PG

Grand design on CH4 atm..
Should be interesting.

stevem2k

she's brill . Archetypal slightly mad old lady.

Particularly impressed with the design and block construction

dpb

was it Bounemouth or spain .............sorry

stevem2k

South Devon

RON

It was Devon, near Exmouth.... what a great design.... modern, yet inside with the t&g and the older style furniture etc it looked imho great..... sort of, cutting edge modern with traditional thrown in....

They had lots of troubles, but i think the result was worth it.....i bet it's toasty warm too...

T5OLF

iTrader: (4)

Nothing like a warm granny

PG

The furniture looked sooooooooooo out of place.
Almost looked like a residential nursing home. But a great build.

BOB.T

The project manager should be made to personally shoot the window co. people and then himself, what a tosser! I monkey around with cars and computers all day but even I could tell you that polystyrene isn't gonna like a few metres of concrete on / in it!

I would really like the house except I can't help but think that it's flawed due to bad workmanship somehow. Oh and the furniture is sooooooooooo out of place!

RON

Did anyone else manage to get the hints as to which 'Best' window company it was.... i wondered initially why the fitters had their faces smudged out........ i guess i was the only one who liked the contrast between old and new.... oh well...

PG

I bet the old bugger did sue them in the end tho

Dream Weaver

I liked her philosophical style

House looked OK in the end, I actually quite liked the old furniture in there, reminded me of the gaffers house in Magnum, cant remember his name now.

Wish

iTrader: (2)

- Que -

Reality

The pouring of the cement in a "oner" didn't look like a good decision from my position as a sit at home knopw **** all about building or cement.


But I was right

That guy should have been shot !

Loved the lady's approach to the whole thing.

Furniture looked crap, the conservatory looked worse and she should have had the nice bit of the house facing the entrance - when he came to visit the last time and walked up the drive the house looked ****e - but it looked great from her old house .

When I saw the windows being fitted I asked the wife why the fitters faces were blanked out - All became apparent later - guess the window Co didn't agree to take part in the end

Good show though - glad it's back

Front


Back

Ray_li

Cool house but old woman

Chris L

Exactly - couldn't put it better myself

Robbie T

iTrader: (8)

It looked ok in the end, nowhere near as grand as some of the others they have done tho. They quoted her £200k and she reckoned it knocked of the door of half a mill in the end, heads should fcukin roll.
Bless her tho the mad old goat, she didn't give ****.

Agree about the furniture. Modern design, retirement home furniture

chiark

Loved it, and thought that the lady's outlook on life was superb . She reminds me of one of my grandmas

Like Bob, Chris and others have said, though:

Pouring 10 metres of cement into polystyrene blocks was never going to work and I'm surprised they even tried it. I'd imagine there'd be instructions (and possibly building regs) saying how many courses you can fill in one go... I was shouting at the telly at that point . The project manager or architect should be embarrassed at that one...

The window company should be taken out and shot, no excuses. They caused an extra cost of about 50k IIRC: does that include the interest accrued on the bridging loan? But the worst crime was that bloody conservatory as it looks absolutely atrocious and completely at odds with the quality and design of the rest of the house.

I'm guessing that the company is named after a bloody big hill, given the hints.

I'm amazed that she was still so sanguine when the build costs went from 200k to over double that, but she had the right approach: she does have a house worth more than that, and it perfectly meets her needs, and also has three bedrooms and two bathrooms downstairs for when her family visits.

Looked like excellent quality antique stuff to me, and without wishing to sound a pompous git, I thought the contrast between old light wood on the roof and dark wood of the furniture worked very well. A sofa cover might not hurt tho

Reality

I'd say you sound more "old fart" than "pompous git".

HTH

rossyboy

iTrader: (8)

£400k+ though Just as well she's so laid back or that could have finished her off!

Graz

I love that program, wish I had the dosh to commision something like that myself. But yeah last nights showed how it can really go pear shaped if you don't have the right people running the show.

The architect should have been shot for the initial 200k estimate, how far out was that, you might expect to slip by 10-50k perhaps but not double in price!

I was surprised that they got away with the concrete as well, the tower must have been on so close to collapsing, doesn't take a genius to work out that filling it 1/3 letting it dry, another 1/3 and so on would be the best method. Hope it stays up in a gale with those staples mixed in with the concrete. Looks exposed and liable to get a battering from the wind in the winter time.

mattstant

Not necessarily concrete is very strong in compression very poor in tension (bending) ,so if you introduce extra weaknesses by pouring in sections that are not correctly tied together with steel you further weaken the structure so in theory he was correct pouring in one go.

However knowing this i would have poured the concrete in alternate columns with lateral support ties.

Classic case of a good design very badly executed and £200,000 for such a unique one off was not a good estimate