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Grand.Designs.S27E06.Wirral.Revisit.2025
Transcript
00:00this elegant structure was heavily inspired by the medieval bridges of Switzerland it's in the
00:12Wirral though in the northwest of England not exactly where you'd expect to find it but it
00:16goes to show doesn't it that quality and imagination will always sing out and you know
00:21the people of Birkenhead here really love it I suppose the modern equivalent is sort of
00:26from under taking say a mid-century modern timber box you know something that's cantilevered and
00:33elegant and and placing it on the side of an old bungalow amidst some midwardian houses I mean
00:40what's wrong with that who would object to that turns out a lot of people in 2016 Stuart and Rosie
00:49decided to rip apart their 1960s dormer bungalow it's been a wonderful home but it's a crummy house
00:55and instead build an entirely different home it's gonna be timber clad it's a big bold shape but big
01:03and bold didn't go down well it looks like a giant garden shed I hate it they even questioned their
01:12own taste at the moment not 100% sure about it if I'm honest a taste for industrial steelwork and bare
01:20blocks paint it no I prefer stuff a bit more finish in the end it was all more stripped back than they
01:28wanted you just went to your brother's bedroom through the wall I still wonder if the project
01:33ever got finished whatever finished means do you know it's been nine years since I last saw Stuart and
01:45Rosie the house at that point was well it looked finished on the outside but inside it was far from
01:52done and they were camping in amongst the stud work wow it'll be really exciting to go back and see how it
01:59is now whether or not the sedum roof has grown whether or not that cantilever looks as good as it did then
02:04whether whether the building has settled down into where it is but first here's their story
02:11this is the Wirral Peninsula a quiet and
02:41polite corner of Britain near Liverpool it's a land of traditional architecture pitched roofs and
02:48pre 21st century housing some 1800s some 1920s and 30s some post-war like this place that Stuart and
02:59Rosie treasurer have lived in for the last five years it's been a wonderful home but it's a crummy
03:04house it's a three-bedroom dormer bungalows built in the 60s quite cheaply just a basic box just put up
03:12I think it was built on spec there's no insulation there's cracks in the floor the layouts really bad
03:17for us so Stu's not actually able to walk past here yeah it's ever so small the little ugly duckling is
03:25ready to be turned into something better yes so Rosie and Stuart have moved into rented accommodation
03:33with their kids Molly and Ben while they perform a shocking act of vandalism they're knocking the
03:43pitched roof off their old house and transforming it into something striking and modern no going back
03:52now it's all got quite real all of a sudden we're not going to try and copy a historic house I'm not
03:59going to try and build a 30s style house you know we need to build something that's of now I think I
04:03feel that quite strongly you know this is proper seaside suburbia beautiful 1920s arts and crafts houses
04:16which have been cherished and looked after and maintained there's nothing radical here
04:22there's somebody is trying to do something here though the bungalow has been reduced to a roofless
04:32husk ready for a 21st century building to rise from its bones this is the posh bit of the world
04:40looking down over the water yeah but it was till we moved in anyway we've lowered the tone slightly
04:45and now we're aiming to put it back up you're going to bring it up again what is it that you're going
04:51to do we're now taking this ground floor plan and building straight up from it which is the lowest cost
04:57where we can get volume upstairs it's going to be timber clad it's going to be white render yeah it's a
05:02big bold shape so how much bigger then is the new building than the old one well the old one was about
05:08a hundred square meters downstairs 50 square meters upstairs this new one is going to be about 140
05:13square meters just upstairs and the downstairs we're already adding about another 50 so so all
05:18together again it's a lot bigger it's 300 square meters yeah yeah I'm more or less the same footprint
05:24you look always unsure are you still tentative about this we can't quite believe we're finally doing it
05:31that's mainly the thing their architect Stephen Bromelow has devised a design that will double the size
05:37of Rosie and Stuart's old bungalow and reuse their walls and foundations this is what their old bungalow used
05:44to look like having decapitated it a pair of hefty steel columns get craned in to hide behind the perimeter
05:52wall these will support a fake cantilever an overhang at one end of the new 21st century first-floor box
05:59sitting on top of the old ground floor walls built in block work it'll get super strong joists chopped
06:05off with a sloping rubber roof the outside of this spanking new top floor will be insulated and clad
06:11with a rough textured heat treated timber the pre-existing ground floor walls meanwhile will receive a coverall
06:18coat of render inside Rosie and Stuart plan to leave their home in the raw rock work walls and ceiling joists will be exposed
06:27the old ground floor will become a more open space with a lounge office cluster of service rooms including a pantry and a large
06:36kitchen dining room to be furnished in no small way with units chairs and tables made by Stuart upstairs the new box will be built to modern building regs and contain the private rooms to bed and the
06:36rooms for the children with bathrooms opposite to ensuite guest rooms and a master bedroom outside Rosie and Stuart are planning eventually to build a garden room come study a quiet adult space to connect to the house
06:43Stuart and Rosie's design ambition is dazzling the house will look like half a million pounds worth of work but they've only got a hundred and fifty grand plus
06:50a twenty five thousand pound contingency to do it where's that money come from it's
07:11But they've only got £150,000, plus a £25,000 contingency to do it.
