Justin and Mary The House That £100k Built

House prices are going through the roof and with banks often refusing

to lend, buying a home in the UK is an impossible dream for many of us.

We just can't get a mortgage and around here the house prices are so high.

But a few brave ordinary people are pursuing a radical solution to the problem.

Come on, baby. Trying to build their own home from scratch.

I haven't asked him whether he thinks I'm stupid or brave!

Ground-breaking architect Piers Taylor and me, Kieran Long,

are following six self-builders as they take on the biggest

gamble of their lives. I haven't got any option.

If you've got to do it, you've got to do it.

We'll try to help them create the dream home they've longed for. Wow!

They need to be clever with their cash and creative with design.

So tell me what your reaction is to this. I'm quite surprised.

I'm quite liking it.

Or you can get the whole section of the plane as a ready-made

bit of building. But each has their life savings at stake...

Oh! What have they done? ..little or no experience...

I've got some more drawings, actually. This is good as it gets.

..and a budget of less than ?100,000 to spend.

How much money have you got left? Let's see. But it won't be easy.

No point in crying over a cardboard cottage.

This time, unable to buy a house in their home county of Devon,

a young newlywed couple attempt to build their own.

We desperately need the house to start our family

in our own space.

They'll need ?95,000 for the build.

How much money have you got? 60 grand, top whack.

So there seems to be a problem there.

If this couple fails to do this, it's sending out a message that

good quality affordable housing is unachievable.

But with so much pressure on them to succeed...

Justin is getting very stroppy and obviously everything is my fault.

..how will they cope when the build stops going to plan?

It should be watertight but how has water managed to get in behind there?

I'm heading to rural Devon to meet a young couple who are facing

a kind of perennial problem for countryside communities.

How can young people afford to stay in a place where they were born?

In places like this, young people are simply priced out of the market

by people owning holiday homes and money from outside these communities.

24-year-old farm worker Justin

and 22-year-old accountant Mary are Devon born and bred.

It's what we know. It's why I would hate to live in a city, I'd hate to live in town.

I just love living out in the country. Buzz, come by! Come by!

Come by! Come by!

They go in the garden up there and she's got prize roses

and everything in there, so if they'd got in the garden up there,

we would have been dead meat!

Good boy, Buzz, good boy.

Both from local families, they've been together since school.

They're engaged and have a date set for their wedding within a year.

So they want to get out of rented accommodation

and into a house of their own.

We desperately need the house to start our family in our own space, just to be independent.

This property is extremely important to us.

It's probably the most important thing we've ever done.

Can't wait to move in.

Mary is desperate for babies!

Don't say that! I just did!

But money is tight.

Justin dreams of owning a farm one day

but unpredictable contract jobs are all he currently has.

Mary is just starting out in a career in accountancy

and her wage is the only guaranteed income they have.

We wouldn't be able to build a house if I didn't have a

full-time job as well because Justin is self-employed,

so obviously his is very up and down and this is much more reliable.

But the average house price in their part of Devon is about ?180,000.

They are completely priced out of the market.

We want to stay here and we want to keep working our own land

and our own sheep and everything.

You know, moving away wasn't really an option for us.

But Justin and Mary have one chance to get what they want.

Justin inherited a plot of land after his mother died

and has managed to get permission to build on it.

They're taking advantage of a local affordable housing scheme

but there are tight restrictions on size and resale.

There's just no other way for people our age around here

who want to stay here to do it,

so, yeah, it seems to be the only way you can do it, really.

Mary's dad is an architect

and has drawn up plans for a no-frills self-build home.

He knows how important this project is.

What is making this building so fascinating for me

is can we make a building really, really cheap?

The planning stipulates that the house can never be worth more

than three and a half times the local average salary of around ?25,000.

He hopes this can be built for just 95.

It's going to need a great deal of free labour from Mary and Justin

to hit the budget.

But creating a beautiful home takes more than just hard graft

and this is where they are real novices.

I haven't got absolutely no clue with design.

Just nice, neutral colours and things. Nothing too crazy.

Everything will just be simple and clean.

That's how we'd like it, innit, really.

This is the one shot at getting a home and with the foundations laid,

I want to see what they've got planned.

Hi there. Hello.

Hi, Mary. Hi. Hi. Hello, Kieran. Justin. Nice to meet you.

This is all very exciting. Yeah, it is. It looks like a building site. Where are we standing now?

This is our kitchen, dining room and living room.

And then our prized possession in here will be the wood burner Um, this is...

We love the wood burner, don't we, in the house we live in?

So this will have a back boiler

and it will sit back against the kitchen units.

It's really in the heart of the space here. It's amazing. It's going to be the hearth of your home.

Yes. I'm really looking forward to on a cold winter's night, lying in front

and a three-piece settee across there.

Looking at the rain hammering against that window with

a wood burner about here. Perfect.

Working on farms, we've got unlimited access to wood, basically.

It should be fairly cheap for us to run, really.

