Skye and Matt/Mary and Luke The £100k House: Tricks of the Trade

Houses across Britain don't fit our needs...

We're going to feel like sardines in a can.

..or our dreams.

We really want to strip it out and start again.

'I'm Piers Taylor,

'and I've hand-picked a team of experts

'to transform everyday homes.'

Just to feel special and different.

'From bold changes...'

Your room as it is would disappear.

'..to stunning interior ideas...

'..and finishing touches.'

-Great, isn't it?

-Yeah.

'Together, we'll show you what's possible in any home.'

-We thought it was beyond our wildest dreams.

-Mmm.

'..and on any budget.

All of that is really just five scaffold boards.

'We'll use every trick of the trade...

You want to give a bit of a wow factor.

'..to prove a limit on your funds...

This stuff's free.

'..does not mean a limit on your imagination.

It's amazing.

'This week...

'How can a mother and son live apart but together?'

I hadn't expected it to be that separate.

'But is it a step they're willing to take?

The door was open for some change. That door's gradually closing.

'And how to double your floor space...'

It looks amazing.

'..without extending.'

You could actually take out the ceiling

and get a sleeping platform.

'With a baby due, it's a strict deadline and budget.'

We have to come back and it has to be liveable.

With its beautiful royal parks, leafy Kingston upon Thames

has been the perfect location for Skye and Matt

to raise their four children.

With property prices here rising by 21% a year,

it was now or never to buy their first home.

So they bought the only house they could afford,

and it's far from perfect.

I suppose it's a compromise.

We couldn't get everything we wanted.

We love the area, but the house prices were going up.

But fitting their family of six, soon to be seven,

into a three-bedroom terrace will be an enormous struggle.

You need to have a bit of imagination.

It's a long way from a family home at the moment.

We're going to feel like sardines in a can.

Like most British terraces,

it's the current layout that's the biggest issue.

With its disjointed porch,

downstairs bathroom and the dark, narrow corridor of rooms,

it's totally unsuitable for family living.

Ooh!

There was a fear that we'd made too much of a compromise by moving here.

But there's a further challenge with this project.

Matt and Skye are desperate to complete the work

and move into the house in just 12 weeks' time,

ready for their new arrival and the start of the new school year.

I see the clock ticking, but I also know that

if we start without really knowing what we're trying to achieve,

we'll just waste time and waste money.

Our hopes are the majority of it will get done

in three months' time.

The reality is...

..we have no clue.

Matt and Skye don't know where to start.

But how do you transform a tiny terrace

into a family home for seven?

It's my biggest challenge yet.

And with a budget of just £30,000, there's no room for error.

It's crazy that a family of seven would buy such a tiny house,

but that's the reality of living in a city.

It's going to be hard, but I think, for me...

it feels a really important thing that we do today

is get this house to work for Skye and Matt.

It's really charming.

I mean, you must have fallen in love with it when you first saw it.

-We thought of it as potential.

-Potential.

Potential to fall in love with it.

But will I be able to unlock potential in this tiny home?

Just to get my bearings, this is...

-It's a lean-to.

-That's a lean-to.

-So this is the outside wall, isn't it?

-Yeah.

And there's no building here, it's just a shed.

-And the house proper starts here, doesn't it?

-Yeah.

So what we'd like to do is make the rooms bigger,

possibly knocking this wall down.

Bring the whole house this way,

really, into this kind of dead space.

Yes, create a hallway for the front door

and then increasing the size of this room

and making this room sort of the central room of the house.

If you can, a side extension into your lean-to

could give you valuable additional space.

But that alone won't solve all the problems in this house.

But the bathroom strikes me as being

in a bit of the house that is almost the best bit.

It's got access to the garden,

it's got quite a lot of space, actually.

I mean, is that really the right place for the bathroom?

We looked at the possibility of moving the bathroom,

but I think we were having trouble finding the right place

to situate it in the rest of the house

without losing a bedroom.

Skye and Matt want to give their children the best start they can

and they've pinned everything on this house.

But to make it work for their expanding family

means a complete overhaul.

Every inch of every room needs to be maximised.

And for just 30K.

Space is a finite thing in this house.

There's not much of it,

and there's a lot of people that need to come together here.

I'm looking for a simple mechanism to unlock this house.

There'll be one move that makes everything else fall into place.

'Removing the internal walls will open up the ground-floor space

'and allow for a generous family living area,

'but it's the current location of the bathroom

'that holds everything back.'

If money was no object and you could move the bathroom upstairs,

would you, do you think?

-Yes.

-I think yes.

Lose the bathroom from downstairs.

You open all that up and you build your kitchen, you know,

in there, wrapping around the corner,

and proportionally, this as a set of living spaces

that all opened up around a courtyard,

it would be kind of delightful on so many levels.

Yeah. It's obvious that as soon as you move

the bathroom out of the way...

-What's unlocked...

-There's so many more options.

I think that's living, isn't it? It's not just surviving.

Squeezing in a bathroom upstairs

would also put an end to the family traipsing through three rooms

and up and down 14 perilously steep stairs

to use the loo.

But sacrificing bedroom space creates another problem to solve.

The obvious place for the bathroom is here.

Tuck it, sort of sneak it behind the stairs there.

If we were to make the bathroom as small as possible,

would we be able to make that area then a single bedroom?