07:18Where's that money come from?
07:20It's remortgage and savings.
07:22We're going to try and get the interiors done for...
07:26On a good day, we think maybe £10,000.
07:28On a bad day, we think, oh, £20,000, £30,000.
07:30You know, we don't quite know.
07:32And it's going to be a bit of a succulency approach.
07:34It's not £10,000? Not if you want to put flooring down?
07:36If we can build a lot of the stuff ourselves,
07:38we will save a serious amount of money there.
07:40Stu and Rosie are also hoping to save money on finishes,
07:44by not having any.
07:46We like the sort of slightly raw, slightly pared-back,
07:49you know, industrial-ish look.
07:52Yeah.
07:53Not to a sort of stupid degree,
07:54but I don't want to just cover everything in plaster and polish it.
07:57Sanded scaffold planks here and there, that kind of thing.
07:59Yeah, definitely some of that.
08:01And also cladding, if we can buy enough of it,
08:03we can also use that internally. I think that looks great.
08:05We really are talking super budget here, aren't we? We are.
08:08You haven't got much money. The great reservoir you've got is time.
08:11Well, we've got enthusiasm and we've got energy and, you know,
08:14we've got people who will help us out. We'll get it done.
08:19Given their overall budget of £150,000, I hope so,
08:23they're radically remodelling their old home into a sharp-edged piece
08:26of contemporary architecture that will deliver double the space.
08:31You may be asking,
08:32how come Rosie and Stuart can build their house
08:34to such a ridiculously small amount of money?
08:37And the answer partly is that they're not completely destroying the old house.
08:41They are retaining the foundations and the ground floor walls.
08:45The technical term for this is the creative reuse of buildings,
08:49or bungalow gobbling.
08:56In December, the gobbling begins in earnest.
08:59The main contractor, Graham, is running the first half of this two-part project.
09:0480% of the budget's going on the first phase.
09:08We're here to get the shell ready for Rosie and Stuart
09:12and get it wind and weather tight,
09:14and then we hand over to Stuart to fit out.
09:21Today marks the arrival of the steel supports
09:24that will sneakily hold up the apparent cantilever,
09:27that is, the first-floor overhang.
09:30The steels are going to get bolted together
09:33and then lifted as an assembly to put into place.
09:36The scaffold pole's in the way, there's traffic roaring past,
09:39so this crane driver's got his work cut out, as far as I can tell.
09:42This is the first time we've had to crane something
09:44over the big sandstone wall.
09:46And I'm very fond of this sandstone wall.
09:49They'd best take care, then.
09:53We're going to line up roughly with the end of the building squeak, yeah?
09:56This is like watching Builder's Ballet.
10:05It's delicate and precise work.
10:07Down. Down. Down. We're over now.
10:11Blimey, they've done well, haven't they?
10:13Yeah.
10:14They've done really well.
10:18After three hours, the steel frame is up,
10:20hidden behind a high stone wall.
10:22It neatly represents the ingenuity
10:24that may yet become this project's hallmark.
10:27It's not a true cantilever.
10:29To actually engineer that as a proper cantilever building
10:32would be enormously expensive.
10:34From the road, it'll be a little trick that it looks...
10:37It looks more expensive than it is, let's put it that way.
10:39Hopefully what we're shown here
10:41is that you can actually build something large and modern and striking
10:45on a similar price to something that is like a developer box,
10:49you know, and we'll end up with something great
10:51for a similar price to something mediocre.
10:56To build their house for 150 grand,
10:58Stuart and Rosie have to drive costs down
11:01and get maximum value for minimum spend.
11:04They think they've found a way to do that with the interior.
11:08They're fans of what you'd call industrial chic,
11:20marrying the economy and glamour of the workaday.
11:25This restaurant in Liverpool has exposed ducts and worn stairs,
11:30the charms of a no-frills narrative of an industrial past.
11:37But this floor is actually pretty good.
11:39We didn't know about this place until a friend told us,
11:42you know, we should come here,
11:43because it basically looks inside like...
11:45like we keep talking about how we want our house to be.
11:48I like this metal stuff.
11:50Yeah.
11:51There's quite a few things here that...
11:53that floats our boat, really.
11:55Here, they've probably taken a perfectly nice shop
11:57and then ripped it all out to make it look like this.
12:01Except they didn't.
12:02Everything here has been newly put in.
12:04Hundreds of thousands of pounds had to be spent
12:06to artifice this stripped-back industrial atmosphere
12:10from scratch, adding pipes and factory lighting.
12:14Stuart and Rosie plan to mimic this style
12:16by spending as little as they can.
12:18They're hoping to cut costs further
12:23by making many of the fittings and furniture themselves
12:26in the workshop they use to run their gift-making business.
12:30We're able to use the skills that we've got
12:32and the machinery that we've got to help the house.
12:35Mummy, have you got the dispatch thing?
12:37I have, darling.
12:38Obviously, the world is full of wooden benches and wooden tables,
12:41but, um...