Justin and Bailey's home is simple and safe

in terms of design but risks being somewhat uninspiring.

Planning stipulates it can only be 100 square metres and

Mary's Dad has worked hard to create a very efficient two-bedroom house.

Downstairs, a central wood burner will minimise fuel costs

by heating the entire home.

The small kitchen divides off the main living area

and a traditional heavy-set staircase leads to the second floor.

There's a separate utility and shower downstairs which will

prevent mud from being traipsed all over the house.

The whole home is extremely functional

and designed to keep costs down. So let's talk about numbers.

Let's talk about budget, because that's critical on this build.

How much is this build going to cost to complete, first?

Roughly guessing, John, Mary's Dad, the architect, has done a rough

budget and he reckons between 90 and 95,000, everything, all in.

How much money have you got?

With everything all in, with everything we can sell off, like

my tractor and different things, we've got about 60 grand, tops.

But that is absolute top whack. So there seems to be a problem there.

What are you going do about the rest of the money?

I think we are quite good at saving and I think that

if we can get it watertight and then do it as and when we get money,

um, I think we're going to be all right, you know.

Just for this initial getting it up and getting it going and

getting us in, money is everything so it's just got to be cheap.

They've saved hard but a ?30,000 shortfall

is a bad place to start any build.

I'm worried they may not even get a watertight shell.

But this pair are desperate to settle here.

We're in a bit of fairyland down here, probably,

but we have worked hard to get where we are so

I always think hard work pays off and hopefully, it will for us.

With lack of experience, aspiration and money, I'm concerned they'll

squander this one chance to create a beautiful, unique home for life.

I'm on my way to meet award-winning architect Piers Taylor.

He specialises in bringing aspirational design to affordable

budgets and he knows that they'll only have one chance at this.

This site is their dream site, this is where,

if they could choose anywhere in the world, this is where they'd

build a house, and that's such an amazing opportunity.

The danger is it'll be six months' time,

they will have built it and it'll be too late

and then they realise it's a missed opportunity to make

something that is the house of their dreams that makes them

feel fantastic every time they go inside the door.

Clearly here, it's a sensible building.

It's well designed, it's efficiently planned and that should be applauded.

The thing now is to really get them to have fun,

to get them to enjoy this.

It looks like, at the moment, it's all slightly too sensible.

There's a myriad of ways they could try to make their home feel

individual without costing more.

I mean it might be as simple as doing something kind of interesting

with the staircase cos it looks like it's got to be a, sort of,

bespoke thing anyway so making something kind of beautiful

and interesting with that.

You know, there's a funny subdivision of an open-planned space.

I think it would be better if this was just more open plan.

One big challenge will be encouraging them to swap a

traditional, heavy-set staircase for something far more simple and sleek.

Another is taking a less conventional approach

to their kitchen and living area, to make the most of limited space.

Then raise their design aspirations and give them

the confidence to make it their own.

They need to understand that to be even slightly different

isn't necessarily a bad thing.

You know, they don't just need to conform.

But we need to move fast. Justin and Mary's house is taking shape.

The timber frame is arriving on site.

By the time it's up, they'll have spent over half their ?60,000 savings

but it'll be far from finished.

When they say how much we've got to pay when the frame turns up,

I suddenly thought, "It's quite a lot of money."

Mary's father is overseeing this stage of the project.

He chose a timber frame over traditional masonry.

We chose a timber frame because you know that the stuff that's

been built in the factory has been built properly,

you know that the insulation has been packed

into all of the little voids and of course it's extremely eco, you know?

It's got a good carbon footprint

instead of using lots of concrete blocks.

I mean, it's a straightforward job but, yeah, they are relying on me

to steer them through this and to get right.

While their house takes shape,

they're working flat out trying to pay for it.

Getting up at quarter to five and then milking

and then by the time I've milked and fed the cows and then scraped up,

and we done silage last week as well, so that was midnight finishing.

And Mary's not only holding down a full-time job,

she's got to deal with the next thing on their list of priorities -

the wedding.

So, what's normal with the...erm... with the hog roast, then?

People just sort of stand up and eat it? Yeah.

It's just hard to do everything, really, isn't it?

Having to work and then come and do things like this

and then Justin asking me questions about the house and everything.

It's very difficult to keep up with everything.

But Justin's been doing the house and so I've been

focusing on the wedding, so it's not been too bad

but we're both not sleeping,

Justin and I are both not sleeping very well

because we've both got things going through our heads all the time.

With so much to think about and all their money pressures,

I'm worried they'll fail to create the magical home this young couple deserve.

I want to prove that taking the easy option isn't the solution

and that it IS possible to create something extraordinary,

even on a tiny budget.

The two most pressing challenges for the self-builder, really,

are always limited funds - lack of money -

and the pressure from planners

to do just the same as everybody else does.

You know, another bungalow in a street full of bungalows.

But this is a house that shows with a bit of application and creativity,

you don't have to do that.

Nestled on a typical suburban street in Hull,

this property also had strict regulations on size

but was pushed to the limits of what was possible.

