Episode 2 Building Dream Homes

Have you ever dreamt of living in a house built specially for you,

or of renovating the house you already live in?

Then the chances are you'll need an architect to design,

build and transform your home.

My own interior style is just coolness.

We're following some of the nation's architects leading

the way in ground-breaking design.

Oh, yeah!

We'll be with them every step of the way as they battle with builders...

Quick word in his ear, make sure there's no more mishaps.

That's not good.

..and blue prints...

This is the classic sleepless night project if I'm being honest.

..and the clients who hire them...

It's like working with the Chuckle Brothers.

-Ho, ho, ho!

-You've got a very strange understanding

of the word "today".

How do you know your calculations are right?

..and draw on their seven years of study...

We'll go with the architects up here, then, I'm afraid.

..to solve everyday problems...

Seriously, this is a serious bad day.

..all in the name of making the properties

we dream of become a reality.

Today, Architect Chris Loyn gets to grips with an amazing,

budget-busting, upside-down house near Cardiff...

It's getting from that concept, that idea that you live

with for years and years and years, you draw it, you work through

the spaces and then suddenly you see it emerging out of the ground.

..where there are serious differences of opinion over style.

I'm telling you what I want.

You tell me what I need to achieve what I want and how much it costs.

And architects Laurence Bowen and Paul Robinson are working

with a family who bought a three-bed house in their dream location.

Buying a house that needed work was the only way

we could afford to stay in this area.

But their plans to finish their ultra-modern

extension before the arrival of baby number two are thrown into jeopardy.

No, I appreciate that you're in a sort of difficult position

cos you're in between the two, but that wasn't what we agreed

when we placed the order.

In the Vale of Glamorgan, Marianne and Jon are building

their for ever home, right next door to their current house.

I suppose doing your own build, it gives you an opportunity to

-do exactly what you want.

-That's right.

The project is an amazing

£842,000 upside-down eco house

that is scheduled to take just ten months to complete.

Most importantly, Marianne and Jon have specified that

this hi tech home should work for them for the rest of their lives.

We wanted to move somewhere that was easy to maintain

and was on the flat.

The pressure of delivering the perfect pad

lies on the shoulders of award-winning architect Chris Loyn

and his project designer, James Stroud.

With their reputation for cutting-edge builds,

Chris brought the design...

One important element of the brief was future proofing, if you like.

..and James realises his vision.

I'm in the kitchen, I've just made my morning coffee,

or actually maybe I'd rather more think about

-my evening glass of wine.

-Yeah.

It's October, four months into the build.

The steels are up, the block work is done

and Marianne is holding a monthly site meeting in her kitchen.

Has everyone got everything they need?

-Only you want a croissant, Chris.

-I'm OK, don't worry about that.

One will come down in time, I'm sure.

Marianne has a very clear vision of how she wants her new home to

look, so schedules the monthly meeting to keep up-to-date

with how work is progressing and what decisions are being made.

Today, hi tech gadgets for the house are on the agenda.

Home automation.

To be honest with you, this has been a bit frustrating

cos they're saying all this home automation is specialist,

well, speak to me in a language that I can understand, then, and tell me.

I'm telling you what I want.

You tell me what I need to achieve what I want and how much it costs.

With so many different strong opinions about the final result,

the site meetings are crucial for a smooth build.

The purpose of the monthly site meeting is to bring everybody

together - contractor, design team, client -

and you see the growth of the building, of course.

And, erm, that's what architecture is about -

it's getting from that concept, that idea that you live with

for years and years and years, you draw it, you work through

the spaces and then suddenly you see it emerging out of the ground.

We don't make the architecture, the builder makes the architecture.

The trouble is, this time,

builder and architect aren't quite seeing eye-to-eye.

Main contractor John Shields and his team are currently building one

of the key features of this project -

the curved central staircase.

To be able to create the curve, we have to cut every brick

individually in half.

There's about 6,000 bricks in this wall that have all had to be cut by

hand and the bricklayers have taken it

and done a superb job, I must say.

I've never built one like this before.

Erm, it just takes a lot of patience.

It drives you round the bend, literally!

With so much skill and work going into the stairs,

the builders are rightly proud of the finished product,

but the architects have instructed that it should be built

in ugly block-work bricks,

so there's no option but to cover it in render.

We did ask the question to the architect, you know,

why didn't they do it in a face brickwork, but the answer was it's

part of the design, so, you know, it's a shame to cover it up but...

Chris and James are on site to inspect the stairs,

and it seems James is having a crisis of confidence.