Yes, I think you probably would, actually,

because what you could do is make that bedroom

kind of a storey and a half.

You could actually take out the ceiling through part of it

and get a kind of sleeping platform up in that space.

-I think that's quite a cool bedroom, isn't it?

-Yeah.

That's the one I've had!

'My plan is unconventional, but it could give them

'everything they need.

'Relocating the bathroom to the first floor

'is vital to opening up the space downstairs.

'Extending into the lean-to will create

'a generous central family room that all seven of them can enjoy.'

Upstairs, and the middle bedroom will be divided

to make space for the new bathroom.

And raising the ceiling height here to build a sleeping platform

above the new bathroom will increase the bedroom floor space.

That's brilliant, that's amazing.

SHE LAUGHS AND SNIFFS

Sorry!

There are other ways of living, I think,

which will change the way that we live now.

The kids will have a fantastic space.

We did worry about whether we'd made the right decision

about buying this house.

And I think Piers has just solved most of our problems.

THEY LAUGH

Skye and Matt need this project to work for them and their children,

but there's a lot riding on their £30,000 budget.

With their deadline looming, work starts almost immediately.

Matt has brought in a few of his friends to come in

and take down the kitchen and the lean-to.

He has many talents, but DIY is not one of them.

You know, changing the plug is about as far as I go normally.

Desperate to make the most of their 30 grand,

Matt and his friends tackle the demolition.

It feels good to actually have got started, and, you know,

to have thrown the first sledgehammer at the building.

Before starting your own structural alterations,

you should always seek relevant approvals,

including building regs.

I think the knocking down is the easy bit.

I think the building up again is going to be the difficult part.

But as work gets underway,

they immediately uncover hidden costs.

We've just had an assessment of about £4,500-£5,000

on the electrics, which has really affected the overall budget.

And it's just so frustrating.

With a family, a build and a tight budget to project-manage,

the pressure on Skye is mounting.

And there's now just ten weeks left until their moving-in date.

We have to come back and it has to be liveable.

Skye and Matt are struggling with the problem

caused by high house prices in the city.

Elsewhere, Mary is dealing with the fact that Luke, her adult son,

can't afford to move out.

Looking to downsize and move closer to family in Watford,

Mary bought this two-bedroom ex-council house for £220,000.

It was probably the least attractive house in this street.

It was a really good price to get rid of my mortgage

and be able do it up from scratch.

As soon as she got the keys, Mary was excited and set to work.

It was a hoarder's house...

It was literally stacked from floor to ceiling with rubbish, basically.

Now we've got to bring it all back to life.

But what Mary hadn't banked on was sharing her new home

with her 23-year-old graduate son Luke.

I've got used to having my own space.

He's got used to having his own space, being at uni,

so now we need to go back to making it work for both of us again.

The worst thing about living with my mum is

unnecessary questions about things that don't concern her.

MARY LAUGHS

So I said he can't have loads of money spent on his room

unless he actually does learn how to tidy up.

Things like this is why...

What we need to learn how to live together.

Carving out space to fit their very conflicting lifestyles

in this small two-bed house,

with its cramped kitchen and modest living room, won't be easy.

I'm worried about light.

I'm worried about the actual layout working properly.

It's quite a big task for just us two to be doing,

and we don't have any experience in doing it.

Mary has a generous £65,000 from the sale of her previous home,

but with an entire house to renovate,

it will get eaten up quickly.

Helping me transform these homes

is my hand-picked team of architects,

each challenged to create extraordinary spaces

with ordinary budgets.

Taking on this challenge is innovative architect Adam Khan.

In one way, it's really great that a parent

can live with their adult offspring, and they can get on well.

Sometimes you just need your own space,

you need your own headspace, you may want to bring someone back

and you want that little bit more privacy.

So how do you get that?

In her hurry to move in, Mary already has workmen onsite.

She intends to spend just under half of her £65,000 budget

building a 30-square-metre rear extension.

Adam needs to get straight up to speed with what they've planned.

The plan at the moment is to take the kitchen wall out.

Sort of an L-shaped kitchen with big dining and lounge areas.

And at the moment, we've got double doors here, we've got a window here.

Not sure whether we've got it right.

My worry is that it doesn't have much character

and it doesn't have a really clear relationship

to the garden or what's happening inside.

I'm worried about the middle of the house being a bit dark.

You might be ending up with just a bit of a box with

a couple of windows in it.

A large extension will give them more room,

but it doesn't solve the real issue here,

of giving this mother and son enough space

not to cramp each other's style.

As most people know, when you are living with your mum,

it can get a bit on top of you sometimes.

We just don't want to be on each other's toes.

Known for his unconventional approach to social space,

Adam created an incredible floating village

on a 400-tonne pontoon

at Brockholes Wetland Nature Reserve in Lancashire.

His radical design beautifully combined ancient and modern.

But can an equally radical solution close the generation gap in Watford?

So the current plans they've got are...

Well, they're a disaster.

At the moment, you're coming in to a little front entrance hallway.

You've got to go through all the other spaces

to get to the social space of the kitchen.

So there's a basic kind of problem of organisation.

That's the thing to get right here.

Adam needs to convince Mary to make some urgent changes,

starting with opening up the whole of the ground floor.

OK, so downstairs, say if you opened this opening up all the way here,

-you could even have a kind of sliding door.