They've ended up with a home which feels unique.

From the street, you'd never expect to find a double height space

bathed in light from various different directions

with a mezzanine in there,

a grand bedroom that also looks out on the garden

and I think it's really clever that they've carved this space

out of a context that's just all bungalows,

where they were told they had to do a single-storey dwelling.

In fact, they've made something quite spectacular.

This building cost around ?130,000 to build

and that to me is fantastic value for what they've ended up with.

And actually, they've got space for living in

that's quite unique and is exactly what this client wanted,

which is space for family, for grandchildren, for dinners,

to welcome people into and also, to be connected to

this lovely garden that they clearly take a lot of care over.

I just think, you know, for 130 grand it's just brilliant value.

Despite the low budget, their ambition was high.

The owners invested time and imagination,

rather than simply money, to find inexpensive materials and fittings.

In a way it's kind of an obvious point in a modern looking

building like this, but there are no doors on the ground floor,

almost no internal doors at all.

This panel system is highly insulated, it's highly efficient,

it's not going to get cold and draughty in here -

this is a modern building. Justin and Mary's is just the same.

They're going for high levels of insulation -

they don't need internal doors,

especially in a building as small as they have.

The staircase proves how a single feature can make an interior unique.

After a quote of ?12,000 for an oak one,

they built this for ?650 from railway sleepers.

That adds a certain kind of handmade charm to this space,

but it also has saved them a load of money.

One of the stories of this building, I think,

is about cutting down on trades in order to cut down on cost.

I think one really interesting stat about this place

is that it's comparable to Justin and Mary's house

in terms of its cost per square metre.

I mean, that blew me away when I found out.

Although this is a bigger building and there are certain economies of scale,

there's so much more to it than Justin and Mary's design right now -

this amazing double height living space,

these quite characterful bedrooms and so on.

Justin and Mary have always been worried of going for

something fairly bog-standard.

Low-budget, smaller properties can be outstanding.

We need to inspire Justin and Mary to be more ambitious.

But it's a problem that has dominated the UK for years.

This country has been wrecked by bad low-cost buildings.

The key thing that we need to solve is how, as a nation,

can we do low-cost things in an inventive and an interesting way?

The lowest cost things are often the best design.

So, you can buy a good low-cost car, you can

buy a good low-cost camera, you can buy a good low-cost phone,

you can buy a good low-cost anything

but you can only buy a bad low-cost developer house.

I think that design really can radically change the way

everyone lives, everyone, even the most lowest cost thing

can be radically changed by really good design.

Piers is on his way to Devon to see if Justin and Mary are willing

to take some risks to have something exceptional of their own.

Hi there. Hello. Hi, Justin. Piers. Hi, Mary. Hi.

So, this is the house of your dreams? Yeah, it will be.

Tell me what it's going to be like. What's it going to look like?

A house!

I think we're just trying to keep everything simple

because that keeps the cost down.

What would be great to hear is how your personalities,

your lifestyle, your ambition for this is transforming this

from just a house into your house.

It would be nice to do it a bit different but I don't think

we're ever going to be able to make it that much different and

that much like any traditional sort of thing just because of cost.

Every bit of detail or anything nice costs a lot of money, doesn't it?

You don't kind of think it's possible to do that on a budget?

I'm the type of bloke, I suppose I go for the easy life a bit more,

so what ever gets it at an affordable price,

then that's the option I'll take, I suppose, isn't it?

I'm no designer!

So, let's go in.

Getting the frame up is a huge achievement,

but their hard work starts here.

We need to get them to realise

it's a blank canvas they can do anything with.

So, tell me what's going on the wall?

This presumably isn't the finish?

Basically, plasterboard on that and skim

and I don't know what colour the finish is going to be yet.

Magnolia... I don't know! Are you really going to paint it magnolia?

Yeah, I was going to really paint it magnolia.

But here, you're talking architrave, skirtings, plaster, magnolia,

why all that stuff? It's your house, you can do anything you like.

There's no rule book.

You know, you could do the most amazing thing in the world

that you really love here.

Most of it's just trying to keep it simple and cheap.

I would suggest, actually, buildings like this

don't typically need skirting, certainly don't need cornices.

So, magnolia doesn't need to be...

I mean, magnolia is a kind of,

it's the white sliced bread of the housing world.

Yeah, it would be good to see it...

It's having an idea of how else to do it.

All I know is magnolia, you know?

If someone showed me something completely different,

it's hard to imagine until you see it, isn't it? You know, it's...

It sounds as if it could be really useful to take you to

somewhere where somebody has done something a little bit different.

You say, you know, about everyone on a housing estate

does the same thing. Well, they do that because it works

and it's cheap and it's effective and it stays there.

I'm not sure that's true, actually.

I think they do it because developers don't give them a choice.

There's no issue with anyone else living here. It's for you.

You know, your thing, your choices, your decisions right here.

Yeah. Definitely.

