What is wrong with people who go on Grand Designs?

[RobynRB]

Seriously, time and time again it's the same thing. Why do people feel they need to build a house the size of a cinema complex and then moan when they run out money. Most of these things could be 10-20% smaller and you wouldn't even notice. Don't these people understand that materials like wood and concrete cost money so buy less of them and the house will be cheaper.

Speaking of which, last night was a classic case... we haven't got any money, but we bought this copper bath for our bedroom and this (frankly disgusting but I'm guessing ridiculously expensive) gold and black marble for our kitchen.

It struck me the reservoir building was big enough to build a reasonable house in, maybe with a smaller extension to the side. It certainly looked twice the size of my three bedroomed house on it's own.

And of course five minutes after they started they announced they were having a child. What brilliant timing...

Lentilweaver that red house was hideous, completely out of character with other - what looked like Victorian - properties nearby. I wonder what the neighbours really thought. And Kevin gushing about how wonderful it was. It was horrid.

I didn't mind the house in itself, but not on that street. Might have looked fine amongst other modern properties. But either way, it was not functional. Poor long suffering girls.

We were actually in the process of building a house earlier this year, we had designed it, paid the architect fees (they are very expensive) and some other smaller fees, however once costs for other items started to come in we realised that the architect's budget was so incredibly unrealistic. The first item was the foundation, we had budgeted 50-80k for this, around the time we started the project estimates were around 50 so we had a 30k contingency. Then we got the foundation cost and it was 140k. After that we started speaking to our project manager and realised that with the rising costs, by the time we had finished building we would be in negative equity and we pulled out. There was money on the table for sure, about 60k in costs we had already paid that we would never get back. We started looking at budgets and realised that we could buy a new house, very similar to what we wanted to build with less planning restrictions, in a much nicer area and still be better off financially despite losing that 60k of architect fees and the additional 40k in stamp duty. I think that really says something... Also, just to note, we were building in Graven Hill which is a massive shit show of a development so that didn't help things other than help us to justify our decision to pull out.

@Jinimcoroneo is there any comeback against the architect for this? It seems very unfair for them to get their full fees if they have designed something for you that has completely ignored your budget. Presumably they know how much money is available to be spent and haven't fulfilled their brief if they design you something that there's no chance of you being able to afford. Obviously allowing for some unforeseen circumstances such as material prices rising.

Unfortunately there was nothing we could do, I even spoke to a lawyer about it showing them written proof of lies and contradicting emails but they said we are just screwed. Basically, the budgets they gave us had massive line items which weren't broken down so when we saw them we thought it all looked fine. The house they designed as well (with a ton of my help, I don't know where they find these amazing innovative architects on grand designs because ours were highly rated and basic AF) was quite nice outside, but once we asked them to break things down we realised that the prices they were budgeting were just stupid. I mean, who builds a million pound house and puts in a shitty staircase, or a 10k kitchen? Those were the kinds of budgets they had put in. Once we started looking at everything we realised if we wanted to get the house to the spec inside that it was outside, we would have to add at least 200k to the budget. Anyway, long story short-ish, we could do fuck all :/ I have just kind of moved on though and said, yeah we lost a ton of money, but had we gone through with it we would have been stuck in a shitty development with so many issues in a city we do not like for the sake of 60k. In the long term just not worth it.

I have seen Graven Hill on TV. What are the issues with it?

I loved Grand Designs this evening. What an inspirational woman

Very impressive woman tonight. And it will be a wonderful home.

I agree, completely different focus to last week, she has principles with a capital P and stuck to them - admittedly easier if you already have a house to live in - but I think she would have coped with the usual grand designs caravan if necessary. I loved the way she and her children and builder solved problems creatively. Impressed that she was one of the founders of the FSC for sustainable wood, what a legacy.

I kinda wondered whether this series is just homes that will never be finished without people going bankrupt.

I liked the house and ethos behind this weeks. And given the attention to detail on the outside and her woodworking skills I was so looking forward to the interior.... Oh well, maybe in a revisited edition.
Another ran out of money episode, but few other GD bingo problems. At least in this case the building is built and there's no time pressure to complete the interior. I did think that ethos was perhaps pushed little far with costly attempts to avoid any damage to the site.

Hadn't heard of the passive house principles before - wouldn't it be great if all houses were built to such standards - pretty sure Persimmon would disagree

The last couple of grand designs who couldn't afford to kit out the house all started work during or just after the pandemic when costs genuinely rocketed.