12:43I don't want any of those.
12:44I want something that I'm going to create myself.
12:46I know it might even be out of the offcuts of cladding.
12:49I might make stuff out of that.
12:52Stu's frugal and creative approach
12:54extends right through this project
12:56from recycling their old bungalow
12:58to building in simple, easy materials.
13:04Three months in, the first-floor extension
13:06is going up in block work.
13:09It's standard, straightforward and inexpensive.
13:12With the budget being so tight,
13:14we needed something that was quick,
13:16it was cost-effective and was readily available.
13:20The block work has enabled us
13:21to get the outside and in-sky skin up quickly
13:24and on budget.
13:27The block work may be quick and cheap,
13:29but it turns out the whole project
13:31is more expensive than Rosie and Stuart expected.
13:34We're realising we were a little bit naive
13:38in thinking that we could scrimp on the materials.
13:40We're up-spec in the insulation,
13:42so we're just kind of adjusting that
13:43to how it should have been probably from the start.
13:47We know we're slightly over,
13:48still waiting for a few quotes to come back in,
13:50so we don't quite know where we're...
13:53how over we're going to be.
13:54How they deliver an architectural wonder
13:56on a tiny budget no-one knows.
14:00Not even them.
14:11Rosie and Stuart's £150,000 budget bungalow gobble
14:15is no-nonsense and no frills.
14:18A major part of their pound-saver industrial aesthetic
14:21goes into the building in the form of their roof joists.
14:25Downstairs, the joists will have to be boarded
14:27and plastered for fire wrecks,
14:29but upstairs, they'll be left utterly naked.
14:33They're actually attractive things, I think.
14:36You know, they're a nice, interesting design.
14:37They're geometric, they're open, they're modern-looking,
14:40they're cool, you know, they're a nice thing.
14:42You mentioned they're the only one in the building trade
14:45that has looked at you like that.
14:47Well, they are, don't you think they're nice?
14:49No.
14:50You don't?
14:51OK.
14:53Graham's not the only one
14:54who's questioning Rosie and Stu's aesthetic choices.
14:58The difficulty I have is understanding
14:59just what this is going to feel like,
15:01whether it's going to seem unfinished,
15:03whether their rough-and-ready approach in the end
15:06doesn't just look, well, rough.
15:12Stuart and Rosie, Stuart particularly,
15:15seem magnetically attracted to the unfinished.
15:18They even want to clad the outside of their home in raw wood.
15:22They've all come to the Netherlands to look at the rough timber they want to use as cladding.
15:41It's a processed softwood that is pickled in acid and then heated to become a hardwood.
15:48It's going to be such a key part of how the house looks.
15:51We really want to make the right decisions, don't we?
15:53Yeah.
15:54Because otherwise it's not going to look how we want it to.
15:56That's right.
15:57When sanded, treated and processed, the pickled wood looks like this.
16:03Stuart and Rosie, of course, want to extract it from the process earlier.
16:08Pulling the wood out before it's processed means they'll get it cheaper for eight grand instead of twelve.
16:14But the downside to this is that the wood is stacked and separated with sticks.
16:19Rosie and Stu's new home will be clad with the stick marks still visible.
16:24The stick marks are so prominent. Those are really quite noticeable.
16:30I'm okay with wanting it to be natural and as unprocessed as possible.
16:35But I still like it to look finished, I suppose.
16:39Yeah.
16:40They wanted rough industrial cladding and they've got it.
16:48Meanwhile, back on the Wirral, the insulation for outside the walls and roof has arrived.
16:53And it's cost an additional £2,000.
16:56Ingeniously, though, Stuart and Rosie have managed to save about that amount in the way they've built the roof structure.
17:02I can think of no better example of how Stu and Rosie are taking this kind of pragmatic approach to saving money than the shape of this roof.
17:11The fact that it's sloped.
17:13Conventionally, if you were to slope a roof, you'd sit your joists on top of your wall, like that.
17:21And then on top of those, you'd then form a rather expensive triangular shape, piece of timber, skin there.
17:30And that would provide you with your fall, your slope.
17:33In this case, about three degrees, which is enough to take the water off the roof.
17:38What they've done here, brilliantly, is, with Graham, work out the fact that if you take your joist,
17:46you actually get the factory to cut it at a slight angle, and then you build your walls to slightly different heights,
17:58you get your slope without even trying.
18:03You know, NASA spent untold sums on developing a ballpoint pen that would write in space,
18:10and the Russians used pencils. You get the point?
18:14It's economy, not necessity, that's the mother of invention.
18:21Now the roof's on, the modern form of this building is already starting to show itself off in among its traditional neighbours.
18:28But the interior is going to need all the beauty it will get,
18:32especially with all those exposed joists and bare blockwork walls.
18:37I mean, to me, that is a beautiful wall. It's really nicely done. It's an attractive material.
18:41It'll go a bit lighter, obviously, when it dries out, but it's...
18:44OK. I don't automatically just want to cover that over.
18:46Paint it? No.
18:48Good for you. Lovely. I prefer stuff a bit more finished, but...
