Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To be driven crackers by the people on Grand Designs?

250 replies

CruCru · 11/09/2013 22:36

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.

OP posts:
Quangle · 12/09/2013 20:09

The "Tracy Emin piece" lady's project was in Waterloo I think. They were quite dreadful although the orchestra people had a totally ridiculous bee in their bonnet about a different shade of brick. They were based in Waterloo ffs. Hardly looking out of their offices onto the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. They looked out onto a blank brick wall, but they wanted it to be a certain calibre of brick wall Grin

I'm interested to know how much last night's couple had to pay each of the neighbours for use of their land. More than banana bread I should think. I speak as someone in a terraced house where both sets of neighbours on either side of me are planning to do a basement excavation. If either of them needed to access my land to make it happen I would extract every last penny from them by way of recompense for the sheer horror of living with the building work. Last night's excavation seemed particularly pointless just for a crappy swimming pool when they are 1 min from Kentish Town baths which are fabulous - and a study each when neither of them appeared to have a job, let alone a job that required a study.

Fifilosttheplot · 12/09/2013 20:34

Watching last night's on catch up.

Just as an aside, what the blinking flip is an "Eco-taxi business?" A donkey?

Choccybaby · 12/09/2013 20:35

Is it just me or do they all seem to be doing it for the free advertising?

Most people who go on it seem to be architects or designers of some sort (like last night).

Even Ben Law now has a company making green wood buildings, has written several books and runs woodcraft courses. In fact I often wonder what happened to the charcoal burning business he had that got him the planning permission inthe first place, but then that's probably because I'm so jealous of his house.

SirChenjin · 12/09/2013 20:39

This is a programme I just can't bear to watch without having to fight an overwhelming urge to gnaw my own arm off.

Bloke is always something in finance or IT. Woman doesn't work but decides she is going to project manage the build (despite having no experience of building or project managing). A lot of 'sourcing' goes on before the unveiling of what looks like an overpriced civic amenity.

SirChenjin · 12/09/2013 20:40

Apart from the lovely Ben Law - his house was ace

unlucky83 · 12/09/2013 20:57

So glad others feel the same about grand design...it makes me want to scream. Most of them are just not designed for living in...
Remember an old couple who built a house in the middle of nowhere with an all glass front - seemingly no curtains or blinds..
All I could think is it is really creepy when it is really dark outside and you can't see out but someone could be looking in ...and not good from a burglary point of view...(hope they had a panic button installed)
Also thought in a few years as they got older it was really impractical -stairs not suitable for a stannah stair lift, no downstairs bathroom/space for a bedroom etc!
Was it GD that had the couple who refurbished an old mine works building - every floor was one room? All those stairs -up and down every day - and people who live in high rise flats complain when the lift is broken!

They never seem to have storage - attics/cupboards - where do they put their clutter???
Open plan - why? no personal space, not child (or dog) friendly etc.. Why were stair gates - in fact rooms and doors full stop - invented?????
(My parents have two reception rooms - are supposed to be 'downsizing' but my mum refuses not to have a room where she can escape from my dad!)
So much glass - in summer it is going to be boiling and in winter freezing (no matter how special the glass - it is still glass!)
High ceilings - nightmare to heat, full of cobwebs, impossible to decorate , change light bulbs, dust light fittings ...why?
(For these reasons I've dropped the ceiling height on the stairs of the house I'm renovating - they were similar to my current house -experience told me it was a good idea!)
Rustic/rough features - how do you clean them/keep them clean -remember a beautiful stair case made out of rough wood - all I could think was splinters! (And when it gets grubby what can you do? You can't paint it/sand it down etc etc )

(But then I look at houses with 4 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms and think all that cleaning, towel washing and toilet roll changing! And I don't get loft living either... )

I think the reason so many of them are go on the market within a few years is nothing to do with making a fast buck - more to do with them being hellish/impossible to live in....

SirChenjin · 12/09/2013 20:59

Oh yes - the huge glass frontage on so many of them. I always worry about the lack of privacy too - people must be able to see them for miles in the winter time with the lights on. When do they ever get to slob about in their pants??!

idiuntno57 · 12/09/2013 21:08

I have this thread to thank for wasting two hours of my life watching two episodes of GD this evening......