We reconfigured our house in 2020, complete overhaul, they started 3 weeks before lockdown and left in November 2020. We'd already sourced a lot of our materials. We were thinking we wouldn't have been able to afford the work we had done if we started a year later. Maybe that's what has happened in the last few houses

I loved the house last night. Modest, attractive and thoughtful. Hopefully she’ll finish it and there can be revisit.

I didn't love the huge side walls of the building in last nights episode with very few windows to punctuate it. Similar in fact to the red house a week earlier. To me it looked oppressive. I admired the aesthetic and attention to detail on the windowed end but it didn't look quite in proportion as a building overall - quite long and thin, and quite dark.

I thought their approach to sinking the concrete piles was quite amateurish, though clearly they addressed many of the challenges on the site with a great deal of puckish ingenuity. Interesting.

Clearly covid has had a huge impact on costing and timing of delivery in both weeks. But I think the owner this week was very much enjoying taking her time over the project - as her family said. The pleasure if the doing more than the completion. Not sure how well it will work in time as a dwelling for an older person....

It was an appalling eyesore which should never have got permission, all those lovely Edwardian terraces around them. Their poor immediate neighbours who have lost all their light in their garden. I bet they hate them.

GD seems about 99% eyesores and wankers.

The thing is - IMHO - what do you build there then? While I didn't think the red house was up to much neither do I think that on streets like that only pastiches of Edwardian houses should get built.
Efforts to do just that around here have looked naff. And I hate the idea of living in a sort of preserved in aspic theme park where we only recreate the past. There nothing intrinsically wrong with modern design, nor should we baulk at building them 'out of place'. There nothing special about those Edwardian villas, indeed there are thousands of similar streets across the land. They are quite ubiquitous.

As for the poor neighbours surely you turn your venom on which ever one sold the garages to be redeveloped?

I do hope they return to the carpentry lady, would love to see her handmade furniture. I think given the beautiful surroundings more windows are needed.
Just caught up with the red house episode, appallingly self absorbed couple. Got the impression they wanted to stat in trendy Hackney at any cost, to themselves or those poor girls.

Laughingravy I entirely agree. The blame for being overlooked falls on the people who sold the garages (which must have originally belonged to the overlooked houses). I didn't particularly object to the architecture of the red house - a pastiche Edwardian would look awful. But I don't like how few windows people put in to these modern designs leaving large expanses of blank unpunctuated walls. At least older houses have more details on walls. Presumably that's to avoid directly overlooking other properties to get planning permission but really that reinforces the point that the size of the plot was simply too small for a new house. A bad idea from inception - which no amount of creative architecting was going to solve.

@Laughingravy I think even something like one of these styles would have been less obtrusive at least colour wise, or something not trying to be a pastiche of something older but just at least built with bricks.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/140215940#/?channel=RES_NEW

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/140597066#/?channel=RES_NEW

I don't think the choices had to be either massive salmon pink shed or Edwardian pastiche.

Has anyone watched the series on Netflix called Tiny House Nation (iirc). It's really clever design to build homes which take up a really small amount of land. Like a double garage size plot. Not saying it would have been suitable for this family, but that's the kind of thing to build on that tiny piece of land - the finished buildings are absolutely beautiful and I often have house envy at the idea of living in a space where every space is minimalist l, well utilised and uncluttered, but still pretty.

This just made me spit out my tea 😂

I loved the most recent one. I loved her, I loved her children. The train was a great idea. Loved the whole thing.

Lucinda's house was lovely (as were Lucinda and her children) and the difference between that episode and the red homeless children house was huge. I presume she could have just sold her old house to finish the new one, but was happy to let it evolve, and work at her own pace to complete it. I wish that was what the Hackney couple had done - waited until it was the right time ie after their daughters had left home because they were ready to, not because they were teenagers without have a bedroom.

There don't seem to be any services to this week's house. I didn't see a soil pipe or a power cable to the house at any point.
She could probably build a Boardwalk type ramp through the trees to get to the balcony when she can't manage the steps any more, but it's not very future proof.
As soon as she's gone her kids would do well to cut down that oak sapling growing through the edge of the deck though. They were right about it being too close.

It will probably be a lovely house when it's finished but it's as mad as the others in a way. It's not finished and she's run out of money. What's she going to live on?