Episode 3 Building Dream Homes

Have you ever dreamed of living in a home 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 and innovation.

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 blueprints.

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...

I will 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, the extraordinary upside down house in Wales

reaches a critical stage.

-Whoa, whoa, whoa!

-Go forward, go forward.

Very tense. It sounded like there was some cracking noises.

And the future of the entire project hangs in the balance

when disaster strikes.

Unfortunately, Marianne is now in hospital.

And in Hertfordshire, a family spots potential in an unloved house.

It was the most unmodernised house that we'd seen.

But will their dreams be dashed by their architect?

And of course, when I said to Simon and Nicky, you know,

the planners would like your house to be pebbledash,

they weren't best pleased.

In the Vale of Glamorgan, an ultra-modern, future-proof house

is being built for husband and wife, Marianne and Jon Cowpe.

I think this gives us an option never to have to move again

-if we don't want to.

-Oh, that's right.

Their inspiration was twofold, the view...

God, it's fantastic, isn't it?

It's going to be amazing.

..and looking to the future.

We're all growing older and they wanted a house that they

could live in for the rest of their days.

They commissioned local architects Loyn & Co to design this

impressive £842,000 build.

Going up the ladder. It's all right though, isn't it?

It's designed as an upside down house with all the living rooms

on the first floor to capture the view and they hope to get

the whole building up and finished in just ten months.

Marianne has been totally across every aspect of the build.

She's on site every day and holds regular site meetings.

Generally we are still looking at target completion

although we are a bit stretched on that front

-but we're still endeavouring to meet 21st March.

-Great.

It's early December and three and a half months

into the ten month project,

the building isn't yet watertight but James Stroud,

the project designer, is making a site visit

to pin down the finer details of the interior with Marianne.

Morning!

That's one of our key roles, to live in the space

and walk through the spaces

and journey through the house before the building's there,

before the client does that

so that they instinctively interact with the house.

They go for a light switch, it's there.

They go, "Oh, I need a socket." It's there.

That is one of the advantages of a bespoke house.

We have got a socket here...

-Yes.

-..in case you have a table or something.

-Yeah.

We have got a socket just down there,

-likely position for a Christmas tree potentially.

-Yes.

Shall we move on to the bedrooms?

Yeah. You don't think we need any there on that wall?

Personally, no.

Not even as a precaution?

Erm, well, I think if you're going to do anything here you're more

-likely to...

-Just put a query by it.

-OK.

-..and I'll discuss it.

You're more than likely to have a chair there and a unit there.

Marianne and James don't always see eye to eye.

I think that full wall should be a mirror at the end.

-I don't think that's going to happen.

-Why?

-Because I don't want one.

-You don't want a mirror?

-I don't need it.

-Don't you want a full height mirror? It'll be fine.

Yeah, OK.

-I'm not convinced.

-You're not convinced?

-No.

I think it's important that any decision is debated.

And then you've got a shaver point, just one in your en suite.

Yeah. Would it be worth having two in there?

I don't think so.

Whist Marianne has a say in everything,

her husband, Jon, is taking more of a back seat.

There's my room, up there.

All my furniture and as many pictures as I can get in.

I think the pictures are the big problem

because we haven't got many walls. It's all glass.

Unless of course I was allowed to put all my pictures on the big wall

at the back there but that won't happen.

You know that?

Yeah, I know that.

The new house has always been Marianne's vision.

She's driven the build every step of the way and Jon's happy with that.

I don't want the hassle.

I'm quite happy to just watch it materialise.

But just five weeks later, as the site shuts down for Christmas,

everything to do with the build,

including Jon's hands off approach, gets turned on its head.

We've had some bad news.

Unfortunately, Marianne is now in hospital.

In Hertfordshire, in the middle of Berkhamsted's conservation area,

on a quiet residential street of tidy Edwardian

and Victorian houses, sits this,

an homage to 1980s architecture.

To most people it might look like an eyesore

but not to Simon and Nicky Watson.

Yewtree Cottage was definitely love at first sight for us.

It was so different.

And I think because originally we had in mind that we would buy

a period property wherever we moved to, seeing something that

kind of was slightly off the wall for us really, I think

it just really got us thinking about what we wanted from a family home.