-Yeah.

Cos it's really nice if you're in a house and you can see out

the back of the house and out the front of the house.

If you're trying to maximise your ground floor,

losing internal walls and doorways,

and adding bi-fold doors and larger roof lights

will make your space feel bigger.

Light from both directions is really, really nice.

But it's upstairs, where Mary was planning just a revamp,

where Adam has had a radical rethink.

OK, so...

I think number one is to have your own bathroom each.

The next thing is, and this is a bit more dramatic,

is you're maybe getting a sense of your own entrances.

You go in that door there, and you go up the stairs.

Right, OK.

Whereas Luke, when it's time to come to your space,

there would be another stair.

It's quite unusual to do that in a house this size.

An extra staircase would take up a little more room,

but tackles the problem of privacy head-on.

This is a good plan for Luke.

No, I hadn't expected it to be that separate, I don't think.

But you want...

It's almost like having two bedsits upstairs, I feel.

-But you want separate living.

-Mmm.

Adam's design solves all their problems,

but it's a bold move that requires courage.

Clearly you're in shock,

so you just need to take a step back

and think about whether...

It highlights the divide between Mary and Luke's vision

for how they want to live.

And it would be a real shame if they didn't do something

that kind of matched their lifestyles and matched

what they, emotionally, want.

Just because of... it was slightly unconventional.

But with the builders charging ahead,

Mary will need to make decisions fast,

before it's too late to undo any costly mistakes.

In Kingston, Skye and Matt have decided to go ahead

with my plans to move the bathroom upstairs,

but they've had an agonising four-week wait

for their builder Roly to start.

-Right, so this room is going to be split into two.

-OK.

So the bathroom is going to be here.

Matt and I have decided to try and make this bathroom

as small as possible.

-OK, so it's still usable as a family bathroom.

-Yeah.

We've got six weeks before baby comes,

four weeks before we move back in again,

so if we can get the upstairs finished,

we can live in the house.

There's a renewed sense of urgency here

and the wait has only increased Skye's ambitions.

Since Piers has given us

the inspiration to do one of the mezzanine floors,

we've decided to take it on board and do it in all the rooms.

The aim was to do minimum work for maximum benefit.

This idea will give them much-needed additional bedroom space,

but doing more than planned is a classic mistake

and extra costs will impact on the finishing touches.

So I want to show Skye how being inventive with limited space

and using interior design creatively can make all the difference.

What's essential here is that she understands

how you can use space in a really inventive way.

This unconventional home is a treasure trove

of design ideas you can emulate.

From the use of colour to create space and light

to the clever but simple use of inexpensive materials.

Wow.

I think it looks amazing. And different.

It's not bog-standard at all.

It's playful, it's fun,

it's quirky, it's unusual.

There's a bathroom in here...

-Which is going to be similar to our design.

-Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it's so unexpected. Wow.

Despite its size, this bathroom feels luxurious,

and by using dark colours and bold patterns,

you can create the same sense of drama and opulence.

This ingenious maisonette proves that done cleverly,

you can incorporate space-saving ideas

into the very fabric of your home.

This is the proper staircase, but in all of this, it's storage.

-That doesn't look too expensive to make.

-No, not at all.

This is just a set of standard fluorescent tubes

hung in an inventive way,

and it's like a chandelier, really, isn't it?

'The owner of the house created this using inexpensive

'off-the-shelf components.

'It was then checked and fitted by a qualified electrician.'

I suspect there's more storage in there again.

-I just think this is so amazing.

-It's great, isn't it?

The walls aren't just walls.

And this stuff is really

the cheapest grade of plywood you can get.

This bookshelf is cute as well, isn't it?

I think cute is the only word for it.

Just enough space for the books you're reading, you know?

Or baby bottles.

Baby bottles! Yeah.

It's functional, and I love the fact

that it's functional and it looks good.

I want Skye to embrace the clever way these amazing ideas

can transform otherwise ordinary spaces.

You don't need big, elaborate rooms for everything and everyone.

What you need is a set of spaces that work really well,

and the quirkiest and the most modest space can be beautiful.

In Watford, the rear extension is almost finished,

but this move alone has cost Mary nearly 30 grand.

-Hello.

-Hello! How are you? Nice to see you.

But has Mary taken on board Adam's bold design ideas?

You've made me rethink the glazing,

so we've now got big bi-folds going in across here,

and with a big skylight, so hopefully,

we're going to have a lot more light than we originally planned for.

It's great that Mary's seen the benefit of creating

more light and space in the extension.

But she still isn't on board with Adam's solution

for their shared living space,

and has said no to a second staircase.

'I guess that's the slight difference in our understanding

'about how to make those really big, fundamental changes to your house.

'The scope for being able to change things is...'

..is reducing.

Mary wants to play it safe

by retaining the separate rooms downstairs,

but Adam doesn't want her to backtrack on yet another idea.

Leave the chimney breast in position

and just open that whole lot through,

and I think that being able to see all the way to the garden

right from the living room would be a really lovely thing.

And I think the interesting thing is that when you get spaces

and they're connected to each other nicely,

but they have their own character,

the space feels bigger.

Making changes to your home takes a leap of faith,

and I think it's time to convince Mary that a few minor,

well-thought-out adjustments could make a huge difference.

