Did anyone watch Grand Designs last night?

I also remember a guy who made a house out of straw in France? He was a nice down to earth chap, and his house ended up looking grebt.

AND a dumb waiter - not only that but a HEATED dumb waiter!!!

Next week, a foolish man builds his house upon the sands.

I missed the ones with nice people, I was in a state of seethe.

And then they conned her out of £300000.

Very poor.

Did anyone else see that "How To Rescue A House" on BBC2 earlier in the evening? THat was even sadder? It was supposed to be about buying and restoring derelict listed properties. And in the end, the couple missed out on the house they fell in love with because it was sold to a developer who was going to use the land to build TEN NEW HOUSES and not bother with restoring the listed house.

Did Kevin look supercilliously at them, and point this out?

they also seemed to have dumbed the program down a lot. in the first series they'd've explaned how the laser guided plumbline thing worked. see also: scrapheap challenge.

i dont get it

they also had a space age staircase of glass planks poking out of the wall (cantilevered) and it looked like they were going to have no banister for a while. in the end they had a glass wall boxing the stairs in in place of a banister and (hopefully) stopping young children from falling off the sides and caving their heads in.

the aquarium was impressive.

and the laser plumbline was more of a laser measuring thing complete with it's own tripod, for locating walls and beams and stuff to within a 3mm tolerance (which sounded low but which is quite high for this kind of stuff)

The staircase without a ballustrade I find more worrying, though. I'm an adult, and I'd have THE FEAR walking up one.

saw the second of the Castleford regeneration programs last night (missed the first). was depressing. people not listening to people, vandalism, bribery, ugly monoliths...

http://www.channel4.com/4homes/on-tv/kevin-s-big-town-plan/?intcmp=docpage_box3

this motherfucker tonight made my blood boil, i fervently hope he's penniless, miserable alone and itchy tonight wherever the fuck he is

just awful. kevin mcloud is a better man than me.

awful awful awful, right down to the martyred siege mentality so prevalent amongst the most shining examples of celtic tiger idiocy. I couldn't even enjoy the inevitable, seething as i was in a mental red mist of 'I'M PAYING FOR THIS YOU PRICK I'M PAYING FOR THIS YOU PRICK' i may write to the producers demanding a less sympathetic summation from a finnish economist

the irish guy was a bit ridic - basically eschewing plans and drawings in favour of blarney.

i did like the plywood box house, specifically the way they had a laser cutter on site and could tweak things as required (fortunately given that they'd overlooked stuff. lol, fine art students...)

his sunday night show is a bit of fluff though, the kind of thing dick strawbridge would present...

otm the plywood was neat

sunday night show is increasingly icky. dogshit and deer brains tonight.

horrible woman

dreadful! And the place looked like an orgy of mobile homes.

a must-see huh?

I kind of applaud them for sticking to their contemporary guns int eh face of all the old white privilege "though shalt not enter the 20th century" bullshit, but at the same time I wish they'd just built something a litte more subtle: so many of the contemporary / modernist boxes they build on GD are so bloody large that they don't ever seem clever or imbued with personality. I'm always far more impressed by the ones they build on tiny, awkward plots - and whilst this was a relatively awkward plot, they still stuck a 3-storey mobile-home-orgy (great description!) on it.

what got me is how the neighbours hated the idea of anything new but seemed to be ok with the rotting carcass that was there before. and the new one seemed to overhang the river less - better for the neighbours.

am guessing the feelings around that neck of the woods are running a bit higher after the program has aired...

also, lol at ex-husband demolishing the old house and then moving away

How have I never posted on this thread before? I love GD. We had a fridge magnet of Kevin for about 4 years ffs. I own one of his books.

Kevin enthuses about a bronze light switch that you can toggle with your elbow. but it sticks out about an inch and it's going to catch on everything for years to come.

Love it when Kevin McCloud is like "great architecture can change the world, it can light up our hearts, a home can show us how to love & how to live" at the start of Grand Designs & then the episode is about the cruelest & most delusional man you've ever seen in your entire life

— Mike Townsend (@townsendyesmate) January 6, 2024

Amazing Spaces on Thursday... mk3 train carriage, gwr livery at the bottom of a field. £3k to buy, 10k to transport

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=amazing+spaces+george+clarke+train+carriage&t=fpas&iax=images&ia=images&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cambridgeindependent.co.uk%2F_media%2Fimg%2FG6C2RDG4CNE8DXNV3MK1.jpg (image Search link to avoid paywall)

the previous week was something similar with containers and that always appeals. maybe i just like narrow buildings.

narrow buildings always have problems locating the stairs though. do you halve the useful width with a staircase or stick it at the end?

this reminds me that there is a new season of grand designs on...something. britbox. or acorn. one of them.

filming on project started 5.5 years ago, i wonder how this is going to go...

the final trip to another water tower seemed like twisting the knife

they'll never finish it.

when it opened with the lift tower I thought whoa! the water tower was a bit of a let down after that.

the latest episode has the most unpleasant and unnecessary intro imaginable.

i liked the boat, but My Floating Home got there first.

your post has reminded me I've not watched the second one yet

it's odd that GD and Amazing Spaces restarted in the same week. you'd think they'd spread them out.

unpleasant and unnecessary? kevin mccloud?

i have seen it now. yikes.

i like the new afters show that goes into more detail. and the prefab build was nice and smooth, to the point of being uninteresting.

new presenter on GD Australia not as good though.