THEY LAUGH NERVOUSLY

Like others, Justin and Mary are overwhelmed

by what they know rather than what they could have.

What's good about this is that this is actually

a really tangible solution to low-cost housing.

There's a serious issue in this country at the moment

that nobody knows how to build interesting low-cost housing,

whereas this is a model that could be rolled out

if you could find a way to effectively add personality to it.

There's no greater reminder of the need to create a wonderful home

than the arrival of their wedding day.

BELLS RING

With family and friends gathered, this is clearly where they belong.

This is like the start of our lives together now,

so get the house built and then that'll be us.

While on honeymoon, the build moves forward.

Between autumn showers, roofers get it closer to becoming watertight.

But that eats up over ?7,000.

Their savings are disappearing fast.

It's more important than ever we inspire the newlyweds

to create the best possible home.

This is Holly Barn in rural Norfolk.

Winner of the prestigious Manser Medal in 2006,

it's one of Britain's most stunning homes.

Clearly, this house is bigger and it's far more expensive

than their building, but undoubtedly in this building

there are all sorts of things they can take back to their house -

the little touches that will lift their building,

and I think it's those things that we've come here today to see.

So, architect's daughter,

I've brought you to a prize-winning architect-designed house.

You know, for its time, the best house in the United Kingdom.

What do you think?

My dad would be very jealous.

I must admit, I'm not really bothered, but...

Dad'll kill me for saying that!

I guess it is the "not really that bothered" thing.

You think that to do things different is going to mark you out as

the kind of crazy woman in the village,

who's going to live in a pink house or, you know...

Yeah, yeah, I suppose so,

but then it's easier if you're an architect,

so you get excited about that.

I'm an accountant, I would get excited about, you know...

That's kind of why I want to bring you here,

really to provoke a reaction either way.

You might hate it, you might love it,

but to kind of see what you think about this.

We want to convince them

it IS worth the effort to work hard on the design.

And worthwhile for anyone - architect, accountant or farmer.

Here, inexpensive paints and materials

are used throughout the house.

Justin spots something he likes straight away.

I like that, it's a good idea. Yeah. It's this acrylic sheet.

We've got a void above our stairs and the spare room,

there's not going to be much light in the spare room

and I think that would be a really good idea to put above the void,

into the spare room.

Really pleased that you like this and you want to do it,

because it's different and it's unusual, it's simple,

it's great for getting borrowed light in.

It's probably six quid or something.

Peers has a much bigger design alteration to suggest.

One of the other things this house has is an open staircase.

You don't necessarily need to do one just like this

but you can see how much more spacious this makes this place feel.

Undoubtedly, it lets so much light through it.

I'm not sure about the glass.

Yeah, you don't need to do glass - glass is expensive.

But two straight stringers with some chunky boards

with an upstand at the back is all you need, really.

I think it's a very nice idea, having the open rises.

Mary says it's very impractical for kids.

And also, we were going to have under stairs storage.

You could have, for example, low storage.

Interestingly, they've got to be building reg compliant for babies,

so this will have an opening that's no greater than 100mm

so babies can't get through there.

The primary thing, though,

is to convince you to do something beautiful and amazing

that is special and is yours and doesn't just default

to the practical option of storage, you know?

The staircase is the first thing you see when you come in,

defines that big void right at the front of the house.

You know, you've got to do something amazing.

Commitment? Yeah.

His other bold idea is to improve their kitchen and dining area.

Opening this room up will improve the sense of space and light,

which is exactly what they've done here.

So, first of all, initial reaction?

It's lovely, isn't it? Very open, lovely. Yeah.

How about the island kitchen? Yeah, I like the idea of it.

I don't know how we can do it particularly in ours

because of the wood burner.

But the wood burner would just be on the end.

I think it would work well. Yeah? Yeah, I think it is workable.

I think you really need to consider your kitchen,

stop it sort of dividing up that room. Yeah.

I like the table. I do like the modern look.

I don't like it because it's too modern. Mm.

'So, I think Justin was the big surprise.

'You know, farmers resist, kind of,'

things that they see that they think might be a bit girly,

you know, the interior design of the house,

your physical environment, comfort, those kind of things,

but Justin embraced that wholeheartedly.

They could end up with something that was fantastic, you know,

but I feel at the moment, Mary's slightly resisting that.

But, having realised their home can be more than four walls and a roof,

it may not even be that.

Five months after the build started, they are now weeks behind schedule.

A bout of terrible weather has meant

Justin's had to prioritise farming over building

and there have been major consequences for the timber frame.

How's water managed to get in behind there?

It should be watertight but that's what we're up against.

The house is soaked through.

Basically, the USB boards have blown inside,

so it's created a swell,

so when I put my board along the outside

there's no air gap in between, so like there,

there's a lovely air gap but on this one here

and quite a few others along this side, there won't be no air gap

and it'll create a damp spot in behind and eventually rot it out.

The frame company is telling me that it's

because it hasn't been covered up but the building inspector tells me

that it should be watertight for at least 12 months.