Company director Simon and his wife, fashion buyer Nicky

are moving from London with their three-year-old daughter, Darcy,

in search of more space

and somewhere they can put their mark on.

We were looking for a renovation project so we were only

looking at unmodernised houses,

and that's why this fitted the bill so well.

It was the most unmodernised house that we'd seen.

They bought the house six months ago.

Because it's in such a state they're living in rented accommodation

until the work's done

but they're confident they've done the right thing.

We really liked the street.

The street has a lovely feel about it, it's very quiet,

some lovely houses.

So I think it was that classic thing

of buying the worst house on the street nearly...

-Hmm.

-..which is some respects was something that we talked about doing

and trying to add value on a very nice street.

Nicky and Simon have asked award-winning architect

Bob Thompson to help them transform their ugly duckling of a house.

It's quite an unusual house. It's a split level house.

It's quite tired now and it doesn't really work as a family house.

So what we're trying to do is to bring it up to 21st century.

After working on Berkhamsted's buildings for the last 30 years,

he knows not only the area but also, crucially,

the local planning officers.

Bob put our minds at ease somewhat from his dealings with

the local authority.

We talked through what we wanted to do

and Bob thought we'd get away with what we wanted basically.

And what Nicky and Simon want is huge.

They're not just building a simple extension, they're gutting

the house and completely transforming it inside and out.

The first thing is we're changing the colour of the building

because it's brick at the moment and it's going to be rendered.

The second thing is we're changing both the way the windows

are sub-divided and also in these cases, we're replacing the whole

garage door with a window and then a patio door there with a window.

Around the back we are changing the form because we're building

a small extension which comes out from where the garage was, although

that's being kept quite low key with a flat roof and roof light over.

Nicky and Simon want to take their new home from a dated '80s

carbuncle to a modern family home in just three months.

Inside is being totally reconfigured.

It is going to be a very attractive property I would say

because it's sort of... You get the best of both worlds.

You get a modern house, which, although it's a reconditioned

modern house, which has a little bit more width about it than the,

say the terraced Victorian or Edwardian houses.

Downstairs the garage is being converted into a family room.

So through that wall there, we are making an opening

and there will be a staircase down to the area which is currently

the garage and is going to be the family room which has an extension.

Upstairs they want to increase the number of bedrooms

from three to five.

It's not a bad space but in order to create the extra bedrooms

we're subdividing this into two with an en suite in the middle.

Bob may have come up with the design for the build

but it's up to Ray Jeffrey's company to manage the project

and he's all too aware of the ambitious job ahead of him.

There's not a lot of the existing features that are remaining.

The heating, electrical, plumbing, all being ripped out

and started again. Internal joinery is all being changed

so there's not a lot of existing features that are remaining.

It's probably not substantial enough to consider demolishing

and starting again but nevertheless it is substantial.

Work started a month ago.

The original garage door has already been removed

and replaced with distinctive grey windows.

The other end is being opened up with bi-fold doors

leading into the garden.

Outside, a first coat of render is being applied,

covering up the 1980s red engineered brick once and for all.

We're full under way now with the external rendering

which at this time of year can be a real problem.

Obviously we've got to keep an eye on the temperature.

We seem to have a mild snap at the moment

so we're making good use of that timescale and hopefully

we'll get it pretty much complete before the weather changes.

The trouble is if they don't render now they'll fall behind schedule.

It's a risk they have to take.

I mean, to be honest, I don't think you can beat a nice

bit of render but then I would say that because I'm a renderer.

Many a time we can be snookered by the weather

and it could be weeks before we can get back on that particular element

of the works but better that than to have to do it twice.

But a change in the weather could be the least of their worries.

Work has started before they have planning permission in place

for the colour of their render.

This may just have come back to bite them.

Nicky and Simon have always wanted their house to be white.

As architect, it's Bob's job to try to get this past

the tough conservation regulations in the area and

he's just had some troubling news.

I remember when I spoke to the planning officer initially

and I explained this.

She said, "Well, perhaps, you know, stark white might not be

"so acceptable in the conservation area."

Which I had anticipated to be honest.

But I wasn't quite prepared for the degree to which,

when the conservation officer had also looked at it,

they were beginning to say, "Well, no, we don't want anything close

"to white, we want really a colour closer to pebbledash".

