Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Telly addicts

Related: Film discussion forum.

Original poster

What is wrong with people who go on Grand Designs?

693 replies

RobynRB · 28/09/2023 09:46

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...

OP posts:
Thread gallery
21
babyproblems · 28/09/2023 12:58

I think the thing people who haven’t done a big renovation don’t realise is that it always always costs way way more money than you anticipate. And takes way way longer. It’s such a mammoth task I don’t think people understand how big an undertaking it is to build or self build an enormous project from scratch. It literally dominates your life for years and years. Agree the kids are always terrible timing.. I can easily see why people choose to do such mega projects though, but I am about to start big renovation project no.2!!!

itsmeafterall · 28/09/2023 12:59

PuppyMonkey · 28/09/2023 12:24

My fave episode is the one where they had a house prebuilt in Germany and then just shipped the whole thing over to the UK and stuck it up. Can’t remember the name or the system - so satisfying to watch it just go up no issues.

It's a Huff (sp?) house. Not far from where I live. V nice

Tabitha005 · 28/09/2023 13:03

PepeLePugh · 28/09/2023 12:37

I remember a particularly awful episode where a couple in London converted a workshop and it was completely open planned with really high ceilings and the kitchen was plonked in the middle and looked tiny. The bedrooms were then in weird boxes at one end of it. I think one of them was an a architect too. Blegh 🤮

I think I remember that one - wasn't it an old violin factory? I recall the Royal College of something-or-other overlooked the building and was very sniffy about some brickwork being changed.

ElizaCBennett · 28/09/2023 13:03

Wealth is wasted on the rich

So true!

loislovesstewie · 28/09/2023 13:04

And wasn't there a family who had X amount of money plus a contingency fund of Y and then suddenly the money wasn't there? Or am I confused by the concept of actually having money to do the work?

Sunsept · 28/09/2023 13:07

GotMooMilk · 28/09/2023 11:09

I also hate the ones (and theres been a few) where through all their childrens teenage years they've been living together in a tiny mobile home/caravan with shots of their teens trying to study for their GCSEs cramped in with their 10 year old brother watching telly. Fast forward 6 years and the parents have a ridiculous enormous house, kids have all left home and I just think I'd be so pissed off if a huge chunk of my childhood was taken over by my parents house vision at the behest of my comfort/privacy/having friends over etc.

Yes, me too! It’s all so senseless and they usually have a perfectly reasonable house beforehand (this also happened on Love it or List it).

My most memorable episode was the wooden house built by a carpenter - I think it was circular - near Ely. A real labour of love but so beautiful.

Flashinggreen · 28/09/2023 13:09

AntiStuff · 28/09/2023 11:45

Classic Grand Designs for me were:

  • One in an old violin factory in London, posh couple, he was in hedge funds I think so huge budget but fell out with an orchestra who had an adjoining space.
  • Entitled woman demanding a disco basement in a small London mews, furious neighbours.
  • But the best still has to be the record producer's gak fuelled vision of a lighthouse on some cliff face in Devon that took eleven years to finish and resulted in having to build another house to sell to finance the first one, oh and divorce. I felt so sorry for the kids.
Edited

My brother worked with the man who had the old violin factory

Heronwatcher · 28/09/2023 13:09

I said exactly the same thing about last night’s, they were given the whole plot FOR FREE and still managed to spend 900k, when as you say they could have halved the size of it easily. Plus it seemed that they wanted to finance the whole thing through packing sweets, skydiving and sponging off relatives who probably lived in bog standard 3 bedroom semis and mysterious non-grandads who kept dying and leaving them money. I was honestly expecting them to announce at one point that the mum had fallen down the open treaded staircase and left them 100k which they used to finish the outdoor shower.

Honestly I find the whole thing a bit ridiculous and uninspiring now, I am complete unimpressed by people who can’t keep to a budget and blow a fortune on builders (although in last nights it sounded suspiciously like they just didn’t pay them) and architects, putting their family in debt on a vanity project. I’d much rather watch “adequate designs” where people build sensible sized houses which are warm, cozy and functional but save enough to go on holiday and don’t need to go begging to their poor relatives.

HavfrueDenizKisi · 28/09/2023 13:09

I've not watched GD for some time but yes they all run to the same script.

What I find interesting bloody awful is they make a massive swish open plan living area/kitchen maybe a mezzanine overlooking the 74 foot windows etc, but then have a series of pokey white tiny bedrooms for the kids tacked on somewhere along a windowless corridor. Fucking great! Glad I spanked £1.2 mill on this...🙄

newnamethanks · 28/09/2023 13:19

There's an astonishing - and eye-wateringly expensively built- house in the Cotswolds, locals will know it, it was in one of the Sherlock series, all glass, marble and steel. Apparently it was the dream house of the owner. He met a woman and they married. "I'm not living in that" said she. I think they settled for a nice Georgian house in a nearby town.

PreetyinPurple · 28/09/2023 13:22

Huff house - probably spelt differently. It was an older artistic couple. That was a good one.
also an older couple who did a house up in France themselves.

There was a new Georgian style house fairly early on, they ran out of money. The proportions were totally off though. Wonder what happened with that one.