The weather has just been so atrocious down here again.

We've had so much rain in the last six weeks.

But it's just now annoying that the weather has come better now

we can't crack on and do what we want to do because of this problem.

Until this problem is resolved, the build will remain at a standstill

and things could get far more serious.

We've paid like 30 grand for this, it's all our life savings that we've

put into this, so I don't know how much money it's going to cost us.

We just need the job done so we can move forward.

So, there's no good us arguing about costs at the moment

because if we argue about it it'll take a month, two months,

three months down the line, so we just need to get the job done

and worry about it after, really -

argue it out after how much we're going to pay and not pay.

I mean, we have had an incredible amount of rain

in the last two or three months

but that's not my fault as much as it's not the timber frame's fault.

So, I don't know. We'll see.

They began with barely enough money to build a watertight shell.

Massive additional costs now could result in them

abandoning the project completely.

If they can't complete this low-cost build,

it sends out a grim message to others.

A month later, I head to site.

Thankfully, things have progressed.

Justin's started putting the next layer of cladding on,

but I want to get the latest on his dealings

with the timber frame company.

They have been very good.

They've come back and done the work and we haven't had a bill as of yet.

What kind of numbers were they talking about?

They didn't even give us a price but it would have been, I reckon,

up to five grand, it would have been. Really?

What affect would that have had if it had been a five grand bill?

Well, it would've just delayed the build

and probably made us go over our budget.

I mean, it's a tight enough build anyway without adding extra costs in

that you haven't catered for.

You've put in a lot of work on a lot of fronts right now.

Take me through your typical day.

For example, today I got up at five,

so I was out the door at like 20 to six and then milked 160 cows.

Done that, and then me and my brother moved all our own sheep around

and fed the sheep and moved some lambs, so it was about 11 o'clock.

So then I had a quick bit of breakfast

and then I'll spend all day here. Then I've got to milk again tonight.

That'll be about half four tonight, I'll go back and milk again

and then that'll take me to about eight o'clock

and by then I'll be ready for a bath, can of beer, and bed.

HE LAUGHS But you seem to love it.

Yeah, you either love it or hate it. I love it.

I'd love my own farm, but can't afford one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

It's an astonishing but punishing schedule. I hope he can keep it up.

At least his dad is rallying to help.

Father's on holiday, so he thought it was a good idea to get Father.

Cheap staff, you see.

It's just as important for their families that this home works.

Does it annoy you that for young people in areas like this,

it's hard to find a home and find a job?

Yes, it is.

When you've got people like Justin that want to go farming,

it does upset you a little bit.

What do you think is the effect on the communities you know around here

when the young people have to go elsewhere to find work?

It affects the schools and everything else.

You know, if the youngsters aren't - like Justin and Mary -

having a next generation to keep the schools going,

then the schools close.

Because communities need their young couples. Of course they do.

That is the thing. They want all the age groups to make it work.

But before I leave,

I want to know whether completing this dream is still a possibility.

'How much of their initial ?60,000 is left?'

Tell me how much of your budget is spent so far.

We're up to about 60 grand at the minute.

So all of their savings are gone.

Is it now your monthly money that you are trying to work with?

It's now got to monthly money, yeah. It is just basically...

So everything you have ever saved is in here now? It is, yeah.

Somehow, Justin is still smiling.

But with hand-to-mouth finances,

just progressing this build at all is in doubt.

We'll have to work even harder to come up with affordable ideas

to make their home special, starting with that staircase.

The problem on plan is that a quarter of the ground floor

of the building is taken up with a staircase.

I think the staircase as planned is too complex. You know, there's

newel posts and traditional bits of joinery shown,

whereas it just needs to be a simple, open, chunky, timber thing.

There isn't a big budget.

It needs to be low-cost, needs to be appropriate,

doesn't need to be overcomplicated or elaborate.

So I think it is a question of actually simplifying.

It would be really great to get them

to really fall in love with the idea of making this

beautiful bit of joinery in their house that actually transforms

the way that you arrive and ascend through the building.

But will Justin and Mary even entertain the idea of something different now?

With Justin back at the cottage after the evening milking,

they receive the designs.

I don't hate it. No, I don't hate it.

I like the wood, yeah, and I like the open staircase.

Yeah, it would be lovely to have an open staircase,

but it's making everything else practical around it, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

I do like that. Yeah, I like that.

'So, how are you getting on?'

Yeah, we really like it. 'Oh, good, fantastic.'

How much more does this sort of thing cost than a normal staircase?

'If you had the staircase made up as you were showing,

'it would've been close to 2,000.

'So I would have thought that if you could get this built for 1,200, 1,500 quid,

'including fitting, installation and the handrail,

'then you would be doing well.'

Yeah, yeah. OK, yeah, that doesn't sound too bad.

Justin and Mary have realised it is possible to bring something

special into their home, even on their budget.

Over the next couple of months, against the odds,

Justin finally manages to get the house watertight.

But he's also starting to look for his own

improvements on the interior.