And, of course, when I said to Simon and Nicky, you know,

the planners would like your house to be pebbledash,

they weren't best pleased because that really was a long way

from their vision from what the house was.

Bob's reputation and diplomatic skills are about to be tested

to the limit if he has any hope of finding a way

through the pebbledash debacle.

In the Vale of Glamorgan, the construction of Marianne and Jon's

state of the art upside down house has been hit by a disaster.

On Boxing Day, with the site closed for Christmas,

Marianne's rushed into hospital

with a life-threatening infection in her hip.

She's going to be more or less out of circulation for at least

another good 12 weeks.

Up to now, Marianne has been the driving force behind the new house.

Jon not only has the stress of worrying about his wife

but also who will take on her role of overseeing the build

and making decisions when the contractors return.

All of us now, all involved in the project.

If possible I'm obviously going to try and get to the site meetings.

What's important is that we make sure that nothing sort of slips

through that Marianne's not... aware of.

A week later and the builders are back.

True to his word, Jon is getting stuck in with site meetings

and James is taking the lead.

News from hospital is that Marianne is slowly on the mend

and is well enough to speak.

She did say that to me this morning.

She said, "Oh, you're going to love it now because you're in charge."

And I said, "Oh, I've always been in charge!"

I was only joking.

James may jest about being in charge but deep down he knows who's boss.

-That's for Marianne, just from us.

-Oh, thank you.

-It's not a bill!

-It's a thank you card.

-Oh, and that's for her as well?

-And these are flooring samples. Lighter...

-Yeah.

-I'll get Luke to take those in today.

-Great.

-I'll put this over there with the stuff he's got to take.

-OK.

24 weeks into the 40-week build,

the glass that makes up the entire front of the house has arrived.

In total, it's cost a massive £65,000.

A special crane has been brought to site to lift

the glass into position.

The glass just absolutely transforms the space.

Everyone is a lot happier because it's watertight,

it releases the building to a lot more trades

and it's a great moment for everyone.

And it'll make it a bit warmer for my visits as well.

The majority of the glazing is to the front of the building

which faces south and so gets the greatest amount of natural daylight.

There are fewer windows at the back to prevent heat loss.

The structure is long and narrow, allowing all the living spaces

and bedrooms to benefit from the natural light.

Putting the windows in is a difficult job.

Particularly, you know, our projects and a lot of modern buildings do

have much bigger windows than we're used to. It's just a fact really.

One, two, three.

The panes of glass cost between £700 and a whopping £6,000 each,

so James's team have to take great care.

What we've got to watch is this one, all right?

The glaziers come to the trickiest

and one of the largest pieces of glass to fit.

It's no mean feat to lever an enormous pane of reinforced glass

onto the second floor of the house...

..held in place by only four giant suckers.

-Let's just get it in, it's staying in, all right?

-Yeah.

This manoeuvre takes a great deal of skill and a lot of teamwork.

-Whoa, whoa, whoa!

-Go forward, go forward.

Right, up a bit.

Dean, pull it up with the sucker. Pull it up with the sucker, Dean.

Right, down. Let him off. Let him off.

All James can do is look on.

Take the weight off.

Very tense. It sounded like there was some cracking noises.

Yeah, all right. Hold it there.

Yeah, that's the worst one of the whole job put in so there we go.

It's all uphill from here.

Is it secure? So we can relax and say well done?

Well done!

Relax.

Brilliant, well done, guys.

While James leaves with his heart in his mouth,

the glaziers crack on, thankfully, not literally.

Arriving back on site the next day to take

photos for Marianne, James is greeted by some particularly

grotty weather but also a watertight building.

It's a good job they got this finished

before this weather came in.

The roof light looks really cool and it's going to be great

when you're up here as this is a terrace looking down.

In fact, I think this could be the place where you might just tap

and order another G&T.

But that's all a long way off for Marianne who's still in hospital.

Only when she returns can James be confident that she's happy

with progress on her dream home.

In Berkhamsted, architect Bob is attempting to transform an ugly '80s

house into a stunning contemporary family home for Simon and Nicky.

Do you want to start in here then?

Shall we start actually just around this corner?