Mary and Luke aren't going to do the separate bedroom scheme,

so what are they going to do?

So, the idea, I think, is to concentrate on

the ground floor as a big social space.

Instead of being little, pokey rooms, all separate,

try to get a big sense of connected space, light through,

but equally, without becoming one vast kind of hall.

That sounds like a really good idea,

and also a really good model for domestic space generally,

because in a way, what they haven't done is the radical scheme

of having two very separate spaces,

and I like the delicate touch of just setting up somewhere

where they can co-exist quite happily without

any big, grand architectural move.

With work underway, Mary can't afford to hesitate.

So I've brought her to a fantastic home

that could make her rethink open-plan living.

-Hi, Mary. Hi, Luke.

-Hi. How are you?

-Hi, Piers.

-How you doing?

-Good, good, good. Nice to see you.

-Good to see you.

Pleased to see you. Looking forward to today.

Good! So, what do you think?

Really, really like the outside.

-I'm looking forward to seeing inside.

-Yeah, it looks lovely.

'This compact new build is a great example of

'what's becoming known as broken plan.'

So, come on in.

It's very modern, but I actually really like it.

'Broken plan is where an open space is loosely divided

'by partitions, furniture, or lighting.'

There very distinct zones and areas

where you could imagine doing something different.

I mean, there's a study there,

and instead of having a wall and a door,

there's just a glazed screen that implies a separation between it.

'To create broken plan space,

'you can use wider, or taller, non-standard doorways

'to open up views through your home

'without taking out walls or installing expensive beams.'

'And repositioning furniture is a simple way

'you can create zones within a room.'

It's neither open plan or enclosed. It's sort of halfway between.

There's this opening here which works really well.

So it's full height.

You benefit from seeing the full length of the building.

Yeah, I can picture it something like this,

where it's quite split but open.

If you want it to feel separate, you can make it feel separate.

It is really open.

These look like very standard base units

with a beautiful piece of melamine-faced ply on it,

but then what's nice about this is

that the floor goes right underneath it, so again,

it adds to that sense of the space feeling bigger.

By using simple tricks like lifting furniture off the floor,

or choosing a single colour for walls and floors,

you can create a feeling of space.

It feels like one building, yet there are these separate zones,

and the zones aren't made with doors and walls,

they're made by implying a separate area.

Do you think it's something you'd think about doing now?

I think I would now, yeah.

-Yeah?

-It would definitely work for us. Definitely.

See what that's like.

Roof lights over the stairwell like this

are a simple way to flood light into your home,

in what can traditionally be the gloomiest space.

Well, I mean, this is a space

that doesn't give you any more floor space

in a house that isn't huge,

and yet for me, it feels essential.

Cos you're a lot more conventional in the way you think about

how a property should be.

I suppose my mind-set is that you have separate rooms,

and now I see, actually,

by opening up, it makes the space look much bigger.

You can also see that there are other ways to zone areas.

Oh, definitely. Yeah.

Whether it's a floor level or a different material, I can see that.

The main thing would be that you can have it open

but still make it feel separate.

It sounds cliche and architecture-speak,

"Separate but..." Yeah. But it can actually be done.

And I'd say that's the biggest thing,

because Mum is quite rigid in her views,

and so I reckon it's probably took down some of her boundaries

in her head in terms of what we can do with the house.

And I can see now how some of Adam's ideas would work for us,

cos I can see them visually in here,

and they look... I just really like the style of the house.

I think what today has done is shown Mary in particular

how she can move her own thinking on

from a building that needs to have a set of rooms with doors,

laid out conventionally, into something that's subtly different,

yet isn't scary, isn't frightening,

and isn't so out there that she can't imagine living in it.

With delays ongoing in Kingston,

one delivery arrives ahead of schedule...

..baby Ewan.

It all happened very quickly.

We were not ready at all, really.

He was two weeks early.

We had no supplies, no nappies, no clothes.

And then obviously, the focus changed

on to the baby rather than the build.

With the school holidays now over,

the family have been forced to return to the house,

and all of them are living in just two rooms

in the middle of a building site.

So the pressure is on, and I am stressed.

As any parent knows,

having a newborn is a full-time job on its own.

So far, Skye and Matt have spent half of their 30K budget,

and the big structural work downstairs hasn't even begun.

It's now critical I help them get this project back on track.

Gosh, there's a real sense of progress in here.

Dropping the ceiling unlocks this whole space, doesn't it?

Yeah, now the beams are up at the height,

you can really start to see how the bed platform will work.

-It does work, doesn't it?

-Yeah.

However, I can see a fundamental problem

with the bed platform joists.

Are these, then, structural?

Do these actually tie that external wall back together or not?

Yeah, so we actually have to change this.

Removing the ceiling means the new platform joists

need to provide crucial support for the roof,

so they should run from one exterior wall to the other.

These ones don't.

And why have they gone in incorrectly?

So, it's just a mistake, really, in terms of misunderstanding,

in terms of what needed to be done with the platform.

Skye and Matt are in constant contact with building control,

so this will be quickly resolved.

They also must ensure the children can safely access the beds.

At the moment, we're really just thinking about

getting the structure in place.

There's all these other extra pieces,

but actually, what will really make the difference, you know,

how do you actually get into the loft beds?

You can't put an ordinary bed up there,

you can't put an ordinary staircase here,

you can't put conventional storage easily here.