-That looks good, doesn't it?

-It's got a little... Poking up.

-Yeah.

You know, looking at it, the beauty and care they've taken to do

the brick out of it, part of me is wondering whether...

You'd leave it as brick?

It's definitely right as it is, but part of me

feels like would it have been better to do it in brick.

-Too late.

-Yeah, it is. I just... yeah.

Changing their minds at this stage is impossible without

incurring huge costs, not to mention the wrath of everyone on site.

James is taking no such chances on the finished look

for the rest of the build.

Have you discussed your idea with Chris,

the whole wall of curtains there?

Yes, I have.

-You happy with that, Chris?

-Yep, absolutely. Looks great.

He's going to be choosing curtain material next.

I know.

-Honestly!

-I know! Napkins, the lot!

Yeah, seriously.

He's already asked Jon to measure all his furniture and send him

the details so that he can place it in the house.

-In the right places.

-Yeah.

It's that level of detail that will elevate the end result.

End result, yeah.

It may be Marianne and Jon's home, it may only be half built, but as

project designer, James has his own vision of what the finished product

will look like, down to the last tap, light fitting and door handle.

There's one room in particular that he has very firm views on.

-I'm your kitchen units.

-Yeah, that's what I thought.

-Yeah?

And then you've got the window is exactly half of this, so you've

got that half is the island and this half is the glass, so...

Yeah. So the wall is there, so if the island ran into the wall...

It would mean that if you wanted

to get something off the dining table...

-You'd have to walk round.

-Yeah.

-Yeah, yeah.

Marianne's point was, so if you've got a party going on or

-something like that...

-You want people to stay out of the kitchen.

Yeah, you don't want people all flooding round,

so why not close it off and have a dead end?

The hotly-debated topic is the kitchen layout.

Marianne has brought on board a kitchen designer,

who's fighting against James' central island scheme

and wants to connect all the worktops to the wall.

All James can do is try and show Marianne the error of her ways.

I think once you close something off, it's closed off.

Whereas, if you are having a party

and you want to, you know, defend your zone...

You can put something there.

A couple of stools there will stop people coming in.

Once you've done it, then you haven't got the option.

-If, you know, for example...

-I tell you what you could do.

-You could have one of these things, what are they called?

-Trolley!

-Yes!

-You know in your window, you keep the trolley in the window.

Yeah, and then I wheel it out. Yeah, over here, that's right!

It's only by acting it out that you come across the problems.

It's a wonderful idea!

I don't know where we're up to now!

No, we're not doing it. We've decided not to do it.

-That's why...

-No, we haven't decided not to do it.

We've come up with a trolley!

-We've now got three options instead of two.

-Right.

So there's closed, open and the trolley option.

Yeah. I know.

James might think he has the upper hand in the kitchen island debate,

but just down the road in a kitchen showroom,

there's a man who has equally strong ideas.

I think kitchens is quite a specialist market,

so whilst an architect - he'd do a fantastic job -

equally, you know, it's probably best to leave kitchen design

down to the specialists.

While kitchen wars wage on in Wales,

in Winchester, a very different kitchen extension is being put in.

Lisa Matthews and David Pope moved into their Edwardian

end-of-terrace house in a sought-after conservation area

3½ years ago and were soon joined

by their daughter, two-year-old Farrah.

So we did all of the first floor ourselves, including the bathroom -

all of the plumbing, building the walls, taking out the chimney,

structural alterations. And then for the loft extension, we did

employ a builder to do that cos Farrah had arrived by that point.

Buying a house that needed work was the only way

we could afford to stay in this area

because there's so much demand for these houses.

So when this one came up that

needed completely refurbishing, we kind of jumped on the chance.

But with Lisa six months pregnant, the two reception rooms

and pokey kitchen just isn't enough for their growing family.

The upstairs back bedroom, which is normally the spare bedroom,

it's really in a state of chaos at the moment.

Both structural engineers, their working life sees them

designing everything from opera houses to shopping centres.

They plan to use their wealth of experience to project manage

the next stage of their development,

but they've given the job of designing the new extension

to Poole-based architects Laurence Bowen and Paul Robinson.

Obviously, they needed more space.

A quite common request that we get is sort of to create an open plan

living-dining sort of family room,

and that was what they wanted as well.

What they also wanted to address was that the existing house had

no real connection to the rear garden.

Paul and Laurence have a reputation for working with properties in

conservation areas, which meant they were a perfect fit for this job.

They've come up with an elegant design that pleases both

the clients and the planners.

Paul has designed a wooden clad rear extension,

housing a new kitchen-diner.