18:54Leaving everything exposed may be an aesthetic choice.
18:57But I'm not sure it's making things cheaper.
19:01Doing this kind of nice, simple, you know, sparse look adds cost that we didn't really expect.
19:07So, for example, all these little nice OSB panels in the ends all have to be custom-made,
19:11custom-fitted, measured and individually installed.
19:14So that's added time and added cost.
19:16So has it really saved us money doing this? I doubt it.
19:20It gets worse. Outside, as the cladding arrives and the first boards go up, everyone's expressing their doubts.
19:30Where's Rosie? Is she down there?
19:32How does it look from the ground?
19:34Very striking.
19:36You can see the sticker marks, yeah.
19:40Rosie's worried the marks draw further attention to an already bold building in a very traditional area.
19:48I'm really honest. I'm struggling slightly with the sticker marks, still.
19:54I understand why they're there. I understand it's part of the natural process.
19:59But at the moment, it looks a bit stripy to me.
20:03I'm hopeful that when it's trimmed off and finished at the bottom, that I will then like it.
20:09Because at the moment, I'm not 100% sure about it, if I'm honest.
20:13Neither, unfortunately, are some of the neighbours.
20:16Already, a few are starting to mutter about the strange wooden box that's risen from behind the stone wall.
20:22It's not kept the local character. It isn't part of the local vernacular.
20:25It is different with timber.
20:27What I'd think it perhaps might have been better is if we actually had a picture roof.
20:33So, Pat, what do you think of this house?
20:35Well, if you hadn't have told me it was a house, I would think it was an office block.
20:42I'm not keen on it, I'll be honest, at this moment in time.
20:46You're entitled to your opinion.
20:48But it doesn't quite blend in with the area.
20:52Come and look on the door and look round.
20:54Because if you don't like it on the outside, you're probably going to be appalled on the inside.
20:59Well, maybe we have to wait till it's finished.
21:02Yeah.
21:03Well, it's always a good rule of life, isn't it? Wait till it's finished before making a judgement.
21:06Well, yes. Yes, wait till it's finished and see what it's like then.
21:11All local eyes from local people are focused on the great wooden wonder box rising in the Wirral.
21:33Five months in, the windows are going in.
21:40So far, Rosie and Stuart have saved where they can to build within their 150 grand budget.
21:46But, mindful of local feeling, this time they're not trying to save money.
21:51They've dipped into their contingency and spent more.
21:57We made the decision to upgrade them.
21:58In the original spec, we were having grey UPVC windows.
22:02And then pretty much everyone that we spoke to said the design of your house would look much better if you could do aluminium windows.
22:09So we've braced ourselves and done the aluminium.
22:14Changing the windows is costing an extra eight grand.
22:17I've been quite tense about the windows because it is by far the most expensive single thing that, you know, that we've put in the house.
22:27A generous nod out of respect to the design, the environment and local feeling. Great.
22:32But I feel the building needs to do more if it really wants to feel properly rooted in and part of this place.
22:40So what are they going to do?
22:41Well, they've set it, of course, already low and behind the red wall.
22:45I think I'd be very tempted to try and take one of these colours, perhaps one of these pale creams here,
22:52and apply that to their masonry ground floor, just in order to help the things settle.
22:57To make it look like it's part of a sequence of buildings here that have stepped up the hill through the centuries.
23:08By spring, the place is watertight.
23:10And in another radical pound-saver exercise, Stuart and Rosie are no longer paying £900 a month in rent.
23:17They've moved into their half-finished home.
23:19We're now in, we've spread out, and we're just sort of camping out up here, really.
23:24Now that Graham, the contractor's finished, Stuart and Rosie deliberately slow things down at their woodworking business to focus on site.
23:32First up is the downstairs plumbing.
23:34I've lashed up this toilet. It's in a bit of a temporary plumbing fixture.
23:39I'm just sort of, you know, plumbing it together in a nice, haphazard way.
23:44This was always the plan. You know, we'd use Graham to do as much as we could of the big stuff, you know, roof, water,
23:49walls, windows, all that kind of thing.
23:51And the idea is that we moved back in and did the rest ourselves to, obviously, save the cash and to do it how we wanted to do it.
23:58I can't get a roll. Get your feet off my feet!
24:02They've got three grams set aside for heating, which is enough to buy an underfloor system, but not enough to pay for someone to install it.
24:10Daddy's going to do a presentation. Come on.
24:13We've decided the way that we can make it affordable is that we fit it ourselves.
24:18So this will go about there.
24:20The numbers are upside down.
24:22And it's summer holidays and the children are going to help us.
24:25These are to hold the underfloor heating pipe.
24:27And you basically just click it in between these castellations.
24:30It does just look like we're standing around, you know, making the children work, doesn't it?
24:34I'm all right with that. Yeah.
24:36There we go.
24:44Spurred on by the children's enthusiasm and energy, within a couple of weeks the upstairs has fully evolved.
24:52It's become a surreal self-contained apartment.
24:56Open plan bathroom. Oh, open plan toilet. That's nice.
25:00There's only stud work dividing the rooms up here.