So really, eking out every inch to get unexpected bits of storage

and extra space would be great.

Thankfully, this mix-up was caught early,

but I need to make sure there are no more costly mistakes.

I want to help them visualise their raised platform beds.

So, Skye and Matt, I really want to show you this.

And what the designer's done is put in this beautiful, crisp,

simple mezzanine structure with this lovely staircase going up.

So this is just black MDF with these lovely handrails.

I quite like the simplicity of it. I like the contrast.

I can see that working in ours.

I think you could maybe use a bit more colour. Or a lot more colour.

Maybe paint used in a quirky and quite poppy way.

The principle of how a staircase binds the whole thing together,

I think, really, is key, and I think the staircase is the key

to making your bed platform work.

Expert advice is required for any bespoke staircase design.

There are strict guidelines to follow

and they must be constructed by professionals.

it's very nice up here, isn't it, being tucked underneath the rafters?

Yeah, so even though you're under the rafters,

it doesn't feel enclosed because there's so much space.

I think it was really important to see this,

because it just makes it so much more visible and tangible.

Willow's bed platform will be above the newly relocated bathroom,

and I want to show Skye and Matt how they could design it.

The things that we need to solve are, how do you get up there

and what the handrail is.

My thinking at the moment is that you make a very simple

set of boxes that you climb up over.

Within that, you then build sort of shelves

and compartments to store stuff in. And then your handrail could just be

turned down, you know, down the side of this.

'As a bed platform, in specific circumstance,

'there may be some flexibility on how it's accessed.

'Every case will be assessed on its own merits by Building Control.'

Within these storage sort of shelves,

it could be that you just use normal MDF, and you just paint them, you know,

paint them quirky colours.

-What do you reckon?

-I think it looks good.

More importantly, what would Willow think?

The fact that she'll be able to customise it herself, I think,

-if we get her involved in decorating it and...

-Yeah.

And choosing the colours.

It's really been all about getting the structure in place, getting the platform up.

But now, seeing that, I think

it's starting to really show what a great room it's going to be.

We just need to get back to the house and work it out.

I hope this will drive them forward

to get the beds finished as soon as possible.

In Watford, Mary has at last taken the plunge

and is embracing broken plan living.

We took on Adam's suggestion and we've taken out the original

door, and instead, we've cut in a hole,

so it's now just open through from here into the new extension.

The larger opening between the front and back connects these two

parts of the house, giving a view right through to the garden.

As well as the two roof lights,

Mary's also invested an extra £5,000 in bi-fold doors.

They now have a space that will be flooded with light in the daytime,

but now they have to get the artificial lighting right, too.

At the moment, I'm a bit stuck on the lighting for the extension,

because of having roof lights, beams, you're sort of stuck for your

ceiling spaces where you put your lights.

People often get their lighting and interior layout wrong,

so Adam returns to give Mary and Luke some design advice

so they don't just fit dozens of spotlights.

It's really important,

seeing as we haven't adopted the shared ideas for upstairs,

that we somehow create downstairs in a way that we can be...

We can have our own space if we want our own space.

I guess that's where, hopefully, Adam can help us.

Adam immediately sets them to work

on the furniture layout in the extension.

-Is that where your worktop...?

-Yeah, roughly, yeah, yeah.

Using props like this is a great way to see how each area

will work within your room.

It's nice that this space is maybe not under the roof light that

that space is. That gives an immediate difference.

-Maybe this is two-seat sofa?

-Yeah.

So, sort of bunching it around that natural light is really good,

which is offset from the dining table there.

-So we're zoning it for us.

-That's right.

Once you've decided where your furniture should sit, you can

also try playing around with lighting to define individual areas.

Lighting is absolutely critical.

I guess we all realise that's important with day lighting,

trying to get good, different, balance day lighting, light from different

directions, but it's equally important with artificial light.

-Come over here.

-Yeah.

So we're kind of breaking it down into high, middle and low.

Using different levels and types of lighting,

you can create different atmospheres in each zoned area.

It's a bit of a focal point. It's washing down on to the table.

It's also really nice, the way it's reflected, and you're seeing a bit of the skylight

and the things around the room.

Really low light kind of washing up a wall is very nice,

-very kind of soft.

-Yes.

-Really nice.

More or less nice there.

-Wouldn't want to end up with it in line with that.

-No.

As with the furniture, so with the lighting.

We want to get them kind of staggered and offset from each other.

So that's more of a downlight to it, isn't it, that one?

A pool of light there, really focused down on that area.

You don't need to spend hundreds

on labour and fittings for LED spots.

Flexible lights like these range from £10 to £45 each.

What we've tried to do today is to get the different areas,

each having a slightly different character,

but also starting to get some principles of different

types of lighting, integrating light out into the garden,

so drawing the eye out, connecting the inside and the outside.

This extension won't be entirely spotlight-free,

as Mary will needs some task lighting over the kitchen worktop.

How many spots do you think you need to cover an area like this?

Really, you want those spots to be doing a job,

rather than just a kind of blanket of them across the ceiling,

which will end up looking like a shop.

I think maybe what was useful was they started to get that

idea about the different types of lighting.

Understanding the difference between the low lights,

middle lights, and layering, getting depth

and length of view, and I think Luke really, really understood that.