Reflecting on his trip to Holly Barn, today on site,

he has become less farmer and more designer.

It was really worthwhile seeing a building that was so simple

but created so much room and space inside.

And there are some ideas they are going to adopt.

The acrylic was another thing, and we are going to use that idea.

Just over there.

We will try and use that idea to make more light in the room.

He's realising they can have more than four walls and a roof.

But it's not easy.

Generally, people are older than me and Mary that are building houses,

so they know definitely what they want and what style they want, where

Mary and I sort of were, "Yeah, that would be all right, that'll do."

But when we see stuff, we're like, "That's right for us."

As the house progresses, Piers heads back to site.

It will be the objects and ideas they bring to it next which could transform it

from just a low-cost and efficient shell into Justin and Mary's home.

This isn't just about keeping warm, keeping dry and keeping the weather

out, it's about really getting them excited about their environment.

These people are connected to this place like no other.

They grew up here, yet at the moment, there is

nothing in this that's them.

It has been a box that was designed for them by someone else

and everything about it is very good but quite bland.

And I really need to find a way to get them

to bring everything that connects them to this landscape

and this place and this culture into this building.

I'm on my way to see one way they could do it.

Reclaiming objects is a fashion that has snowballed in recent years.

And this warehouse is a high-end example,

created by an interior designer.

It's full of well-sourced items that change hands for hundreds of pounds.

But they do give a space a unique feeling that modern

mass-manufactured ones do not.

I think the reason we love a lot of these reclaimed things is quite

simply that, you know, new stuff isn't built as well,

isn't made of as beautiful materials.

A lot of these older things are made of fantastic cast metals,

and even in their distressed state, they can look rather beautiful.

I think Justin and Mary need a bit of that, because they are going

to have in their interior probably a world of plasterboard and paint.

These French industrial lights can be

bought for a couple of hundred pounds.

But if you're clever, you can find them for far less than that.

I mean, some of these reclaimed objects, this light,

really utilitarian, completely trying to express a kind of

functionality with this cast metal at its base and this lovely handle.

But I think these things do have a material quality that we

don't really find so much in contemporary design.

You know, if you can find them cheap, it's great.

This is just a good example of not letting good-quality

old things go to waste.

These are floorboards taken up from the bathroom of this apartment

when they refurbished it and just simply made into shelves.

There's something quite nice about them because

they are exactly the same colour as the floor and they fit in.

Somehow, this language of brick and wood that is really evident

in this old building is continued through these shelves.

It is just a nice detail.

What we have to take on board is that this kind of idea of reclaimed

stuff, you know, does tell a kind of story of something authentic.

Justin and Mary have the chance to make something that is really authentic.

Where they can find it is in their passion for farming,

in their passion for landscape, in their sort of identity, which is

so deeply tied to that area.

And what they are doing is trying to make a place that really

feels of Devon and of them.

If handled well, reclaimed materials can bring

a sense of history and authenticity to a place.

The challenge for Justin and Mary is to do it cheaply.

Hi, Justin. Hello, Piers. How are you doing? Yeah, good, thank you.

Piers has come to meet Justin and has a plan.

I've bought you a little present. A tractor seat? Absolutely, yeah.

And what sort of tractor do you think that's from?

A Massey 135 or International, I reckon, judging by the colour.

Massey 135, yeah. Congratulations, you've just won it. Thank you!

What I'd like is to talk to you about incorporating seriously

something like this into your house on a bigger scale than this.

So you could make, for example, this fantastic bench, you know,

out of these. Get a bit of steel welded up, bolt these on,

get three of these. These are 30 quid each.

I think this is a really good idea for just breakfast bar stools.

Two or three of these down that side would be really...

It's just something a little bit quirky that isn't bog-standard,

that no-one else would have.

Surprisingly, them seats, although they look uncomfortable,

they are quite comfortable. They are. Absolutely.

Pressure on the budget means anything

they can get for free will help.

That search begins on Justin's dad's land next door.

So what I was thinking is I would really like to persuade you to

use this for your kitchen sink.

It's huge! That's not a bad thing. PIERS LAUGHS

It would take up half of the kitchen on its own!

But how beautiful would it be sitting in front of your window,

just on some blocks, with some wood going into it?

I think it's a bit...overboard.

Any modification of found objects needs to be carried out safely

and in accordance with any appropriate regulations.

The free rustic trough may be a step too far for Justin.

Is this Mary coming? Oh, look, it's Mary.

It's a timely arrival, but having been less than responsive

to our ideas so far, what will she make of this one?

Hi, Mary! Hi. How are you doing? Fine, thank you.

You've come at a great time. What Justin has decided to do is...

He's got this, which is a...? Massey Ferguson seat. Fantastic.

I've brought this because I know you love tractors.

So I brought him this seat, and what he's going to do is make

a series of bar stools out of these things.

So, Mary, I think you like things like this.

Yeah, I do, yeah. Yeah.

