Grand Designs?

The way we are going, all those homes, with the same no-colour walls and the same minimalist furniture will soon become like the cities with the same branches of chain stores and the same featureless brutalist architecture.

At some point there will be a turn-around and those of us who have never updated our brown furniture and bright cushions will be back in fashion. Lets hope we are not too gaga to appreciate it.

We demolished the cottage we had lived in for 28 years and built a new house. Most interior walls are white but every room is fully furnished and there are curtains at every window. Supervising a new build was stressful enough for DH and I worked hard on the build with him and the various professionals we employed.
Please remember that Grand Designs follows a formula. There must be a budget over spend, the build will be late and there will be some sort of disaster/problem.
We met some employees of a building firm that had worked on a build which was filmed for Grand Designs. The build was completed on time, within budget, and everyone including the customer and the architect were happy. The film crew director said the programme would not be shown as everything had gone too well.
I have stopped watching the programme as I end up shouting at the TV that you need to be on site everyday to check what is happening.

Yes I know what you mean. At some point un every programme Kevin has to ask the poor couple 'do you regret firing the project manager/builder or running out of money! There seems to have to be an element of jeopardy or risk. Glad you have curtains anyway!

I have stopped watching Grand Designs because it is just programme after programme about people building big bland oversized white boxes that no matter what they say always looks like a cross between office and an out of town shopping shed. It is all so BORING.

At the beginning we got programmes about really interesting people and houses; the guy who built a house of straw, the restoration of a pele tower in North Yorkshire, a couple in southern Italy whose conversion budget was £16,000, which they barely exceeded. But now the programmes are just one yawn after another.

One huge project covered by the programme which to all intents bankrupted the builder has recently been sold for conversion into, I think, six flats.

M0nica that's exactly what I think of these houses? Good description. I wonder if architects actually think about what ordinary people really want to live in.
Near us a large site was sold to 2 different developers. One company built fairly conventional nice houses. They all sold at once despite trendy types deriding their 'boring' appearance. The other company built very futuristic hard edged designy houses. They're still for sale and its 3 years now. Says it all!

I love modern architecture, I like the uncluttered look and constantly strive to achieve this look myself, but fail miserably. I'm sure once the cameras have gone the owners stamp there own personality onto their home.
I can't be doing with watching the drama that is the central bit of the programme, I usually watch the beginning then fast forward to see the end result, it's a great way to watch TV LOL!

Like most people I love warm feeling interiors, and soft furnishings, plants, pictures, books are all part of that.We should aim for colours that we personally like and forget fashion.

I love Modernist architecture with its clean lines and interiors. My dissertation which was part of my BA in History and Theory of Art was based on this during the inter wars years in Britain. I loved studying Le Courbusier, his philospy and all that was happening at the amazing time was so fascinating.

However I would not want to live in a Modernist house - I love fabrics, colours and my home his filled with atefacts from my past travels and my mother used say it was like a museum and so she liked dusting it!! All my 'things' are a diary of my life, reminders of past generations and of course my children and grandchildren. My home is a homage to my life and family which so wouldn't fit into a Modernist house!

i still like grand designs and even watch repeat programmes that i may have watched several times before!

not all the houses i like - i think it's the fashionable trend to decorate everything in white and have minimal furniture and "things".

when i left my now ex husband and set up my own home i decided that i would decorate MY house exactly as i wanted and have as much furniture [or as little] as I wanted.

i've ended up with a different colour in each room - yellow in the kitchen, lilac in my bedroom for example. and i've carpeted it in my choice.

i had my home valued a little while ago as i wanted to know how much it was worth - one estate agent came in, looked around and said "it will have to be decorated in a neutral colour and that carpet in the lounge will have to go". the carpet in question is raspberry and goes well with the cream walls and settees [with raspberry cushions] and everyone who sees it says how nice it looks!

so if i ever put it on the market i won't make any changes to the colours or the carpets. if viewers don't like it then tough.

i've also got a lifetime's supply of "things". my glass collection, my pottery animals collection, my owl collection - i could go on. they are all part of me and what makes me tick. however i expect everything will fit out a charity shop when i'm gone - and i don't intend to weed anything out or change anything either. it's MY home and I live in it!!