This will link to the main house via a play room, which in turn

leads onto an open-plan living area.

It looks simple, but actually there's quite a lot to it

to get it right.

Ra!

As project managers, David and Lisa will need

all their wits about them if they're to bring the single-storey

extension in on their £55,000 budget

and tight three-month schedule.

Project managing will save them valuable cash,

but the budget still has to cover the cost of the build,

the new kitchen and the architect's design fees.

And with Lisa due to give birth just four weeks after the completion

date, Paul and Laurence's plans for their living space need to

stay on schedule, especially

since the family are living on site during the build to save money.

It means moving things around because we can't have

everything plumbed in at once, so we have to unpl...

If I want to do a load of laundry, I have to un-plumb the dishwasher,

re-plumb the washing machine in, and we've got this

kind of temporary arrangement of waste pipes and buckets and things

under here. So we chop and change, and hope it doesn't leak too much.

Living with a toddler on site isn't easy either.

"Those cables are still live", etc. "Don't play with that saw."

"Take that screwdriver out your mouth."

To add to the pressure, in an attempt to keep costs down even

further, David is trying to do as much of the work as he can himself.

So here we've got the results of last weekend's activity, which

was removing yet another chimney,

which was about 500 bricks and about another 60 rubble sacks

and the loss of another two or 3kg in weight.

Because Lisa and David are trying to save money, Paul and Laurence

have taken on a very different role to Chris and James in Wales.

Now this project is starting on site, we're not really

involved in the project management - David and Lisa

have chosen to take that role themselves.

They understand the drawings

and they understand the sequencing of works on site, so we will

just be there for any support really, that David and Lisa need.

But project managing your own extension,

especially when you're heavily pregnant, isn't easy.

No, I appreciate you're in a sort of difficult position

cos you're in between the two, but, as you can understand,

that wasn't what we agreed when we placed the order, so...

I've just had a call from the doors to say they're going to be

12 days late.

But the problem with the doors is that until the doors are in,

we can't screed the floor, then the screed takes three weeks

to dry. When you put the timber floor down,

you can't put the kitchen units in until the timber floor is down,

so it's going to knock on to everything else.

Project managing their own build means that Lisa

and David are responsible for making sure everything arrives on time

and on budget.

This news could dash any hope

they have of being in before the baby arrives.

Back in the Vale of Glamorgan, things are really taking shape.

Clients Jon and Marianne are building their dream home.

They want a hi tech house that will sit snugly

into the Welsh countryside.

It's November and they need to get the building

watertight before the winter takes hold.

The first step is to give the house a roof, but not any old roof.

Their architect Chris has given them a highly-insulated living roof.

One of the reasons that we love flat roofs, apart from the aesthetic,

the cleanliness of the aesthetic is,

if you've got to have a roof, why not use that space?

It becomes...

It's another floor, a complete new floor

so it makes perfect sense to us always to

get up here and use it.

Laying a watertight flat roof that can take

the weight of a garden takes great skill and care.

But there's another aspect of the build altogether that's bothering

Marianne.

I still haven't chosen the kitchen and it is seriously driving me mad.

Unlike his client,

project designer James knows exactly how the kitchen should look.

In my head and in Chris' head,

the kitchen is designed and it has been for years.

If there was a final decision,

then I think it would be my decision, I think.

But it might not. Maybe it would be James', I don't know.

It's a bank of units and an island.

But Marianne is not convinced.

Flying in the face of James' vision,

she has called in the expertise of kitchen designer Martyn Harris.

He's pushing to do away with James' island and join the work surface

to the wall, cutting off the kitchen from the living area.

It's very difficult to answer whether an architect is,

um...

..really up to speed with what's happening in the kitchen market

and the products and the way in which a kitchen can be designed.

I think kitchens is quite a specialist market,

so whilst they do a fantastic job, equally, you know, it's

probably best to leave kitchen design down to the specialist.

Ultimately, it's going to come down to the clients' decision.

By all means, we'll suggest things

and try to guide people into a situation,

but it is always their house at the end of the day

and, you know, overall,

it won't make too much difference to the project, I tell myself.

Today, Marianne has decided to bring the kitchen battle to the fore.

She's meeting up with both James and Martyn to see if a solution

can be found, even if it takes knocking their heads together.

Martyn's the kitchen designer, and he's passionate

about the kitchen, and James is an architect, but he wants

to have a say in the kitchen as well so I think it will be interesting.

James has been trying to persuade Marianne to have a kitchen island,

whereas designer Martyn had been pushing to join the work surface

into what he likes to call a peninsula.