Justin's dad, Justin's brother, Justin's uncles, all of them

would know what tractor it's off. Yeah.

And they would find that funny and quirky,

so, yeah, I do like that idea.

Let's talk about the kitchen and this kind of thing.

Even if not this trough, something like this as your kitchen sink.

Yeah, I do like the idea of this maybe in the bathrooms,

cos we need the little sinks.

You can get the shallow troughs quite...

I mean, they're at market every time we go there.

But I think that would be easier to do.

With Mary excited about more than magnolia for her interior,

Piers wants an update on our more ambitious suggestions.

So... Wow, look at this! So talk to me about the staircase.

We went to look at Holly Barn

and you liked the principle of the staircase, if not the material.

So I then came back and I drew this staircase,

e-mailed it to you, you had a look at it, you phoned me up,

said you liked it, and I haven't heard from you since.

So, what's happening?

From that, I've had the carpenter out and he's now pricing it up.

I like your quarter landings, I really like that idea.

So he's pricing... He thinks there's room to put a quarter landing,

quarter landing, and up. He hasn't come back with a price yet,

but it's softwood risers and then oak side rails

and possibly oak balustrades.

But I don't know if that is going to look a bit overkill with oak.

What I'm hearing is something that is quite heavy.

I'm surprised you don't like big and heavy,

because you're telling me about big, heavy, fat sinks and...

Certain things, certain things, certain things.

I mean, I think you probably won't like this idea,

but agricultural merchants...

Agricultural merchants sell fantastic galvanised steel or stainless

steel rope, stainless steel wire and turnbuckles.

And you can use that stuff for handrails and balustrades.

I mean, I have done in my place.

So you could put an oak balustrade and newel post

and then below that just use stainless steel wire

that you can zigzag in the infill pieces. Yeah.

That can look fantastic and it's very, very cheap.

Much cheaper than getting...

But then again, it's a little quirky thing, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah.

In the living area, the original plans had floor-to-ceiling

cupboards dividing the kitchen from the living room.

Piers had hoped they'd change their mind.

The way it's drawn at the moment is that these

walls around the fireplace seem to take up quite a lot of space.

And it is lovely seeing it as open as this. It feels really big.

My worry is that if you put these walls in around this, it will seem...

They're only going to be... Oh, they are? Perfect. Fantastic.

Yeah, it's going to be open. We changed from the architects. Sorry?

With the flue rising. We changed from the architects. Yeah. Good!

It's a bold choice, but with just their modest monthly wages

now funding the build, life currently has few luxuries.

Where's tea?

SHE LAUGHS It's not ready yet.

Having the cottage at the dairy at least means

they won't have to pay rent until the house is ready.

Hopefully we can move from here right to the house.

That's the plan, anyway.

Depending on when the house is ready.

Hopefully, not unless we get kicked out before it.

It's convenient,

but Mary is desperate to be in her own place, adding her own touches.

We can't paint any walls here or do anything, can we? So it's...

Yeah, I'd like to make my own...

Have my own stamp, so, yeah.

But with hardly any spare cash, every item she buys has to count.

Piers has managed to get them to a local reclamation yard to

encourage them to find character for their modern home.

But it will take a creative leap on their part.

When we came round the corner, I did hear Justin say,

"I've already seen something I like."

And that was this slate, which is here...

which is beautiful, you need a hearth. This is pretty good value.

We definitely need a slate hearth around the top of the bricks,

around the fireplace, just to cap the top. So, yeah, we were...

Well, we need that. That was our next thing, wasn't it?

Do you like this bath? Yeah, I do.

My parents have got one very similar and I like free-standing. Good.

Would expect they are very expensive, aren't they, to buy new.

This one isn't. But this isn't, no. This is a bargain.

How would you get, you know, rid of these sort of things?

You can get stuff that fills enamel cracks. You can sand that back.

What do you think of this sink?

I think I'd like that sink.

I mean, I'm in two frames - I like that

but then I'm also thinking, like, is it too big to fit where we want it?

I don't think it's too big for upstairs. In terms of design,

this is the most practical sink I've seen for a long time. Yeah.

But I do like that sink. Yeah, and I like the oval. Yeah.

So, Mary, you also like these troughs? Yeah.

You know, something like this is nice and deep

and it is narrow enough to go in the downstairs bathroom.

I just like that it is different.

You know, no-one else would have that,

and if it works, then I just think it looks great. Would be brilliant.

You sound like me!

This is my sales pitch and you're doing it, which is fantastic.

And you get this, which is great.

This trough in the middle...

But the price has to be right to prove that individual

items are cheaper than off-the-peg easy choices.

So I think they like two pieces of slate, the bath, the sink

and a trough.

555.

We would normally only be able to do 10% discount,

which brings it down to around a nice, round 500 quid. Yeah.

But I will knock another 40 quid off and do the whole deal for 460.

It's still not cheap enough for Justin.

450, we'll have the lot, innit?

That's a rounder figure than 460. Yeah, yeah.

I'm not going to fall out with you over ?10.

