Grand Designs disasters

[Beachbodyready]

I’m working on a project which is a bit of a nightmare. I love Grand Designs and I could do with seeing something which reminds me that I’m not the only one facing project problems. Can you recommend the most disastrous Grand Designs episodes please?

There was one that was shown a week or two ago, I didn't watch it but we were talking about it at work! Apparently it was a castle that they knocked down and the replacement is now "temporarily" for sale.

The most infamous one is the “lighthouse” in devon 2019. Ended a marriage.
GD made a revist in 2022.

I’m not sure the disaster ones will cheer you up? The one mentioned above about the castle I watched last night. The couple intended to spend £2n pounds on the build and ended up having to stop once they had spent £5m.

They were so stupid and arrogant. I just found myself shouting at the TV. A fool and his money and all that!

I feel like you need to watch the ones with the decent people, with a reasonable budget you get there in the end in spite of tribulations along the way!

I watched the castle one. That’s the sort of thing I was after. It feels like all around me is on fire at the moment so watching happy people achieve their goals will only reinforce how crap I feel at the moment. I need to feel I’m not alone in dealing with big problems. I’ll look for the lighthouse one thanks

The lighthouse one spawned at least two episodes and possible additional visits in between. Its the episode everyone remembers as a disaster in the making from day one.

The only thing it didn’t have was the Kevin McCloud pregnancy

Not necessarily disastrous but I’d watch the one where the rather posh ex-army chap renovates/rebuilds a house on the edge of a graveyard. The final result is amazing but the spiralling costs and the ‘oh, I just need to find another million’ makes it a good watch. And no Kevin McCloud pregnancy.

Umm, the boat one? Desperately sad although they did bring a lot of it on themselves I I guess

They always bring it all on themselves!

Grand Designs should usually be subtitled: Hubris .

A few spring to mind like the lighthouse one.

Also the boat house that was just abandoned. The guy building into a cliff side that just regretted the whole thing. One in Brighton where they just built too large.

Think it needs to be renamed as 'Cautionary Tales'.

I loved the graveyard one, what a character and it turned out alright.

What was the one with the bird wing roof? I've never seen a revisited for that so assume it never got completed!

It never fails to amaze me that, during the most stressful time of your life building a house that not only do they have time and inclination for sex that they think starting a family with no roof over their head is such a great idea!!

Have you ever watched the grand designs drinking game episode? They make Kevin say everything that results in a shot, there’s 2 pregnancies, they live in a caravan, the windows are late and then wrong, there’s an issue with the roof,
the foundations take about 2 months longer than expected and then Kevin turns up and says ‘it’s bucolic’ 😂🤣

The twins episode is hilarious. Watch that

Why was that one hilarious? The one up North with the stylish twin Brothers?

I was wondering about the birds wing roof too. It was a very early one I think.

Off to watch the castle one.

There's a really old episode set in France. The main builder was Monsieur Bastarde and he literally was. I think on the final visit it was alright but not finished and massively over budget (may have been a pregnancy too).

It’s just a bit bizarre, same house , same car, same job etc

The Red House in Hackney, horrible tiny house. The man and the woman had lost their partners, both had a teen daughter each. One of which didn't get a bedroom as she would be off to uni soon...they went to Morocco to buy the ugliest tiles I have ever seen. They didn't even look Moroccon.

I love shit like this 🤣 what an absolute waste of money

I think the lighthouse one where they got a divorce half way through that one was sad, and the one where they lived inside a tiny castle and had 3 very small children and next to storage space at all. He loved it and she clearly hated it.

there was one where they’d moved from New Zealand to Warwick or somewhere and after they built the house they realised that they needed to dig up the entire street to lay gas and water mains to the house and it was gonna cost an additional 100k.

In the early days there was an old water pumping station (or something) reno which ended up being an absolutely enormous open plan space with a couple of small bedrooms carved out at one end. I always wonder if it was an enjoyable home. Imagine heating it the last few years 😳

I would love to think this is real 😂