-Lovely to see you.

-Nice to see you. This is Martyn.

-I don't think you've met.

-Hi James, nice to meet you.

We've spoke a lot on the phone, but never met.

They may not have met, but James has been e-mailing Martyn,

encouraging him to come up with a compromise.

But James has no idea if his reasoning has fallen on deaf

ears or if Martyn has taken his wish for an island on board.

Is this ending up with a wider island than we had?

-Yes. And that's all doable?

-Absolutely.

-In one material.

So it's a continent? It's not an island, it's a continent!

Yes, basically.

It's huge, but, I mean, it's fantastic -

it's given you all the work surface space you want.

-Is that a winning point for you?

-He's so pleased, look at him!

I am quite happy about that.

-There will be nothing to touch it.

-Absolutely.

-It will be the ultimate kitchen...

-Yeah.

-..in the ultimate home.

-Yeah. Aw, thanks for that, Martyn.

-You're welcome, any time.

-Thank you.

-We'll catch up again soon.

And the island's not too big that I can't reach the centre of it, is it?

No, I don't think so.

Like I said, I was really confident that, having discussed it with

everyone in the office, that the island was the best way to go.

-It was just making sure that we get...

-It was just finding a way

-that we got enough work...

-Yeah, exactly,

and to make sure that you get the sink you need

-and everything like that.

-Yeah, yeah. It's workable.

OK, see you, then.

It seems James' off-the-book negotiations have averted

a crisis in Wales.

In Winchester, the modern kitchen extension for Lisa and David's

Edwardian house is powering ahead.

Architects Paul and Laurence pride themselves on combining old and new.

Today, they're heading to the Purbecks in Dorset to

look around one of the first projects they completed together -

another modern extension on an old property.

You know, it is nice to do new build houses,

but we did set ourselves out that, you know,

good design should be accessible to everyone

and to do somebody's extension or

re-design somebody's kitchen that could all equally be designed.

The cottage had been converted into two holiday lets.

Paul and Laurence's client wanted to return it to one family home.

The thing that we tried to do was basically just,

with an extension and a refurb, try

and pull the whole building back together so that it flowed

and it could be used by a family, really, as one home.

Paul and Laurence sacrificed a bedroom,

taking out the ceiling and putting in supersized windows to

create a light-filled kitchen-diner with a double-height ceiling space

that links into the new glass extension.

As with all projects,

it becomes about how spaces function,

how you flow from one space to the next,

what the daylight is doing, how the spaces open up onto the garden.

I mean, that was a big key design factor in Winchester. It was

reconnecting the existing house to the garden.

And that's what we've achieved here as well.

Their client paid £610,000 for the cottage

and spent a further £180,000 on the extension and refurbishment,

giving them a traditional home with a twist.

We had a bit of a laugh when we did the table...

..cos...

everyone thought that originally I got the scale wrong.

-I think it's spot-on!

-I think it's spot-on.

It's the sort of thing I need in my garden.

I think it's weathered really nicely.

I guess it's completely dictated by how many friends you've got.

Back in Winchester, Paul and Laurence's most recent project

isn't going so smoothly. Because it's a conservation area, they need

planning approval for the exterior wooden cladding Paul has specified

in his designs.

Lisa gives birth in four weeks.

They've just been given the news that it's going to be eight weeks

before they'll get a decision.

Although Paul isn't overseeing the build,

any planning issues are down to him, so he's back on site.

I think it's ridiculous that it's eight weeks.

I spoke to the Planning Officer

and said that you were pressing ahead on site anyway,

regardless, but it is as we have always shown on our drawings.

Backs against the wall, David and Lisa have been forced to take a

risk and put the cladding up without having planning permission in place.

If the planners don't agree to the wooden cladding, it will

have to come down, which would cost this cash-strapped couple a fortune.

It is still a risk though, and it's a risk that we're taking on.

Yeah.

But there's not really anything else we can do here.

The bigger risk is that we don't have the thing

finished for Christmas.

We can't not install the cladding because until the walls are clad,

they could still be getting damp and we can't plaster on the inside.

If we can't plaster, we can't put the floor down.

If we can't put the floor down, we can't install a kitchen and,

-you know...

-It delays everything.

-Yeah.

It's a frustrating time for everyone,

but a not-uncommon situation for Paul and his partner Laurence.

Fundamentally, I think it's

the people with the design expertise,

visionary thinking,

ultimately don't make those decisions, it goes to somebody

else, and they're just looking at Planning policies. They may

not even have any design education, and they're making the decisions.

