they had built them an entire wing much further away.

[redlac]

I laughed at one bit last night where the woman, while talking proudly about her underground lair, said that she could get up at 5am, make a cup of tea down there and wouldn't wake anyone up! I can manage that quite easily in my terraced 2 bed wee hoose!!!

[TunipTheUnconquerable]

What I don't understand is why they never have swimming pools.
WHY build a massive million pound modernist pile and not put a swimming pool in it? Makes no sense.

[mrsharrystyles]

Sorry haven't read all of thread, but thank god it's not just me.
I hate those smug couples who appear on this programme.
The absolute worst were the middle aged couple with two teenage kids in London. They had land at the end if a very narrow street and spent months digging out a basement, fell out with all neighbours. What was in the basement I hear you ask? A bloody disco floor!!! I wanted to push her under a bus.

[YouTheCat]

I know someone who was on the list for being on GD but the project was put back so many times because the berk (an architect) hadn't bothered getting a ground survey done even though it was common knowledge that the place was riddled with old mine workings.

[GrrArgh]

Tunip I think swimming pools are actually very hard to maintain, go wrong a lot, and the chlorine smell permeates the whole house.
Unless you mean outdoor pools?

[TunipTheUnconquerable]

Yes, but those houses are full of things that are hard to maintain and go wrong a lot (sliding glass walls, computer-controlled skylight-opening systems, etc), so one more will hardly make a difference.
Indoor or outdoor. It's often the kind of house where a swimming pool outside will be just the finishing touch it needs.

[stretch]

Loved the woodsman one. Hated the one with the bath under the bed.... With the no door to the bathroom and that awful opaque/transparent glass to the living area. They had crappy staircase, more like ladders and a tiny living space. They had a baby too!

[GrrArgh]

That's true Tunip.
Maybe it's just the chlorine smell issue then?
(I'd have one in a poolhouse, next to the sauna... )

[springydafty]

I couldn't bear that disco one. also GD overkill now as it's on all the other channels, repeated ad finitum on a permanent loop. The woodsman is KMcC's favourite too, apparently. Anyone remember the place in central london next to an orchestra and the issue with the wall not being the right brick and the owner with weird hair

But the main reason GD sticks in my craw is because I'm jealous. There, said it.

[CruCru]

Swimming pools don't usually add value to a house. Definitely agree, living in a place with tiny bedrooms where sound carries would drive me crackers.

[SixPackWellies]

The not-right-brick one was I think the smug woman who shoehorned that they have a Tracey Emin 'piece'.

[expatinscotland]

My sister has a swimming pool. It is a PITA to maintain.

[BeaLola]

Agree disco diva woman the worst ever.

I like george clarke programme but dislike his voice and over dramatic pauses. There was a beautiful conversion on there a year or so ago where sadly the woman's cancer came back and she died near the completn of the project but they showed you her husand and family at the endt in the beautiful home they built ... Me & DH both cried at that one.

[WhereBeThatBlackbirdTo]

Do you remember the GD from ages ago where the wife wanted a new 'Georgian' country manor house, with hand-made window panes. The husband kept saying he wasn't going to fund any more of the project and she kept buying bespoke wallpaper, even though there were few walls completed.

The house wasn't finished at the end of the programme. I always wondered what happened