Work is well under way and an opening has been formed to

join the hi-tech kitchen with the new living room on the lower level.

Homeowner Simon has come to have a look.

Morning, morning.

I think once you're stood in the kitchen

and the dining room area here, you'll be able to see through

into the living room and it really opens the house up.

It's going to have a very different feel and I can't wait to see

the staircase in and feel that flow of space.

Outside Simon and Nicky wanted their house to be rendered in white

but the planners have come back to say they would like it

to be the colour of pebbledash to blend in with the street.

It's a long way from the stark, clean finish Simon and Nicky

were looking for.

Bob's brought some paint samples to show Simon

that he thinks might get past the planners.

-So this is the sample that I've sent off to the planners.

-Yeah?

And so hopefully...

Again, it's got a slightly...

-slight green tinge.

-Yeah, yeah.

It's got a... It's not a cold grey.

-No.

-We were concerned it would be a cold grey.

What do you think, Ray? Do you like that?

It's a personal choice but, yeah,

-I don't see how they can object to that really.

-Yeah.

It's awkward because normally planners don't,

aren't interested in colour.

It's just because we're in a conservation area and, you know,

this isn't even an old house but they've got that control so...

Yeah.

While painting plans are put on hold outside,

inside, it's full steam ahead.

For Nicky, it's a chance to start seeing her dream realised.

This is Ray who is our superb decorator.

-Hiya.

-So I was just saying this is the first room that we've

actually got some colour in really, isn't it, as well?

I've done one upstairs as well but we can't get in there at the moment.

-Yeah, OK.

-Yeah, this should be finished by the end of today.

-Yeah.

The last sort of two weeks now we're starting to get decoration in,

finishes are starting to come alive, colours are going on the walls,

tiles are going down with the bathroom as well.

Yes, it's starting to all take shape and it's starting to just become...

Well, it's starting to look like a family home.

Everything's coming together indoors but there's a problem,

the staircase leading from the kitchen to the living room

has been installed and it's left a sore point.

So this area here in the house is where the, used to be the garage

actually links with the kitchen

and then within this our original plan was to

look at a glass balustrade because, as you can imagine,

it's quite dangerous at the moment with the edge of the stairs.

But the challenge we have at the moment is that the way that

the staircase has been created structurally leaves us

with this lovely point here so we're trying to find a solution

to how we can minimise the height of this because this is actually

part of the structural staircase. So this, we can't actually cut this off.

Sawing the piece of wood off wouldn't give enough support

to the top of the stairs. As architect,

sorting out this problem is definitely Bob's department.

The only solution is to take a closer look at the staircase,

even if it means taking up the newly-laid flooring.

Well, I think, yeah, maybe if we just fix...

-If we get a couple of...

-Yeah.

-..bolts into here,

-right into that.

-Fixes into that to pick that up.

To pick that up, yeah, that's going to do it, yeah.

So really we're relying on, we're relying on these which,

-you know, have got to be solid anyway...

-They are solid, yeah.

..because they're picking up the edge of the floor, so yeah.

-I think that will be easier.

-OK.

And then we can, yeah, and then we can take off the,

then we can take off the top so yeah.

The staircase may be sorted,

but the thorny issue of the paint colour for the house rumbles on.

Brothers Dave and Martin

are continuing to render over the external walls.

Are you pleased with it?

Of course I'm pleased with it, yeah.

It doesn't matter if we're pleased with it, does it?

It wouldn't be right if I wasn't. We wouldn't leave it

if we wasn't pleased with it.

No, yeah, we're happy with it. It'll look nice.

For now, the house will stay the colour of the render,

not quite the beautiful swan they'd hoped for.

Now that it's dried out you can see that it's quite yellow

and we certainly probably wouldn't have chosen those colour windows

if we'd known that it was going to be that colour

so it really isn't,

it isn't the desired colour.

It's interesting but it's not quite right.

But just when it seems Nicky and Simon are destined to life

in a yellow house, Bob gets news on the planning front.

The conservation officer has signed the house off with the render

un-painted and with his knowledge of the planning regulations

Bob spots a loophole.

So by accepting the natural render finish we now have a

piece of paper which signs off the whole planning application.