Two months later, Adam is back,

and after Mary's initial reluctance to follow some of his ideas,

he's keen to see what they have accomplished.

What I'd love to see is that the place has kind of different zones,

which you would naturally just go to and inhabit, you know,

so you could feel, you could get a bit of privacy. That would be great.

When Adam first met Mary and Luke,

they were desperate for some independent space

within their cramped, dated semi.

On the ground floor, a tiny living room led into a small, rear kitchen.

This is looking lovely.

I know, we're getting there.

Now, the space has been totally opened up.

It's looking really lovely, really bright.

Lovely to see all the way through.

With new bi-fold doors on to the garden, skylights above, and

the interior walls removed, light pours through the entire floor.

And here's where we've taken on a lot of your suggestions.

The seamless floor, the nice, big bi-folds.

They've learnt lessons from the house we took them to.

They've used the same flooring throughout,

and ceiling-to-floor openings create a feeling of endless space.

Opening up rooms like this also saves on the cost of doors

and joinery.

It's really opened up the room. You can see completely out to the garden.

-Just so much light, such a bright room now.

-Yeah.

I'm really pleased with it.

Be amazing, hopefully, having a few barbecues,

and just open up the whole space here.

It's really nice to see the light coming from both directions.

That's always really nice in a room.

But additionally here, to get the light coming from the side,

really, really pleasing to see.

Although Mary didn't want to have two separate entrances

and stairwells, she has added French doors to the side,

which allows in even more light.

If you're planning an extension, roof lights above can help

you avoid creating a dark middle zone in your home.

So I guess the next step is to think how you're going to furnish it, how you're going to light it.

We've tried to take on a little bit of what you said.

I mean, we've only had the house back for a couple of days, so we've put some basics in.

So we've put a dining area, we've put a seating area.

We have gone for the statement light that you suggested over the table.

Probably a bit bigger than you suggested, but we like it!

That's great. That's lovely.

Using lighting, like these pendant lights over a table, is a simple way

to define different zones within a space that needn't be expensive.

The kitchen was once a small, gloomy room

at the back of the house.

Now it's the central hub.

What you've done here is create the kitchen really as the heart of the house.

This kitchen would cost 12 grand on the high street,

but Mary got it for just six by going to a trade outlet.

She's used a single, light, paint colour to tie the units in

with the walls and furnishings, making the space feel unified and bigger.

No-one's on top of each other, because it's big enough.

It will definitely change the way we are living as a family.

It's so open-plan, it's nice and social,

but yet you've got your own little separate places to be as well.

Once fully furnished,

they'll create defined zones and pockets of interest,

and it will evolve into a beautiful space

that they can enjoy time in together and separately.

You know, when we talked about creating little spaces, really,

each of those spaces is a little collection of...

It's the seating, but it's also the rug, the lighting, any plants.

Those together make a little collection.

And that's going to be terrific, especially

when you get kind of plants in here, plants out there,

tables out there and a table in here.

You know, that kind of crossover

and connection between inside and outside is really, really nice.

I'm really happy now that you persuaded us

to do all these big openings.

I wouldn't have been brave enough to do that myself, but now that's one

of the things, when everyone comes in, they say about being able to see from the front to the back...

-OK.

-And how open it all is and how modern it all looks.

It's completely changed, I suppose, the style of a 1950s house

and brought it up-to-date.

Great.

Mary has truly revived this forgotten home.

She was determined to remain mortgage-free moving forward,

so has this build come in on budget?

OK, so, Mary, how's it going?

Because I know you had a very tight budget at the outset.

And you changed things during the build, which is

-always very dangerous.

-I think we're about £68,000.

The glazing's probably the majority of our overspend,

but I think that's made the difference to the project.

-And I'm still mortgage-free, which is the most important thing.

-I think you've done really well.

I mean, it's a difficult challenge you set down,

about how two adults can live together and have their own space.

Lots of people are going to be faced with that same challenge.

And OK, we threw out some fairly radical ideas about giving you your

own front doors, and that may not work here, but I'm just

really glad that you've been able to take useful things for this space.

You pushed our boundaries, and we did extend them out,

but not quite as far as yours!

THEY LAUGH

-I'm really pleased with the outcome of it all.

-Lovely, Mary.

Absolutely gorgeous.

I think it's the job of an architect to be challenging,

to throw out wild suggestions, to really push people, and I'm really,

really glad that Mary's enthusiastic and really chuffed about the space.

That's lovely to see.

-So I've left it white in here.

-CHAMPAGNE CORK POPS

-Oh!

-Ooh!

All over my new furniture.

So many houses are just really collections of little rooms

connected by a corridor,

and that just doesn't really match the way a lot of us live.

But I think it's nice to know that you can create spaces

quite easily that would really kind of transform your life

and the way that you live with your family.

I think that's really positive.

In Kingston, the platform beds are finally taking shape.

But they've spent nearly all of their 30K budget,

and there's a lot more work left to do.

You've got the rest of the... The table's going to collapse!

You two are being very silly.

With Skye, Matt and their five children

still surviving in just two rooms...

-Right, can we stop being silly, please?

-Being silly.

With our allocation of money now in our pot, we've got to still

pay for electrics, plumbing and the rest of the bills.

After that, we've only got a few hundred left, so we've had to

prioritise on part of the build,

and we won't unfortunately be able to move the bathroom up.

