Grand Designs - New Series

Author
Discussion

Bedford Rascal

29,469 posts

243 months

Wednesday 1st October 2014
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61GT said:
Think they were both set designers on the Harry Potter films.
Incendio!

McWigglebum4th

32,414 posts

203 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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Horrible house in a horrible place

pork911

7,087 posts

182 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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Not sure how the spent so much money.

Bathroom was nicely different (if deliberately so).

Seemingly no guttering?

dirty_dog

676 posts

175 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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I can deal with the poly walls but the rest wasn't great. Kitchen (a bargain apparently!) and black polished wall were nice but I hate sterling board internally and the rest was a bit of a mess, especially the dog proof courtyard and unfinished porch/patio area. How on earth it cost 1mil I have no idea although the up-cycled dodgy bathroom suite probably cost an arm and a leg.

brockovrs

332 posts

147 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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I only caught the last 20 minutes of this, was the original plan for the tesco value Paula Yates and her fella to make a shed full of crap for a daft amount of money? If so they succeeded

Also, when Kevin walked over the concrete patio (which looks like the stuff you'd grow grass through on a carpark) at the end, I'm sure I saw a few of the slabs move an awful lot - so they weren't even fitted properly!

over_the_hill

3,185 posts

245 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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BoRED S2upid said:
Massive overspend! Double their original budget but worry not as in London it will be worth many many millions. In Yorkshire you could keep cows in it.
Only in That London ...

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/buy-a-broom-cupboar...

Tuna

19,930 posts

283 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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I got the impression that they thought having an extension built constituted 'building experience', and that they chose cheap materials first, before justifying them. Having maximised bang-per-buck on the materials, they hadn't a clue on detailing and their builder took the time and the money to resolve every junction in the building. They were lucky they had a builder with sufficient patience to sort it all out (though of course they paid for the privilege).

In the end I felt the exterior actually worked quite well - it's a funky city building and plays the part. Inside the spaces were well proportioned (if a little ramshackle) but there was just no continuity between the rooms. Even things like the bathroom suite could have worked if they had any relationship to the decor in the other rooms. Instead it was just a jumble of ideas.

So, for me it was surprisingly un-disastrous, but not as good as it could have been.

Justin Cyder

12,624 posts

148 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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I'd go along with that, only to add it was a bit rich of her to bang on about the paucity of design in thermostats when you looked at the overall mish mash of the interior of the place. From the outside though, not bad.

p1doc

3,111 posts

183 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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weird project-could just understand in country but in london??!!
did they not drop their architect near start-lucky escape for him lol,felt sorry for the builders and the cost!!!
did not like it at all
martin

anonymous-user

Original Poster:

53 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
quotequote all
p1doc said:
weird project-could just understand in country but in london??!!
did they not drop their architect near start-lucky escape for him lol,felt sorry for the builders and the cost!!!
did not like it at all
martin
Although my architect produced drawings for many of the more tricky details on my self-build, we still had to call him up to explain how he envisaged some details in other areas.

That was their mistake - casting him adrift before the build had started. They obviously thought it was a money saver, most of the time I believe it has the opposite result.

wayned22

8,603 posts

113 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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1 million quid for a cow shed, it was one of the worst builds I have ever seen.

anonymous-user

Original Poster:

53 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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wayned22 said:
1 million quid for a cow shed, it was one of the worst builds I have ever seen.
£600k for a cowshed. £400k for the cowshed's plot smile

Edited by anonymous-user on Thursday 2nd October 11:34

dxg

8,124 posts

259 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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I still can't work out how it got its u-values for building regs. Is the back wall *massively* insulated to compensate for the plastic walling?

The biggest issue I had with it was the way it delivered the concept of the courtyard. In Japanese or Korean housing, where so-called "courtyard homes" are commonplace, the courtyard is very small and genuinely enclosed. This creates a tremendous sense of intimacy in these homes and is one of the reasons why I love them.

But this thing wasn't a courtyard home - certainly not in the way it was pitched at the outset.

anonymous-user

Original Poster:

53 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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dxg said:
I still can't work out how it got its u-values for building regs. Is the back wall *massively* insulated to compensate for the plastic walling?

The biggest issue I had with it was the way it delivered the concept of the courtyard. In Japanese or Korean housing, where so-called "courtyard homes" are commonplace, the courtyard is very small and genuinely enclosed. This creates a tremendous sense of intimacy in these homes and is one of the reasons why I love them.

But this thing wasn't a courtyard home - certainly not in the way it was pitched at the outset.
Agree - more of a 'U' shaped home. The so-called courtyard was completely overlooked by neighbouring houses iirc.

FourWheelDrift

88,382 posts

283 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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If it's a courtyard home I'd demand a portcullis and moat, minimum. smile

LordHaveMurci

12,034 posts

168 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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I didn't dislike it despite hating it to start with, pretty sure I wouldn't spend £1m on it though!

Certainly rather live in that than a modern estate house.

Didn't Kevin say the polycarbonate offered a high level of insulation?

Megaflow

9,347 posts

224 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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brockovrs said:
I only caught the last 20 minutes of this, was the original plan for the tesco value Paula Yates and her fella to make a shed full of crap for a daft amount of money? If so they succeeded

Also, when Kevin walked over the concrete patio (which looks like the stuff you'd grow grass through on a carpark) at the end, I'm sure I saw a few of the slabs move an awful lot - so they weren't even fitted properly!
Your mixing your property programs up, the dodgy slabs were with Beeney in the previous program. The one with the dude who spunked a load of cash on a drive, turfed lawn and a new office in the back garden before he finished the kitchen off...

silly

anonymous-user

Original Poster:

53 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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LordHaveMurci said:
Didn't Kevin say the polycarbonate offered a high level of insulation?
If you remember at the factory she had to choose a double thick product for that very reason I believe.

greygoose

8,225 posts

194 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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Megaflow said:
brockovrs said:
I only caught the last 20 minutes of this, was the original plan for the tesco value Paula Yates and her fella to make a shed full of crap for a daft amount of money? If so they succeeded

Also, when Kevin walked over the concrete patio (which looks like the stuff you'd grow grass through on a carpark) at the end, I'm sure I saw a few of the slabs move an awful lot - so they weren't even fitted properly!
Your mixing your property programs up, the dodgy slabs were with Beeney in the previous program. The one with the dude who spunked a load of cash on a drive, turfed lawn and a new office in the back garden before he finished the kitchen off...

silly
That did seem an odd set of priorities, not sure why they couldn't have just had a Tarmac drive?

blade runner

1,029 posts

211 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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Can't see this one weathering very well a few years down the line.

No guttering I could see on the roof and wonder how that polycarbonate is going to react to UV?

Totally unfinished courtyard to - some birch trees shipped in just before the cameras arrived to soften the look and some slabs plonked on the ground outside the porch for Kevin to stand on.