A friend of mine's house was featured on Grand Designs. It was a very unique and unusual property. Definitely not a white box and they had a heck of a job selling it when they decided to move abroad.

I find Kevin McLeod a bit sneery.

I don't know many people who have houses like those often seen on the telly.

Our lounge has deep red walls, the dining room has a red ceiling, the 'playroom' has a purple wall, our bedroom is quite pink and the 'children's' bedroom is blue. We have things everywhere and people always say our home is welcoming and warm. And that's the way it's staying.

+ they all have white sofa's with dogs and children !!!!!

I do not dislike modern architecture, I wish more developer estates had a more imaginative design and cutting edge and again in the early series we got some really interesting and innovative homes. But now there is a tremendous saminess about the houses featured in the programme. They are all so grossly oversized, gigantic rooms double height ceilings, huge wall to ceiling windows and no curtains and a family of three camped in a small corner of it.

I have noticed that all these houses always have a small room somewhere called snug and if you look carefully in the 'two years later' section of the programme, you will find that is actually where the family spend most of their time. I always remember one couple, both on the older side. On the revisit they both looked as miserable as sin as they said how they enjoyed rattling round in the great barn of a house they lived in, but a chance glance into the snug showed wall-to-wall carpeting, the old fashioned dralon furniture from their previous house and curtains at the windows. It was quite clear that they spent all their time in that room and the adjacent kitchen.

These grand design houses are not "homes" to my mind. Do they do any cooking in those immaculate kitchens. Where are all the books, knitting etc. that make a place look lived in. They all look so cold.

I've been think of getting rid of my curtains ? We never close them because we have good double glazing and Venetian blinds. The curtains just hang there gathering dust. I'm sorry to say I find Kevin McLeod a bit irritating. I do like watching home makeover shows and I buy loads of home improvement magazines. I just need to get off my backside and do some improvements instead of just looking at pictures! ?

They all have more windows than walls and the windows are always clean [no birds in the area, obviously]...

I used to love Grand Designs but they all have the same formula so they have become boring. Why don't the programme makers see this and give us something different? It's not rocket science, after all. I quite like Come Dine with Me as you do get to see inside real houses (or flats) belonging to real people. None of the interiors look like the ones on Grand Designs.

Or DGC Tegan!

I love watching Grand Designs but am amazed at the impracticality of many of the results.
Especially if, as sometimes happens, babies come along during the project. They continue with their hard floors, open staircases where you couldn't fix a gate, no curtains so babe wakes with the dawn, and a huge open swimming pool easily accessible.

'Grand Designs' is really just another, albeit upmarket, version of schadenfreude TV whereby we smug viewers watch how an an expensive car crash at the hands of foolish, uninformed participants is rescued at the last minute, overseen by a smug, knowing presenter. Compulsive viewing!

One of my children knows a couple who were rejected by 'Location, Location, Location' for being, effectively, too normal and engaging.

The sad thing about 'Grand Designs' is that, often, beautiful old buildings are ruined by makeovers designed to show the 'taste' of people who know nothing about history, architecture, proportions, building materials or the vernacular. Kevin McCloud should know better about such matters and is, therefore, much to be blamed.

Has anyone else noticed how modern architects rave about Corbusier but live in Lutyens? My solution for the hideous excesses of much modern building would be to pass a law saying that architects could only live in something they designed. Then we would see some beautiful buildings.

So true Lilyflower!

How on earth do the owners of those huge Grand Designs houses clean their huge windows, reach the cobwebs, Heat the place adequately?

Sadly most new houses are not designed by architects. Although it takes at least seven years to qualify and it is illegal to call yourself an architect unless your name is on the ARB register, anyone can design a building in this country. If you see the description architectural designer or architectural consultant that means someone who is unqualified.

Big developers often use unqualified people to fit the maximum number of standard house types on a site. Most architects would love to design their own home but cannot aford it as it is not a well paid profession.

I love the design of our house and I've tried to find the name of the designer. The house is one of three, sort of L shape, with the L twisted about on each of the 3 sites. All I have to go on is what I remember of the name: Ian P_ , the fact that he once worked at an estate agent in Malmesbury, and the fact that the house was buitl in 1987. It's adaptable and a little unusual for its period, most people thinking it's later. If he happens to see this, which is quite unlikely, I'd like him to know that his work is appreciated. He knew what worked.