Havea0 · 12/09/2013 21:09

They are really just show homes aren't they.

GoofyIsACow · 12/09/2013 21:26

Samandi is it your house? Are you one half of last nights GD couple? Grin

Pobblewhohasnotoes · 12/09/2013 21:35

GD always has the same format.

Couple buy the land and have a budget

They run out of money but it's ok as they always find some magically

Building company goes bankrupt and building work is stopped

It rains. A lot.

They have a baby (as obviously that's your priority when you are living in a caravan with a half built rain sodden house).

Kevin goes around saying how much he hates it

The find the money, find a new builder and the house gets built

Kevin goes to see it and loves it.

What is it with open plan? I hate open plan! Must cost a fortune to heat.

QueenArseClangers · 12/09/2013 21:37

Kevin McCloud was visiting/filming a family member last year for another programme. She heard he was coming for tea so made a veg curry, baked some bread etc. then was informed by his P.A an hour before he turned up that he was allergic to about a million ingredients she's used in the meal!
Apparently he's very nice though...

CoolStoryBro · 12/09/2013 21:43

How do you get 17 sets of neighbours? We've only got 2.

Graceparkhill · 12/09/2013 21:46

Because I do not have a life,or even a Grand Design I have googled London Eco taxis. Apparently there are lots of 'em. I feel even more provincial now.

ubik · 12/09/2013 22:17

I have just watched it and it truly is an antidote to all the recent GDs featuring dead-eyed smug couples. This pair are lovely and their house is utterly beautiful.

I also have a Georgian flathouse but it doesn't look like theirs!

ubik · 12/09/2013 22:23

Er sorry - that last link was Orlando.

This is the link m.youtube.com/watch?v=sJNoTsTcpUQ

Quangle · 12/09/2013 22:31

That Georgian house one was lovely and they didn't even own it but just loved it. The dreadful one was a classic home counties horror who was building a new build Palladian style mansion and just throwing cash at it. It was a bit yuck.

Crowler · 12/09/2013 22:38

The Georgian house that's been pilloried on this very thread is NOT the one that ubik has posted. That Georgian house was indeed very lovely, it was in Angel or Kings Cross-ish area and they were not wankers.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 12/09/2013 22:40

The Georgian house one I was talking about is not a refurbishment of a real Georgian house, but a mock-Georgian pile built in Farnham, by a couple who couldn't afford to buy the sort of Georgian pile they wanted, so decided to build it instead.

The woman had the most massively expensive tastes, and wanted the best of everything (the windows for the house cost £50,000), and her dh was just trying to keep,up with her spending. She bought hand painted wallpaper when they barely had walls to,put it on - and I think they ended up selling it to cover the huge construction costs (£1.4 million is the figure in my head).

Pictures here

Here's a plot summary:
"Helen and Mark had always dreamed of owning a Georgian house but knew they couldn't afford the genuine article. So they decided to build their own. They bought a large plot of land in Surrey, surrounded by trees, and commissioned an architect who specialised in conservation architecture to design it.

Modelled on the Regency villas of the 1820s, their design had five reception rooms on the ground floor, a sweeping central staircase, four large bedrooms upstairs and a guest wing designed to look like a coach-house. Grand Regency features included a great bow window in the dining room, an oval orangery, a square portico (columned porch) and a terrace with a classical balustrade."

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 12/09/2013 22:43

Coolstorybro - they had 17 neighbours because they were building on a wedge of spare land behind houses on two different streets.

There's a clip here that might explain it better than I have.

Crowler · 12/09/2013 22:44

I think the most interesting ones are those featuring the horrible middle-class hand-wringing housewives. It's far less interesting when they're salt-of-the-earth people.

ubik · 12/09/2013 22:44

I wish GD would do more of that sort of stuff, when he peeled back the layers of beautiful wallpaper, I was Shock - and he kept some on the wall! A man with a soul on GD!

Am looking fir Georgian mansion debacle now

ubik · 12/09/2013 22:47

Oh x-post. Cheers STDG.

Mimishimi · 13/09/2013 06:54

I think the Georgian disaster episode was called "The Regency Villa".

Primafacie · 13/09/2013 07:26

I always thought the disco basement couple were swingers building a sex warren.