Heronwatcher · 28/09/2023 13:23

AntiStuff · 28/09/2023 11:45

Classic Grand Designs for me were:

  • One in an old violin factory in London, posh couple, he was in hedge funds I think so huge budget but fell out with an orchestra who had an adjoining space.
  • Entitled woman demanding a disco basement in a small London mews, furious neighbours.
  • But the best still has to be the record producer's gak fuelled vision of a lighthouse on some cliff face in Devon that took eleven years to finish and resulted in having to build another house to sell to finance the first one, oh and divorce. I felt so sorry for the kids.
Edited

I remember disco basement. The woman was a bit of a sloane (like the headband wearing colleague of Bridget jones), she was obsessed with an extractor fan, husband terrible people skills, they pissed all their neighbours off and then took a massive chunk out of a neighbour’s house with a lorry and and the whole place was about 50cm from the mainlane train route into London anyway.

DuchessOfSausage · 28/09/2023 13:26

HUF Show Home in London / Weybridge (huf-haus.com)

WinterDeWinter · 28/09/2023 13:28

Tallisker · 28/09/2023 10:11

I was fascinated by the Fibonacci one I saw recently (might have been a repeat from 100 years ago, I never know with Sky). The guy engineered it to the nth degree and it should have been fabulous, but it ended up just being a big tube. Like living in a bendy Nissan hut.

Just looked it up - it's like half an airstream trailer!

Lolling at all the Little Kevin/Kevinas that Big Kevin leaves in his wake.

Fifiesta · 28/09/2023 13:29

I found last nights programme fascinatingly in a ‘eyes-rolling-to-the-back-of-my-head’ way.
The Production Team should run a GD accompanying programme like the BBC do with strictly come dancing, an Expose so we get some of the answers to the questions we shout at the screen.

Last nights programme selection here was:

How much? Why on earth would you think it was a good idea to saddle yourself with so much dept? What attracted you to the notion that all that concrete will result in a lust-worthy living space and be worth the stress. ( Although we don’t all have the same taste obvs.)

How would you keep all that glass clean, even without a child.

How cold would it be especially in the depths of winter, how much would it cost to heat.

Where have they hidden the drive, or do you park at the bottom and have to cut across the soggy field.

She’s had her nails done again!
Even though her vibe was totally plastic-fantastic, nails last five seconds anywhere within even 20 metres of decorating.

…Just how much stress weight loss did her partner visibly show by the end of the programme …

We have spent the last few years living in, and through a complete bungalow renovation, I’ve often thought we were mad to put ourselves through it.
Watching GD comforts me with the notion that we are not as totally mad as some…

Darkmode2 · 28/09/2023 13:33

They're probably picking the people who they know will fuck up a bit as it makes better tv

cittigirl · 28/09/2023 13:33

I find some of them really irritating but if it's one build that I loved I'd watch it again. My favourites were The Waterworks, a little 1 up 1 down house in Edinburgh which was amongst a load of flats, the wooden house and the cave house. I think they were nice hardworking people on tight budgets not people building ridiculous ego stroking homes.

WinterDeWinter · 28/09/2023 13:33

Adequate Designs @Heronwatcher Grin

LittleBT · 28/09/2023 13:34

The Huf Haus ones are great. Shortly after the first ad break some lorries roll up and 11 German blokes don their leather aprons and assemble and entire house over two days all while constantly smoking!

One of the Huf Haus ones is my favourite episode - a really nice old couple built a house with two separate sides for their hobbies and how each wanted it but they were still insistent that the bathroom had to have room for a big comfy chair so the other one could sit and chat while they were having a bath. I think the guy wanted to play saxophone in his side or something.

The other Huf one was in Bath and the entire plot got covered in a landslip where they hadn’t shored up the digging enough.

Me and DC love watching GD - we always cheer when you see them ordering custom glass as that’s a guarantee of drama and there’s generally a collective “ooooh” when any build is announced as starting in 2019 with the aim of being done by the end of the year!

Toddlerteaplease · 28/09/2023 13:35

If the bloke who built that one on the coast that he never lived in and had to sell. Had stuck with first smaller house that he built. He might still have had a marriage and family life. Such an idiot.

Woodandsky · 28/09/2023 13:36

We were in a tv show once, were pretty happy for almost all of the filming, there was one small problem which ended up taking up at least 1/3 of the show. Events were also shown out of sequence, lots of items were brought in for filming and then removed immediately after, you totally can't believe all you see.

SurprisedWithAHorse · 28/09/2023 13:38

REP22 · 28/09/2023 12:24

Probably from a similar stable to the Escape to the Country participants:

"We're looking for a detached character property in its own two acre grounds in a village within a National Park. Five bedrooms, mostly ensuite, inglenook fireplace, fitted kitchen, close to shops and local amenities."

"What's your budget?"

"£80,000".

Yes please.

Toddlerteaplease · 28/09/2023 13:39

Riverlee · 28/09/2023 10:26

If you haven’t seen it, you must watch the GD episode whereby a posh ex- soldier (was in army several years ago, only for a few years, you wouldn’t mention it if he was an ex bin man!) who’s aunt owned a Scottish stately home, built a house on the edge of a cemetary. He also had a young son (from ex, at boarding school).

its the best episode ever.

It was a beautiful house until he got his hands on it.

Swipe left for the next trending thread