25:04Oh, I like the way you just did that.
25:07You just went to your brother's bedroom through the wall.
25:10When this wall is eventually skinned out, you'll think to yourselves, you know, I can't walk through walls anymore.
25:16Exactly.
25:18Benny, meantime, is inhabiting a netherworld, half in his room and half in his sister's.
25:23It's more fun for some of us than others, living like this.
25:27Does Dad snore? Yes.
25:28Can you hear? Yes.
25:29Because presumably from around the corner you can hear everything.
25:32Yeah. Without going into details.
25:34There's no secrets in that.
25:36Full, open plan living is obviously awkward, but at least it's given the kids a chance to get used to their parents' bold tastes.
25:44And the children were going to have ceilings, but they've both decided they quite like their joists now.
25:49Molly really likes her blockwork wall. We've, you know, converted her.
25:52It's a style triumph that you persuaded them that it's worth keeping.
25:57This is propaganda design that takes advantage of young minds.
26:05Outside, Rosie and Stuart have, however, failed to change the minds of some of the neighbours.
26:11I hate it. I hate it.
26:14And I don't know anybody who likes it.
26:16You come up the road and it's like a smack in the eye.
26:20You see this wooden shack in front of you.
26:24It looks like a giant garden shed.
26:29We haven't gone out to build this house to provoke a reaction, have we?
26:32No, not at all.
26:33It just feels like we've almost, the way it is at the moment doesn't do it justice for people to decide what they think.
26:40I guess we'd like it to look its best so that then any comments that are made are at least made in an informed way.
26:48Rosie and Stuart have decided to spend nine grand on an innovative spray render for the bottom of the building,
26:55made principally with ground cork.
26:58It has many advantages, not least in tying the building into its setting.
27:01And the render has a partner in crime, another surface treatment to help the house root better to its setting.
27:10It's lovely.
27:11It's just gorgeous.
27:13I've never seen a sedum roof so rich, so diverse, so full of different species.
27:19It's just brilliant.
27:20It's a little slice of heaven, isn't it?
27:21It really, really is.
27:23Although it feels like a luxury, it'll make us smile every single day.
27:27This is kind of another example of you trading up, isn't it?
27:30Yeah, this was our treat.
27:31Going premium.
27:33Yeah.
27:34How much is that?
27:35£30 a square metre.
27:36They're not light.
27:37How are you going to get them up there?
27:39Oh, my lord. How are you going to get them up there?
27:41We'll find a way.
27:42Onto the scaffolding.
27:43We'll find a way.
27:45Ready?
27:48Let's take it up, love.
27:52So, Rosie, Stuart and Rosie's mum get to work.
27:59Got in the swing of it now.
28:04Do you like it?
28:05I love it.
28:06I love it.
28:07This is so much nicer and more tactile.
28:09To actually have it is awesome.
28:10Line on, daddy.
28:18You want to do a pile on, mom?
28:19I'll be fine.
28:20I'll be fine.
28:23Having upgraded the insulation, windows, and now the green roof, in total, Rosie and Stuart have spent $147,000 so far.
28:33They've now got just 28 grand left in the bank to complete the house and for day-to-day living.
28:39And now, an unmovable deadline looms.
28:43Mid-October, we have to stop the house and we have to focus on the business because that's our busiest time of year.
28:48It needs us to have a good Christmas.
28:54Under pressure to finish and get back to earning money, Rosie and Stuart are pulling out all the stops.
29:02But pressure's no hindrance to creativity.
29:04In their wood workshop, Stuart's come up with a brilliant, low-cost idea for the staircase.
29:10We've decided we're going to create it out of 25mm plywood.
29:14On our CAD system, we design all of the things that we're going to cut and then it's just a matter of telling the computer to cut out the shape.
29:20If we get this right, it should just be a fantastic, freestanding, rock-solid box of plywood.
29:25What I'm thinking of doing is designing a wavy pattern so that sheets actually lock together in that sense.
29:30In September, Stuart's experimental plywood staircase is starting to come together.
29:39Oh, there's a staircase.
29:42Oh, it's a jigsaw.
29:44It's a staircase and it's a jigsaw.
29:46I love that joint.
29:47Beautiful, and it's only cost them 600 quid. At the beginning of their project, Stuart and Rosie planned an extreme, naked, industrial interior, bare block and exposed ceiling joists.
30:01But now, I can see plaster.
30:04You were not intending to skim it.
30:07The nice man that did our render, he did the ceilings.
30:10We're like, I quite like those. Do you think you could do some of the walls as well?
30:13And then we...
30:14It's like, I can come back tomorrow afternoon, do you want me to do that?
30:16And we're like, can't think of a reason why not. Yes, please.
30:18We kind of surprised ourselves at how much we liked the fact that it just looked almost like a finished room.
30:23Yeah, not only does it feel like a finished room, it also feels like a deliberate purpose-built home that is, you know, from new.
30:30As opposed to another building which has been knocked around a bit.
30:33Yeah, kind of ties it all back, doesn't it?
30:36But having plaster doesn't mean they've relinquished their ambitions for industrial chic.