Actually painting the render now is something that can be done

under permitted development so it doesn't need planning permission.

The planners could have removed the right to paint the walls

when they gave permission but they didn't,

so as an architect we need to understand the planning rules

and we need to understand the rules,

the parts of the planning regulations

that allow you to do things without permission.

Most of the time you can build small extensions at the rear

of the house, you can do a porch and you can paint the walls

a different colour, you can even change windows,

so it's just in a conservation area there are some more restrictions.

Ten weeks have passed.

The builders have left site and Bob is back to see if Simon and Nicky

have achieved their dream of transforming their outdated '80s

doer upper into the clean, white contemporary home they dreamt of.

They've done it.

The dated red bricks are now a classy, contemporary white render.

-Hi, Simon.

-Good to see you.

-Yep.

-Hey, come in.

-Hi, Nicky.

-Hello.

-Good to see you.

-Hi, Darcy. Hello.

-Shy!

Wow.

The once dark and dingy entrance hall is now bright

and inviting to match the new front door.

Just four and a half months ago

the brand-new kitchen diner was a building site.

Now it's a stunning, light-filled space for the family.

One of the most complicated aspects of the build was to turn

the existing lower level garage into a bright family space.

Bob's staircase now fits seamlessly into the stairwell

and downstairs is stunning.

And it looks like Bob's delivered Nicky her family home just in time.

They're expecting another baby.

Wow.

-Lovely, yeah.

-Obviously the finished article of a kitchen now.

I mean, that's great, isn't it? With the doors open on a day like today.

-Hmm.

-Yeah, it's made it amazingly bright in here.

It is incredibly bright.

Even on a dark day it never feels, it never feels dark.

It's a very nice space to be in.

-It was always difficult just to know how open to make it.

-Yeah.

In fact, because we just made it slightly wider you just get

-that sense of space, don't you?

-Yeah.

And I guess you can just keep an eye on what's going on down there.

You can actually generally, you can, yes, that's right.

-Yeah.

-You can see most things that are happening down there.

Our old property was a typical London lower ground floor flat...

-Oh, right.

-..which, you know,

I mean, for us having all this light, it's a shock to the system.

Yeah, no, definitely. Yeah.

Upstairs they've added two bedrooms

and two additional en suite bathrooms.

I think what they've managed to achieve here is both to bring

the house up to date but actually, and I think this is

the sort of thing that we would hopefully always bring to

a project like this, is to make it more than something of the past,

to make it a house that actually is a better house that, both from

what was there before and hopefully better than they anticipated because

the sorts of spaces and sorts of use of light that the end result

is a five bedroom house so in property turns it's more valuable,

more saleable but at the same time, it works as a family house.

Simon and Nicky are delighted with the interior of their architect

designed home and Bob's knowledge of the planning regulations

means they've also got the exterior colour they were after.

All that's left to do now is landscape the garden.

I think the colour works really, really well.

It's not too bright, it's subtle.

-And it looks different in every light.

-Yeah, it does. Yeah.

So when you see it round the back in full sunlight

or when you see it here, a bit more in shade,

-it looks slightly different.

-And it just sets off the window colour.

Yeah, yeah.

-It was challenging.

-Yeah.

You know, the local authority planning department,

-conservation officers, everyone had their own input.

-Yeah.

-We tested a lot of colours, didn't we?

-Yeah.

To find a colour that did work

and I think this is exactly how we imagined it would look.

Yeah, ideally from the early days.

-Yeah, exactly.

-No, definitely.

-It's what we were originally thinking of.

-Absolutely, yeah.

It's a big improvement on what was there before and I think,

you know, neighbours have said to us,

"We're really pleased with what you've done."

And it has really improved the outlook on the street.

It is a big improvement, isn't it?

-Yeah, yeah.

-We've very proud of it,

-we're very proud of how it looks.

-Yeah.

Next time on Building Dream Homes, in Scotland an old mill reveals

buried treasure for architect Bobby...

You can either just leave it, you can forget all about it

or possibly put a glass floor in there.

And in Wales, Marianne's back on the build.

But will she like what she finds when she gets there?

Today is one of those moments where she will see, if you like,

for the first time what's kind of been in our heads for a lot longer.

Here we are, into the front room.

Into the room.