She's desperate just to finish and get her family settled in.

So I understand why she's reluctant

to lose her one working bathroom downstairs.

The most important thing to get this house to work is the way the spaces

knit together, and at the moment, the bathroom is downstairs,

cutting the circulation in half,

and it means that in the middle of the night, children would have

to go downstairs, across the living areas, through the kitchen,

into the bathroom. So getting the bathroom here where it needs to

is just the biggest priority.

Relocating the bathroom upstairs is key to this whole project,

and with the plumbing already re-routed,

I think this pivotal move can be achieved with limited upheaval.

Making that a living space rather than a bathroom is important,

-isn't it?

-Yes, yes, it is.

But we're just running out of money,

so we're looking at what priorities we have.

Just taking the bathroom fittings out and capping them

is a couple of hours of Roly's time, and then you can move all this other

junk in there and carry on using this, and have a bathroom upstairs.

How about I, today, help you take those fittings out,

put them upstairs, see how it looks?

OK! If you want, yeah.

-Shall we do that?

-Yeah.

-Are you up for it?

-Yeah, definitely.

-OK.

It's a cheap and simple solution.

Recycling the bath will save Skye at least £70,

and the only cost in moving it upstairs

is the time taken for Roly to plumb it in.

And while Roly gets to work,

I want to find a way to add some much-needed interior finish

that won't affect their already stretched budget.

I need to find something for free, so I'm going to go to

a glazier's and see if I can get some off-cuts from a skip or a bin

that they can give us for nothing and see

if we can make something beautiful out of those off-cuts.

It's always worth asking local fabricators and merchants

for off-cuts like these that would otherwise be thrown out.

It can be a cheap, or even free, way to source materials for your home.

So what I've asked him to do is keep all the off-cuts for a week,

and then you can go in and get them for nothing.

So the edges need grinding. So that's the bit you need to pay for.

And I think it's £7 a metre to get it done, or something.

So I could take some of this and then go back to them

and say, "Can you make this safe for me?" and they'll do that?

Absolutely. I would really like to try and fill

from floor to ceiling with off-cuts.

-It will really increase the sense of space.

-Is that something that I can do?

-Absolutely.

I mean, these are small, lightweight pieces of glass,

and all you do is squirt on the back some mirror adhesive

and then put them on the wall.

I think it would be really beautiful to paint this wall

a beautiful colour before you put the mirror on.

-I like the randomness of the mirrors.

-Craziness.

Craziness. Like our family.

Within just a few hours,

Skye and Matt have a working bathroom

and a vision for how to complete it.

Ooh! Wahey!

I'm pleased to have stopped them throwing away this vital move,

but there's still a long way to go.

With the structural work completed, the race is now on

to get family life back to normal.

But it's a mammoth task, and they're working in chaos.

It is a bit of as jigsaw puzzle. In terms of, we have to sort of move everyone into one room while

we work on another room, then move them all out of that room

back into the first room so we can work on the second room.

Yeah, does make it quite complicated,

and, you know, certainly slows down the work that you're doing.

The focus turns to the finishing touches.

-Is that comfortable, or do you want it higher?

-Perfect.

The couple are keen to use colours

that give each room a sense of individuality.

Last night was a one o'clock one.

The kids have been sharing a room for eight months,

and they can see it coming together,

so I think their patience is running very thin with each other.

So Matt and I are quite conscious that

if we get things in place, then we can move them into their rooms.

And maybe they won't, er...

..kill each other in the meantime.

Got about 80 minutes, I think, once that film's finished,

and then...back downstairs.

With the stairwell for the loft bed being constructed,

the space upstairs will finally be unlocked.

But with every room in need of work and redecoration,

the end is still a long way off.

It's been almost three months since I last caught up with Skye and Matt.

I can't wait to see if this family are finally able

to live in their home.

Like people all over the country,

they bought the best house they could afford in an expensive area.

It fell far short of their needs,

and I had my biggest challenge of helping them turn this house

into something that was suitable for their family of seven.

When Skye and Matt bought this house,

the problems began right from the front door.

The ground floor was a cramped set of rooms,

narrowing into the only bathroom at the rear.

Wow, look at this!

This is fantastic!

The house is still very much a work in progress,

but the spaces are starting to flow.

By adding a hallway and extending into the old lean-to,

the entire floor now feels open and spacious

and fit for this large family.

-What a difference just one metre makes.

-It's got rid of the

bottleneck that we had here, so this has been fantastic.

Because there's no door here, because this floor runs through,

and critically, because you've put these roof lights in, the whole

thing feels like you're coming into a really spacious house. How does

this make you feel now when you come in?

It's know, you know, a great space that we can use for bringing up the

family, really, which it certainly wasn't when we first bought it.

Skye and Matt used two colours across the ground floor, white for

the walls and red for the floor.

This simple trick is one way you can unify your space and help it

feel bigger than it actually is, for the cost of just a tin of paint.

I mean, I think what's great is that this is still a small house,

yet this feels appropriate for a big family.

I mean, that's what's wonderful.

And it doesn't feel mean, doesn't feel cramped, doesn't feel pinched.

But the actual square footage is still relatively modest.

It's great seeing right the way through these windows into the garden.

What's it like being together now as a family in here,

eating at this table?

