To find these episodes of Location Location Location very funny

[Summerbreezing]

The ones where the couple want a house 'full of character', so Kirstie shows them a quirky cottage, a cleverly restored barn, and an old mellow farmhouse; which are all rejected on the grounds of 'too near the road', 'not enough garden', 'nowhere to store our six racing bikes' etc.

The couple then go off and 'discover' a three bedroom semi in a gated development at the edge of the village, put in a 'cheeky offer' and buy it. A few months later Kirstie has to go around for a visit and ooh and aah at their John Lewis sofa and homebase cushions and decking out the back and tell them how 'clever' they've been and how the made 'the decision that was right for them', and all the time you can almost see the bubble over her head thinking "WTF? . That lovely cottage was twenty grand less that this boring box".

Disclaimer: Can't afford to live in beautiful old farmhouse with antique furniture myself so not mocking semis and homebase. But I just saw a repeat of one of those programmes and it made me smile.

yes redcoats I love it when they just don't plan fur the future. The ones where they build the whole downstairs open plan so there is nowhere to escape from the tv etc and then they make their own bedroom open to the downstairs too on a balcony. Why? Yes your small children go to bed before you now but your teenagers will one day be sitting up in your open plan living area watching tv when you want to be asleep. You will be able to hear every word. You will never be able to have a private conversation in your bedroom. You will never be able to have sex because guess what? Your room being open to the rest of the house means your teens will hear you.

honestly people build houses with rooms for a reason.

Did anyone see the one where the older couple, massive list of requirements again, rejected two amazing houses that ticked every bix for a crappy new build that was the opposite of what they wanted ? They rejected house 2 because there was a table in the kitchen and they "had never had a table in a kitchen before". We kept shouting at the tv "it won't cone with the house and you can move it !"

I vaguely remember seeing that one not too long ago. I was mn'ing at the same time so only half watching it but remember her going on about this table in the kitchen

Atm I'm watch APlace...Home and Away. At the start he wanted to stay in England near his daughter, she wanted to come to France for less stress. He's now just stated that he's done the flight and it's doable and his daughter will enjoy coming to visit

indith GD is always about the huge open plan living spaces. Great when you've got two pre-schoolers playing teddy bears picnic on the kitchen floor. Not so great when they're hulking teens arguing over the Xbox constantly. My GD would come with a separate annexe for the DCs to live in so I didn't have to see them.

For once I'd love to see a buyer on ETTC say,
"I don't want an enormous country kitchen, we hate entertaining and can't think of anything worse than being stuck in the middle of nowhere".

They all need to find new ways to say:
"put you stamp on it"
"blank canvass"
"ticks boxes"
"forever home"
"this is a nice size room"
"there's a lot to think about"
"it's... different" (buyers' witty comment on ugly room)
"the wow factor"
...'cause I'm getting BORED!

What is it with all these GD houses with floor to ceiling windows and no curtains? What do they do in summer when it's light at about 4 in the morning? And how do they clean them without scaffolding?

Is it unreasonable to want to move just so I can meet Phil and Kirsty?

The downsizes irritate me. Older couple with adult children want to downsize into a house that still has one bedroom for each of their 14 kids plus 2 extras for their home office/walk in wardrobe/collection of teapots. They get shown around a property with a bathroom bigger than my entire downstairs and claim it's a "bit small" and the amazing kitchen that's 3x the size of mine is "poky". Makes me want to scream "THATS DOWNSIZING YOU BASTARDS!!!" And how much space does a 60year old couple with no kids at home or pets actually friggin need anyway?

the dowsizers irritate me the most they need space for entertaining they need space for the above mention brood of children and grandchildren that will come once a year at christmas they need a large garden for their morning coffee and read of the paper, JUST STAY IN YOUR OLD BLOODY HOUSE ,

Love LLL, prefer Re-L, Re-L, Re-L, but HATE, HATE, HATE the term "London crash-pad."

Oh god yes a London Crash PAd a million pound apartment and a mansion in surrey, Just get the train to work jeez

Someone said upthread that you can only borrow on the value of the house.
Not quite true. When we remortgaged a few years go we added an extra few £k onto it so get some work done. I assume that you can do this when buying a house, provided that the work you do will raise the price of your house to the total mortgage price.

Yes, but borrowing like that isn't guaranteed especially for those on smaller budgets with smaller deposits. But kirsty always presents it like a certainty as though if your budget is 250k then that is what the bank will hand you and you can spend it however you like.

remember some of the programmes that are on are repeats and years old when they were throwing mortgages at people

I love watching it with DH when they all rant on about what AMAZING value £500k is for a studio flat in London.

I do a love/hate cringe when Kirsty grills gfs/bfs on when they intend to tie the knot, and demands to know the precise baby-making plans of newlyweds!

I hate the mortgage thing too - K+P always used to encourage people to borrow as much as they can, to max out their budget. The Beeny is a lot more sensible however, and never did that. Although her 'Double your house for half the money' show was a concept too far I think.

I know someone who was on Escape to the Country. 50-ish couple just got married, they each had a London house which they'd had decades and had rocketed in value, each had inherited from their parents, each had taken redundancy from work. Bought... the mystery house and are very happy in it, together. And really it could not have happened to a nicer couple for they are lovely.

thespottedzebra thats nice they have a new house and are happy

They rejected house 2 because there was a table in the kitchen and they "had never had a table in a kitchen before".

I saw that one.

Maybe whatever planet where they were from all tables are superglued to the floor?

It does baffle me how people have no imagination and think they're buying the house as it is.

I saw one woman come in, look up and say, "Oh, I don't like the lampshade..."

My house came with a lampshade I hated too. Guess what? I changed it.

Thanks to this thread I have discovered that 4OD has a load of old series' of LLL. That's my Sunday sorted.

oh my family are all out tomorrow Might just join ya gator

Two things... George Clarke, yes please.
I live near a gd house and in reality it is so tiny they've had to extend it. And it looks weird.

I know someone who was on GD. They are currently extending the property. I have asked if they hope to be in by Christmas .

Is "extending a GD property" code for TTC? Or does that only work if Kevin comes back to report on the extension?

Not TTC in this case. I did ask if they'd alerted Kevin but apparently not. No wonder really, he was a bit sniffy about their interiors last time.

Grand Designs does my head in. It always includes getting pregnant in a caravan in the rain, project going massively over budget and taking twice as long as originally thought (so newborn in a caravan) and they fall out with their new neighbours because they want to put a giant tower in the back garden (or something like it).