So, I think that puts a stop to a lot more sort of forward thinking,

creative architecture and design in this country.

But there is some good news - with a bit of foot stamping from Lisa,

the doors arrive on site, be it eleven days later than scheduled.

That door... One of the edge of the panels between the bi-fold

-doors is right in the middle of the coridoor.

-It is.

That is a complete fluke. That's quite good.

It was designed, wasn't it?! That's architecture.

Yes, yeah sorry... That's Paul's specific detail, yeah!

It's the last day where we're going to be so cold, hopefully.

So as of the end of today, if all the doors fit,

we'll be watertight, draught proof.

Still no heating, but it'll be better than basically living outdoors.

-You can still see your breath in here.

-Yeah.

A month later and the family are gearing up for Christmas.

-Reindeer!

-It is.

# Have a shiny nose! #

David is desperately trying to get the new kitchen installed and

the build finished off before the imminent arrival of baby number two.

-David's been working really hard.

-Like a glove.

He's been fitting the kitchen and the appliances

and doing the flooring.

I had this great plan that I was going to help do the floor

cos there's this old wives' tale that scrubbing floors is good

for preparing the baby, to get them into the right position for birth.

I spent about four hours on the first day, which was fine,

and then the second day, I just thought, "Do you know what,

"I can't be doing this!"

We're, what, four weeks away from having another child.

Everything's been focused on getting this finished,

but the focus is going to shift massively very soon.

The race is on to get the build finished in time.

It's been four months since structural engineers

Lisa and David started the building project that would

turn their house into the home of their dreams.

It was always touch and go whether they'd get it

finished in time for the arrival of their new baby.

Their architect Paul is on his way to find out.

-Hi, David.

-Afternoon, Paul.

-Good to see you.

-Come in.

-Thank you.

Four months ago, David

and Lisa's house had two small sitting rooms and a cramped kitchen.

Thanks to a final push from David, the build was completed

on schedule and on budget.

They now have a beautiful open-plan sitting room

and a play area where the old kitchen once was.

And down at garden level, their new kitchen with its large glass doors

is full of light.

And it turns out the extension isn't the only new thing in Lisa

and David's life -

baby Ellis has made a well-timed appearance.

So was it all a bit frantic with baby arriving

-and trying to finish the building?

-It was really frantic.

I think we got the central heating back about three days

-before he arrived.

-Yep.

-And did you manage to get everything finalised,

-ready for Christmas?

-Yeah. We had Christmas lunch here.

We had our roast turkey in our new oven, in our new kitchen.

Obviously, the kids have got an area where they can play

and we can have a bit more of our own space, but also they can engage

with the outside when it's not quite so wet and windy out there.

And also, extending back, it gave you that connection to the garden.

The way it sits at the lower level is what makes such a big

difference for actually engaging with the garden.

Beforehand, you had to walk out at this point

and then kind of walk down some steps and get into the garden.

-Yeah.

-So you didn't feel that connected, whereas now,

although the garden isn't turfed just yet,

you can already feel it coming into your house.

And you get that view right from the moment you walk back there,

where you're aware that you've got this almost slight glimpse

-through to the garden.

-It just entices you through.

It gives you a glimpse that there's something beyond this room

that maybe looks a little bit different.

How much time do you spend in this room now?

Lots. Huge amount.

Yeah, yeah. We can sit around the table.

The kids can play down there. I can sit on the sofa.

Someone can cook dinner at the same time,

and it brings together all of those facets into that nice big

social space, which we were always looking for.

So it has changed, doing this work to your house,

it has kind of changed the way you live.

-Completely, yeah.

-Yeah, absolutely.

The aspiration of an architect is really to enhance people's

lives and to be able to do that by enhancing the space that

they're living in, it's a good feeling,

when you get that right.

I think that was the biggest

and hardest project we've taken on outside of our jobs.

I find it difficult to say

cos I think having babies is quite hard. It's harder!

-You're putting them in "project" box, are you?

-Yeah!

How are you doing on the budget for that one?

The coffee and cake budget is out the window.

The problem now is that the really lovely new bit makes all

the bits we'd already refurbished look like they need doing again.

Oh, does it? Oh, no, don't say that!

-Really?!

-Well, maybe, yeah.

-Oh, dear.

That's not what I wanted to hear!

Next time, an ugly '80's house gets a total facelift.

It was the most un-modernised house that we'd seen.

And in Wales, disaster strikes.

We've had some bad news.

Unfortunately, Marianne is now in hospital.