Well, the kids love eating here and doing their homework, and I can

keep an eye on them with the baby, and just sitting as a family,

and we never really had that space before.

It makes such a big difference.

The kitchen was once a confined space,

shut off at back of the house.

Now with the interior wall and chimney removed, it spans out,

becoming the heart of the home.

There's so much space. I mean, you must be delighted with this.

I absolutely love this. This is my area, my little treasure.

This is a standard kitchen that you've dressed up with

stainless steel handles and a stainless steel top.

-Yes, yes.

-So this was the bottom of the range.

We didn't want anything too fancy,

but we wanted to just add a little element of individuality.

Buying basic units but spending a little more on the detailing

is a great way to make the most of your budget.

You could also use this idea to update a tired kitchen

you already have without the expense of replacing the entire suite.

It's really worked out well, that we've got this big, long space,

so we can all really be working in the kitchen at the same time.

It's really made a big difference to the family life for us.

With plenty of work still to do here,

Skye and Matt have made the most of their budget,

painting bare brick and temporarily transforming

the unfinished look into their decorative theme.

You've done exactly the right thing, because you've got all the

spaces right, and you've left them purposely a bit raw

because you've spent the money just getting the spaces where they need

to be, and over time, you can do all sorts of things like add the

bi-folds, and you can sort out the other rooms on the ground

floor that are still up for grabs.

But what I really want to see now is how you've packed the kids in upstairs.

-Can we go and have a look?

-Of course.

The modest three bedrooms just weren't big enough to sleep seven.

There's more work to do to finish off the ceilings,

but by following my idea for raised beds,

they've almost doubled their floor space,

without knocking out walls.

-This has really worked, hasn't it?

-It's fantastic.

It's a really good use of space.

By making what effectively is an elaborate bunk bed.

Willow loves this space.

She goes up there... It's almost like her little castle.

We took a lot of effort in trying to make it special.

I really like how you've done this storage,

because it is just part of the staircase.

Storage can be built into any space,

and by using materials like MDF, this needn't be expensive.

Did Willow choose these colours?

Yes, she did choose them with a certain palette.

-Pink and nearly pink?

-Yes, yes!

It's nice for her, being surrounded by a family of boys,

to have her girlie room.

Her domain, completely.

And rather than cram two bunks in the boys' room,

they've added a loft bed in here, too,

transforming it into a fun, vibrant and generous space.

Not many bedrooms would work for four boys, but actually,

this is more than just a dormitory, isn't it?

It feels like a special place.

Through careful talks with building control,

they've been able to create this small bed platform accessed by a ladder.

And that extra space up there, with a bit of JJ's own space,

I think was really important.

But it was moving the bathroom upstairs that was paramount

to solving the layout here.

I'm really pleased, guys, that you've done this bathroom

and it's finished.

I can't even think about how we would have worked things out with

the bathroom downstairs

and bringing the kids through the kitchen and up the stairs

to get ready, so this has just been a huge life-changer for us.

With inspiration taken from the maisonette I showed her,

Skye has used a strong colour here to create a feeling of luxury.

And if you have a small bathroom, making a feature wall with mirrors

is an inexpensive way to add the feeling of space and light.

And the scale and drama of that colour in that very small room

-is really successful.

-And it just adds a bit of fun.

Skye and Matt were determined to make this house work

for their unconventional family.

What they've achieved is ingenious,

but has it been possible within budget?

Originally you told me you had about £30,000 to do all of this work.

But how much have you spent?

So, all in all, we spent about £50,000 in total.

So the basic build of the structure came in for the 30,000.

But there were a number of things that maybe we didn't factor in.

We had to rewire the house, that added a few thousand pounds in.

And then there were other costs, storage costs, and...

But it's still pretty good value, because I remember telling you originally that you could spend

25 grand just replacing the windows and possibly doing the heating.

So for just twice that, you've ended up with a whole house refurb

and remodel. It's remarkable, really, what you've ended up with.

50,000, for what we've achieved, for a family space,

is next to nothing, for what it's given us back.

And I think sometimes we're so trapped in these four walls

that we sometimes need to take them down

and reassess where we live and how we live.

And it's almost now that we can just take that deep breath

and enjoy the house as it is.

CHILDREN LAUGH

-So, what do you reckon, boys?

-Really good.

-Do you like it?

-ALL:

-Yeah!

Skye and Matt have taken a very small house

and they've done something remarkable.

Through their own inventiveness,

they've smuggled in a series of spaces that are truly delightful.

-And what's the best thing about the whole bedroom?

-I get it to myself.

You get it to yourself.

They've squeezed in five kids, and they haven't just

squeezed them in in a way that's compromised and cramped,

they've squeezed them in in a way that's truly delightful

and special, and a fantastic model for all of us to show that we don't

all need endless space, we just need inventive and good quality space.

There's a loot of mouths around here to feed!

Welcome to my world!

HE LAUGHS

Next time,

the family home that's cramped and chaotic.

It's just a bit of a hellhole out there, to be honest with you.

And an incredible idea that unlocks hidden space.

Oh, wow. You don't really expect to see that halfway up the stairs.

How to take your forgotten basement to another level.

-I think that would be really beautiful in your house.

-Yeah.

But will DIY turn to DI don't?

I think I'll ring my builder and let him know that my house is falling down.