Ugly house to Lovely House C4 - George Clarke

[JohnnyCrowsGarden]

Anyone else been watching this?

I noticed that a couple of things have changed since series one.
First they have got rid of the 'star architect' thing, and now just use the pretty bloke with the blue eyes. Also, they seem to be sticking far more to the budgets they are given...

Could these things be related? What I don't understand is why the architect makes plans that are hopelessly unachievable on the budget? Then they grumble when the client chooses cheaper windows etc etc..

This could be an amazing programme but I'm finding it a little annoying this time round...

Last week was weird.
Homeowners 'We want the inside sorted out, the rooms are the wrong size and we don't like the layout. It's not very pretty either and we've got £150k'

Architect- 'lets build a massive extension, sort out the frontage and fiddle with the garden... and we'll sort out the existing house if we have to... it'll cost you £450k'

I love this program, but I also found the whole “the budget is 150 and creating a plan for 450” ridiculous. I get they tried to sell it as showing what they could have, the dream, to then pick elements, but the architect should work with the client to show all the different elements to pick from to come in close to what’s in the brief.

I also thought the house with the young emergency services couple who had the black render extension looked ridiculous from the outside. Inside lovely, but outside a complete eye sore.

Agreed.
Last week very odd. Was ugly.
£450k, quibbles when they only spend the £150k they originally said they had.
Eh?

Dh said the house was still vile, from the outside, at the end, last week.

The budget bit drives DH mad. His argument is when clients say they have £150 000 to spend, he doesn't develop them a £450 000 piece of software (most of the time). It's how annoyed the architects sometimes seem despite knowing the budget to begin with, like these people should go and find another couple of hundred grand just to keep their design vision perfect.

I'm definitely not a fan of black exteriors, which has been the pattern for nearly all this series so far either. My Grandmama lives in an old mining village where a lot of the bricks are stained black with smoke/coal dust and that's all it makes me think of, not expensive cutting edge design.

I like watching it though. We're looking at building an extension in the next couple of years and our main criteria for an architect based on our viewing of this show will be an understanding of the meaning of "budget".

I don't like the black exteriors either. I loved what they did for the emergency services couple on the inside, but thought the outside was still a bit hard to take. I haven't seen a transformation of the outside that I've thought has looked great yet!

Yes black seems to be very fashionable at the moment. There is a house round here which has been redone and it has black wooden cladding and it’s gorgoeous, they have done a great job, but black render is quite harsh and not a soft as wood.

I also don’t get the architects that are pissed off. The one a couple of weeks ago where the guy built the decking up high you could see he was royally peed off because they picked different windows, but they were already well over budget. That kinda pressure just isn’t ok.

The Colchester house that looked like a block of flats now looks like an office building from the front! Don't like that big canopied entrance.
However the back does look heaps better. I love the bring-the-living-space-and-garden-together look.
I did groan at the end of the programme when they said they had swapped the enormous dressing room for the main bedroom, kind of obvious.

If George thinks that letting the architect challenge the owners' vision is the most important thing, going way beyond budget, let's hope they can all magic up the extra money from somewhere.

There is a different architect each week. Not just the pretty guy. Although it would be even better to watch if it was just the pretty guy, provided he didn't get his knickers in such a twist if they didn't stick to his plan.

This is, I think, a very broad rip off of a BBC2 Programme where people have limited budgets and work with architects to get houses / extensions built for realistic budgets. The BBC2 one makes sense, but this one is faintly daft as it's so ignorant of budgets and also what the owners want.

Totally agree - it's ridiculous behaviour like that which puts people off using architects 😡 They have a budget FFS, what do they think will be achieved designing something totally pie-in-the-Sky that then has to be pared down to some pale imitation - just design something on budget to start with you twat!!

All this 'it's the architects job to PUSH their clients' no, it's the architects job to do what they have bloody well been commissioned to do!!! Can't actually watch it with DH anymore as he gets so irritated by me yelling at the telly!!🙈

Yet another over the top design last night.

But what I don't understand why she bought the house at all? She bought is for £397,000 6 months prior and then spent £100,000+ on it so £497,000 (minimum) overall. There are beautiful 3-4 bed period houses in the Park Estate on Rightmove for around the £350,000 mark or less! Now presumably this was filmed a year or more ago but can't imagine there has been such a decline that at the time she bought it that was the most £397,000 could buy her? Am I missing something?

Also do they have interior designers too? Some of these houses are so ugly furniture and decor wise and the owners seem to suddenly develop taste when redecorating.

Jenala it was definitely a (not so great) interior designer / home stager who put in that sofa last night - I've never seen anything less conducive to relaxing in my life! Also no tv in the living room and she apparently had two kids? I reckon they stage it for the final 'reveal'

But yet again - the main design component they proposed (new entrance tower) wasn't even remotely possible within the budget!?

It's just bizarre.
If I went to an architect and said I want you to improve my house... my budget is X.
If expect them to quote to X and maybe give me a couple of small options to say, if you can stretch to X+Y then we could do this (improved finish, better taps or something).
I wouldn't expect them to come back with X+doubleX.
We're getting kitchen quotes at the moment and they always give a rough figure to check they're not wasting their time.

Yeah I did think that. Some of it was nice though.

I'm jealous because my house is a pit

I would prefer to see the finished interiors without the obvious styling........

I love watching these programmes

We had an architect to design our extensions

We told him our budget but I had already designed what I wanted so he just sort of put my design into correct terms and measurements for builder to understand my sketches

I wish they would do 2 models and drawings

1 for the budget design as to what they could get with their money

2 for the design model and drawings that would be for no limit on money or time

Then it would be interesting for the owner to look at both and sort of swap if they prefer to have ensuite rather than large landing or whatever options are there

Also why no letterboxes?????

Another one who shouts at the screen in impotent rage. The architects talks about their dream; it is their clients dream they should be fulfilling. Jumped up load of .......

It does annoy me too when the architects aren't just a little bit over budget, but double it. As all projects like this go over, surely they should design a plan thats under, which will allow for issues. It seems there is always a 'surprise!' we didnt expect THAT to be under the render/floor/ground.
That said, the end results have made the houses look much better than they did before. Though, last weeks I think that massive black box extension was ridiculous! I was thinking about just how much it would cost to heat the place. Then I wondered, are there specialist light bulb changing companies for people who have their recessed lights a mile from the ground? If not, I would end up with no recessed lights on the ceiling and be buying more and more standard lamps

We days the same again about the budget last night. It just seems cruel to present something that is so far out of reach.

And I also came to ask about whether it was all staged for TV at the reveal and they take all that stuff away with them afterwards?! She hadn't even sat in her window seat yet last night, so it seemed unlikely to me she had put all of the pictures and vases around it?!

*said

This is, I think, a very broad rip off of a BBC2 Programme where people have limited budgets and work with architects to get houses / extensions built for realistic budgets.
Knew there was some show like that but can't think of the name...
Was that the one where they gave the property owner 3 possible options: cheapest, affordable and slightly beyond budget?

Haven't seen latest episode so can't comment yet.