Grand Designs

Mamie I have to agree with you. When a couple talk about "only" having what to us seems like an absolute fortune, I feel prickly and need to switch channels.
We'll be mighty pleased with one bedroom [will need a smaller bed to fit the plan] - a small bathroom [shower not bath] - an open plan kitchen/sitting room. The entire project will need to be carried out on a tight shoestring. If we should overspend, we'll be in deep doodah.
Sadly, we'll not be given the nod to be adventurous with this latest project. Hence, I'm convinced that Grand Design will not be in the least bit interested. Perhaps if we could have had GD on board when we converted a derelict, tin-roofed storage shed into a lovely "upside-down house" on a fearfully low budget, we'd have had something worth the trouble of filming. We also converted a rat infested, derelict hay loft [purchased for £20,000 including an acre of paddock] into a very pretty cottage. Both conversions in Cornwall.

I enjoy seeing what is possible and the anniversary programme with the converted water tower was fascinating, but I'd enjoy equally watching them convert a tiny cottage or derelict outhouse into a work of art.

My favourite GD programme was the one where a woodman built a home out of materials for the woods or recycleditems. It was great! I believe it was the inspiration behind Kevin's recent shed building exercise, which was also great, but he used the knowledge and manpower of so many experts it wouldn't have been possible for your average person. They did have some laughs though!

It is relatively unusual for Grand Designs to have two such expensive houses in succession. I can remember quite a number of previous programmes where the the money involved in the house build was really very small. They usually have a mix. I suppose that they wanted a really dramatic successful on-time project for their 100 programme and having done the water tower it made an excellent comparison to do the underground conversion.

Personally I do not mind if sometimes people have enormous sums of money to spend, providing their project is really interesting - and I think both the water tower and the basement conversion were that.

What bores me rigid are the great white modernist boxes with interiors that look more like the impersonal reception areas of an upmarket commercial building than a home. I notice in this series, the older couple who demolished their admittedly fairly dire, neo-georgian house to build a big white box, which you could tell Kevin McLeod was not enthusiastic about, actually at the end were not very comfortable in it themselves and seemed to have taken to living in the little television room with the three piece suite from their old house rather than the triple height living room with glass wall they kept talking about so lyrically at the start of the programme

Flickety...the couple who built the big, white box...was the gent an artist? Seem to remember that one.

Am I the only one who watches it because I fancy Kevin? Of course the projects are very interesting. But I can't help it if I occasionally close my eyes just to listen to his lovely voice..... Oops, as you were

Soop, No, he was a retired business man and they lived on a leafy estate of very large pre-war stockbroker's tudor houses. He and his wife's plan caused ructions among others living on the estate and the result looked like a small laboratory block for a start-up pharmaceutical company - and it looked like that inside as well.

Are you thinking of the Hof House built by an architect turned painter and his wife? That I really liked, apart from anything else they filled the house with their belongs, his paintings etc that were all vivid and colourful. So many of these big white houses are completely unfurnished, no pictures, no ornaments, no belongings at all, just large white or black settees. Characterless houses for characterless people.

I am not a fan of these white boxes as most people go minimal much prefer them when they fill them with vibrant artwork, I am more for an house with character, the water tower did impress me......but its worth watching to see Kevin

Thank goodness it's not just me glass. Kevin can draw up my plans any day of the week

night what do you think of George Clarke?

Sorry glass only just saw your post. George is very pleasant to look at but he just seems a bit young. I have no idea how old he is. I think you're younger than me so I won't fight you for George if I can have Kevin (I should be so lucky)

He is too young for me too night

I like George, I bought his Home Bible before we started work on the house but found that my own ideas were more realistic.

Flickety Yay, I remember that one...as you say, it resembled a laboratory. I would have wanted a wee corner in which to curl up and snuggle down...but there was no such space...all far too clinical.
Hof houses are to die for. A friend of ours had one built in the pretty village of Skipness. My jaw hit the floor when we entered. The workmanship was top drawer.
George is a tender-hearted young man. I've seen his blue eyes fill with tears on occasions -makes me want to mother him. And then there's Kevin...well now, when he looks that certain look...I want to smother him.
Which of you lot started this? Aha...having read through the above, I'm blaming glass

soop yes his eyes are gorgeous, we saw him at a Homes and Building Show a few years ago and he is even nicer in the flesh

glass I'm charmed by his enthusiasm and very pleasant manner. Mind you, he's also extremely yummy!

soop I can think of many things I would like to do to Kevin but smothering is not one of them! You did make me laugh, is that how you show your affection to mr soop?

We definitely need to contact Kevin to ask him to do a grand designs on your build soop

Now glass will you write to him or shall I?

night you had best do it I am tipsy.

Perhaps best to do it with some Dutch courage. My letter might be along the lines......'Kevin, my friend wants me to ask you if, would you, will you, come to soop's in Scotland and ooooh Kevin' ( speechless emoticon)

Go on glass do it now

Sorry for lowering the tone

Sorry night I can't see. So can't type [grinn]

Coward! Will sleep on it - sweet dreams glass

Ha ha yes sleep on it night you are so much better than me a putting the right thing in words, i might have a thick head in the morning.

I enjoy Grand Designs, even though I don't and will never fancy Kevin. I find it sad that some of the people get rid of any furniture they owned before. Nothing seems to have any sentimental value, everything is new and I guess meant to have the wow factor. The shows I really loved, being passionate about renovations and house designs were Property Ladder and Design Inc.

soop you mentioned a Hof House, they are very similar to a house my ex husband and I built ourselves, with some help from contractors in 1986. It was architecturally designed by a German couple. The children's bedrooms had small mezzanine floors, my eldest two had their beds on theirs and D2 had hers as a play space, they each had small staircases. The architects originally designed it to be built of Western Red Cedar but I insisted that half the walls were solid brick. There was cross flow ventilation and another mezzanine floor above the lounge. If you stood in the dining area you could look up to the mezzanine windows and see the stars. There were some faults, such as the living area windows faced the hot Australian summer sun and it was hard to keep warm in winter with all the windows. It was at the time my dream house and we saved a fortune doing most of the work ourselves. I still prefer to watch shows about renovating old derelict cottages or old buildings, especially when their era is taken into account and the old fixtures and fittings are retained.