30:41For the dining room, they've found a rough, ready and free way of making furniture.
30:48These are our old first floor floor joists.
30:51So we've kept these in the garden, carefully.
30:55We knew we were going to do something with them, and here we are finally doing something with them.
30:59So we're just going to start building some bookcases and shelves and storage units, that kind of thing.
31:09Stu and Rosie also have a stylish, factory-finished plan for one of the walls in their family lounge.
31:15They're going to clad it with leftover pickled wood.
31:17These are offcuts of cladding. We tried it vertically and horizontally. We didn't think we'd like horizontal.
31:24Yeah, but we do. It looks better.
31:25We like it more than the vertical inside.
31:27Yeah. It looks less like exterior cladding.
31:30That reminds me of outside. That is, that's very smart though.
31:34Because what you get then is the vertical lines of the...
31:37Stick marks. Stick marks. Yeah.
31:38Stick marks. Yeah, where it was stacked. That's right.
31:41That's very pretty. It looks like some kind of interference pattern inside.
31:45So the sticker marks that I didn't like externally, I'm fine with inside, because I didn't want on the outside them...
31:51I didn't want it to look like a stripey house, did I? A bit like a zebra.
31:55You didn't want anybody to not like your house on the outside? You didn't want to stand out?
31:58I didn't say that I didn't want anybody to not like my house on the outside, because I can't control that.
32:05Which is a, you know, another topic for conversation.
32:08Yeah, sorry. I was...
32:10That's a nerve you just touched. Starting to twitch slightly.
32:14Don't twitch.
32:16Well, this project is not going where I thought it would.
32:19I think even Stuart and Rosie are surprised at just how polished it's turning out to be.
32:24Come my final visit in the autumn...
32:30How are you feeling both?
32:31We're exhausted. I think we worked hard to try and make it look good.
32:35The house seemed sharp and clean, although a little pink and fresh.
32:38So what had been the response from the neighbours?
32:41Have you had many comments?
32:43Less now than when it first went up.
32:46All good then, at least outside.
32:48Am I allowed in? Of course.
32:50But what about indoors?
32:52This is very, very good indeed.
32:55Stuart and Rosie had proved me wrong.
32:57I had questioned their choices.
32:59Oh, and Joyce, look.
33:02But I was charmed by the pound-stretching semi-industrial world they had made.
33:07The curtain rail is genius.
33:10This is metal tube, 25mm steel tube, galvanised.
33:12From the scaffolders?
33:13From the scaffolding suppliers, yeah.
33:15It's absolutely in the spirit of the building.
33:18Very nice.
33:19Their kitchen followed the same ethos, marrying their love for the rough with their love for budget.
33:24I'm looking at this thinking, you know, you might spend 15, 20 grand on your kitchen.
33:28Less than two.
33:30That's my girl.
33:32Even the kids showed early promise of self-built construction talent.
33:35You two are exemplary builders.
33:38I mean, I've never seen, ever, guys your age contribute so much.
33:42We couldn't have asked for more helpful little beings, to be honest.
33:45But upstairs was still very much unfinished.
33:47Only stud walls separated the spaces.
33:50Oh, open-planned toilet, that's nice.
33:52And the bathrooms were down to their bare bones.
33:55It's easy to see all the things that you haven't done and sometimes it's a good idea to just stop and say,
34:00actually, do you know what, we've done quite a lot in less than a year.
34:03Yeah.
34:05Rosie, Stuart, Molly and Ben all had a whirlwind of a year, building and moving back into a house that was now over double the size.
34:12Getting the project this far had been nothing short of commendable.
34:15But they still had a long way to go.
34:21So Rosie and Stuart have been living in that house for nearly a decade, so surely by now they must have finished.
34:29What about all that idiosyncratic furniture made out of scaffolding?
34:33Can't wait to see if they've still got that.
34:35The beautiful seaside suburbia that is the Wirral Peninsula is a natural home for pointy-roofed traditional homes.
34:55I've come back to visit a family who chose in 2015 to try something a little different.
35:02Well, it's going to be back here after nearly, what, ten years?
35:06The thing about this house that Rosie and Stuart built was that it was quite disruptive here in the Wirral.
35:14And yet, approaching it, I don't see what the fuss was about. I really don't.
35:20The semi-cantilevered box now sits much more comfortably among its older neighbours.
35:27This house was never intended to stick out. It just needed an age-old ingredient, time, to silver it down.
35:35Well, that is better than when I last saw it. The cladding is really beautiful now.
35:42When I look at that house next door, which is a hundred years older, well then, all the detailing on this, the colours, the textures, everything, sort of takes its cue from this older building.
35:56It looks like a sort of distilled version of it.
35:59I always thought it was subtle, and I think it's subtler than ever.
36:02Hey! Hello! Stuart!
36:08Good to see you. How are you? Very well, how are you? Hello, Rosie!
36:12Very good to see you. You haven't changed either of you a bit.
36:16Thank you very much. Remarkably. We'll take that, yeah.
36:18This, though, I mean, it's subtler. Yeah, it's weathered down really well.
36:21The Okoya timber is remarkable.
36:23Now, you were always a little unsure about those stick marks.
36:26But they faded beautifully. I really love it now.
36:28When it first wound up, people were like, oh, my God, it's so yellow.
36:30I think the general comment is your house doesn't look as bad now.
36:34I think it was a big change, and that took a while for people.
36:37Once they realised we weren't putting a pitch roof on it,
36:39they kind of understood that it was the shape it was going to be.
36:41And it's of its time. It is.
36:43The outside was sort of like this the last time I saw you,
36:46but the inside was just crazy. I mean, have you done more?
36:50We're nearly, nearly finished, aren't we? Oh, come on.
36:53Come and have a look. Yeah, I'd love to see that.
36:55There's promise.
36:56Oh.
37:02Ah. Oh.
37:06This is beautiful.
37:08The hallway has been smartened up into what now seems a proper welcome.
37:13This is not, as I remember, this was all done in plywood, this hallway.
37:17Yeah, well, covered it over and used the same wood as outside, so this is the echoic cladding.
37:21It's great, yeah.
37:22You're a bit hooked on this, aren't you?
37:23We are. There's more.
37:25Oh.
37:27And this wasn't done.
37:29There is a new office space where once there was an unfinished storage space.
37:34Whose office?
37:35My office.
37:36It says so. You're a coach.
37:37Yes, so I work with senior leaders to help them motivate and retain their top talent, which I can do from here, which is really lovely to be able to do it in such a nice environment.
37:46Yeah. What are you doing, Stuart?
37:47We used to have a little shop. That quietened right down. Really, I've turned my attention to building-type jobs instead.
37:53Sitting room?
37:54Yeah.
37:55Oh, yeah, this is a little, oh, this is very full.
37:59The sitting room has now been completely overtaken. This has changed a lot by a world of sound.
38:06So this room has sort of become a music room.
38:09So my dad was a massive CD collector.
38:10Oh, really?
38:11It was his sort of life's work, and when he died, we couldn't bear to break it up as well.
38:15And what about all the recording kit?
38:16Yeah, we lost my dad fairly recently too, and this is sort of his stuff. He was a high-five buff.
38:20You know that old phrase about books do furnish a room? I kind of think these days CDs and albums furnish a room.
38:25And they kind of tell the world about who we are.
38:28Even the stick marks of the pickled wood walls seem to echo the notation of music.
38:33They're like musical staves. There's a beat running through the wall, which is kind of quite appropriate now, isn't it, for the content?
38:38I'm going to say that was intentional. Yes, I'm pleased you picked up on that kit.
38:41I would.
38:43Through here, has the kitchen changed much? Has that evolved?
38:45Kitchen's pretty much the same, I think.
38:47Rosie and Stuart's homemade scaffolding kitchen is still there, a mark of its success.
38:52And it's now joined by a new, smartly clad opening.
38:56I mean, it's a bar. It's got twinkly lights and everything.
38:59And what's this through here? This is a completely new room.
39:04There is a new extension topped with a cedar roof.
39:08It was always planned as a family space to complement the smaller music room.
39:13It now completes the house.
39:15So, I come down here, pick out my drink, and descend the staircase into a light, bright, splendid space.
39:25Beautifully done. It's come out really well.
39:28What do you use the room for?
39:29Grown-up lounge.
39:30Kids use it quite a bit for parties as well.
39:32Well, you would, wouldn't you? I would, because the deck's just out there and the garden is beautiful.
39:38The garden functions as an extension of the interior.
39:41It has grown-up furniture, as well as some wilder components, a bit like Glastonbury.
39:47I mean, come on, you've built this for your children, I'm afraid.
39:50As they reach the age suddenly, you know, the alcohol flows.
39:53Talking of which, I seem to be still holding my imaginary drink.
39:55Indeed. Would you like an imaginary top-up?
39:58Yeah, I would. Thanks so much.
40:01Oh, this is so much nicer now you've got this lovely crafted handrail.
40:06Stuart and Rose's industrial tastes are still there.
40:09Upstairs is all galvanised galore.
40:13Hang on a minute, when are you going to finish the ceiling?
40:15That's done.
40:16You like it?
40:17It's very practical, you can store things up there.
40:19Skis?
40:20It fits with the wood and the bit industrial.
40:25We can at least all agree on how beautifully the sedum roof has aged.
40:29This is like a little forest, connecting to the foliage beyond.
40:34Yeah, I love the sedum roof.
40:36Beyond the lounge landing lies promise of plasterboard and privacy.
40:40Just clocking rooms, because all of this was... you were camping.
40:43We were camping, yes.
40:44What's this room now?
40:45Spare room.
40:46So you've finished the spare room, which means you've finished all of them.
40:47We've finished all of them.
40:48Yeah, we have.
40:49Oh, nice.
40:50Here upstairs, there are now five finished bedrooms, with doors that close.
40:56And there are bathrooms, and not a stud wall in sight.
41:01Molly and Ben's rooms suggest they share their parents' taste for sterling board.
41:06Ah, and even this room is finished. Your bedroom, yeah?
41:09Ignoring the inevitable homemade scaffolding bed, the view from Stuart and Rose's window is of another sedum roof.
41:15Oh, my goodness. That sedum out there is much brighter and greener and fresher, like it's just been recently laid.
41:21It has just been recently laid.
41:22OK.
41:23Yes. The kids did that, actually, a couple of weeks ago.
41:26What? They...
41:27So when we fitted this, Stu and I were clearly in charge, and the children helped.
41:30And when we fitted this, the kids were clearly in charge, and Stu and I helped.
41:34So the balance of power has shifted.
41:36They have opinions, and they're getting skills, they're getting dangerous.
41:39I find that really interesting, because you actually have produced a generation of people in your family with practical hands-on skill sets, which is rare.
41:49I think they also recognise, if they want to live in a nice house, it's only reasonable they contribute.
41:55And when we were building the extension and we were talking about what a nice room it was going to be, you could see them thinking,
42:00I want some of that. That's great. I'm willing to help, because I want that result.
42:04Molly and Ben were just seven and ten when their parents built their house.
42:09Nine years on, I wonder how they reflect on that frenzied year.
42:13Congratulations on coming through this process relatively unscathed. You seem like normal human beings.
42:18Thank you very much, yeah. I'll take that.
42:20What do you remember about the project when your parents were in the throes of it?
42:24We don't remember all of it, but we remember bits and pieces.
42:27It happened, like, gradually, but all of a sudden you realise you were kind of...
42:31You were in the middle of this project, and it was quite cool seeing all these rooms get put up around you, and we were there, and it was really cool to see it all coming together, I think.
42:38I want to know about this power struggle.
42:39Right, like, seem to have, the pair of you, taken over the responsibility of jobs.
42:45Yeah, well, especially given they've now got dodgier physically.
42:49Especially Molly, she's stepped off and can do quite a lot more than we used to be able to.
42:54Power tools, anything vaguely dangerous, I'm quite interested in.
42:57Excellent, excellent.
42:59I think we've been very lucky to be able to do this whole thing as a family.
43:02I've enjoyed the fact that we're so close together working on this.
43:05Yeah, it's nice that when we're around in this space we can look round and think, oh, I helped with that, oh, we did all that together, and oh, yeah, we did all this.
43:14Yeah.
43:16Building a house can be such a difficult, even alienating, experience for a household.
43:20This family showed me that you can not only get through it, but thrive in the process to become stronger than ever.
43:27You've had this opportunity to work alongside your children, to work and build this alongside them, with them, to the extent that they've taken over bits of the project.
43:40And that is, for parents, quite a privilege.
43:44We couldn't have done it without the kids. We just couldn't have done it without the kids.
43:48And I think it just makes you really tight because you go through such a lot together.
43:52Taking this approach, though, of doing it slowly and then moving in when it was nowhere near finished, and then taking, what, another nine years?
44:02Yeah.
44:03To get to this point?
44:04Yeah.
44:05We've made better decisions by living in it and letting it evolve around us.
44:09Being able to just do it room by room on our own time scale, you can just do it exactly as you want it without having to worry about the initial spec you thought of two years ago.
44:17We wouldn't have got it well done. It wouldn't have been right for us in the end.
44:20What's really clever here is that you've got the quality, and you said, actually, it doesn't matter about the time, because we want the quality, we want the thing we want, and we're prepared to spend time doing that.
44:29I genuinely enjoy the process of the design, the build, the construction coming to fruition. I would do it again.
44:37It's not really a conversation we've taken too far together, but...
44:41I'd do anything again with Stuart.
44:43Excellent. Canal boat.
44:45I love my canal boat.
44:46Rosie and Stuart's strategy of building gently with intention and patience has given them not just this adaptable modern home, but a feast of memories that binds together everyone living here.
45:05I do like this place a lot. It is a slow house. It's the product of a slower process.
45:15of more contemplation. It's a building which has been able to flex and grow and change according to the different needs, the changing needs over time, of the people that use it.
45:25And the building, as a result, is not that demanding. I mean, so often I say to people, get the house done, move in, and you can crack on with your lives.
45:36But, of course, as John Lennon said, life is what happens to you while you are too busy making other plans.
45:41That didn't happen here. This is a building which respects relationships, respects emotions, respects the sacred value of everyday life.
45:55Back in 2019, Greg and Georgie had grand plans.
46:09Oh, it's big. For this dilapidated barn.
46:13This is now our forever home, isn't it?
46:15But there were serious health challenges for both of them to contend with.
46:18We both had brain tumours.
46:20And problems lurked at every turn.
46:22Not even budging. We're 50 mil out.
46:25So, six years later, I'm back.
46:28It's really grown into something quite special.
46:30Mmm-hmm.
46:31Mmm-hmm.
46:33But there was no special.
46:36That was a very special.
46:40And, of course, a regular school year.
46:44That's wood.
46:46I was right, and we thought it was jsoult maze.
46:48And, we felt an immediate challenge come to us in this space.
46:52To be missed on telling I was a cowardlyTop parent state,
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