Well done. Ideal. Good.

Good day out. Yeah, good.

I think this has opened our eyes a lot more, actually,

cos it was all well and good when Piers said, "You could do this."

And you're thinking, "Well, I don't know if that's really practical."

When you come to places like this, you can see that actually you can...

Even if it's a reclaimed sink, it's still as good as a bought sink.

Today has been amazing. I never thought we would get this far.

It's been a real struggle, if I'm honest,

so far, to really get them excited.

And, in a way, I felt quite foolish at times pointing things out to them

and trying to get them to buy in.

And, as a last resort, I brought them here.

Actually, I could have just gone home.

They have fallen in love with this place and gone home with a truckful of stuff.

So it has really been transformative today.

But an unexpected turn of events puts new pressure on Justin

and Mary to finish their house.

The farm where Justin is a tenant farmer has changed hands.

They have lost the accommodation that came with the job

and have had to move back into Mary's parents' home.

I don't think anyone wants to live with their parents

when they are over 20, do they, really?

It's not what you want to be doing,

so, yeah, especially when you're married.

Now we are here pretty much every night that we can be here.

We're here, so get on as quick as we can, really.

Ten months after they started, it's still far from finished.

But there's never been more pressure to complete their home.

Every spare hour now, we're sort of running here and trying to do a bit.

We sort of could do with the house ASAP now, really.

But on the other hand, we've still got to work on our money.

I know Piers was saying he took five months off to do his self-build,

but we just haven't got the funds to do that.

I would love to, cos once you're into the job, it would be nice

to stay and spend every day at the job.

You know, it would be nice to, but we can't afford to.

With their wages already spent this month,

they can't afford to bring in any labour to help.

The house is still a forest of stud partition walls, has no electrics

or plumbing, and unsurprisingly, nerves are getting frayed.

Finished with my hammer yet, Mar'?

No. Still not? If you did this, it would be much quicker!

You could do this.

Justin is getting very tired with having to work

and then come here at the same time.

Therefore, he gets very stroppy and obviously, everything is my fault.

They've now got all the ideas they need to make their first home.

But can Justin and Mary even get close to making it

anything more than a building site?

Justin and Mary, like many couples in rural Britain,

faced the reality that they would never be able

to afford a house in the area where they had grown up.

With a wedding to plan, jobs to do, and a house to build,

this was their one opportunity to create

a unique home of their own in the area they loved.

'14 months after they started,

'Piers and I are making our final visit to the Devon countryside.

'With their savings run dry and all the other delays,

'they haven't quite moved in,

'but we want to see how they feel about the house they've built.'

Hi, there! Hi. Good to see you. How are you? Good, thank you.

Good to see you again. Look at this, you're finished! Yeah.

The dream was for you guys to be able to stay here long-term

in a place you love.

Yeah, I think we're going to stay here a long time.

Um, I am pregnant, so... Wow, that's great. Congratulations.

Yeah, fantastic. Thank you. That's fantastic news.

So the spare room will no longer be a spare room.

Does it make a difference to how you feel about this house?

It's going to be the house where you bring up your child.

Definitely, it's very special.

One of your interior design jobs is now a nursery. Yeah, which I love.

I love that. Fantastic.

Can we see how far you've got inside? Yeah, let's go. Great.

'There's still a long way to go,

'but this low-cost home does feel special, lofty and unique.'

Most small houses don't ever have a space this grand, do they?

I think it's a feature of the house.

When you get up on the ladder, you think,

oh, yeah, you're only in a small house.

Then you get up on the ladder and you look down and God, it is high!

One thing that helps this hallway feel special is

their choice of a lightweight staircase which will delight

rather than dominate the space.

You've changed the stairs. Which is fantastic.

Yeah, we were unsure whether we'd be able to do it cos of the space,

but obviously, once the carpenters came in, they said,

"Oh, yeah, no problem."

But you haven't gone for the open risers here, have you?

That was one of the things that changed once I got pregnant.

We just thought it was so much easier with little ones going

up and down the stairs to sort of have that extra bit of security.

How much did this cost?

It's roughly about ?1,000. For the whole thing? Yeah. That's fantastic.

?1,000, and you transformed this entire space.

This is a really nice open living space you have here.

It is quite different to what I remember on the early drawings

when it was going to be quite subdivided.

I think the high-level cupboards would have been the killer.

Walking into the kitchen would've been like walking into a cave.

It would have been so enclosed.

What you've done here is effectively what you did in the hallway -

you've made this space seem much more generous.

Was it hard sometimes telling your dad what to do?

Yeah, yeah, I suppose it is difficult, isn't it?

It's not quite the same as if it was...

Well, I suggest something and Mary is like, "Oh, God, can't

"you just leave it alone?" I'm like, "Well, it is our house as well!"

But this is still work in progress.

Piers hopes they will keep making those brave decisions.

What about the door? Are you going to put a door on here?

Well, there's a bit of a debate, because the mother-in-law said -

quite rightly, and I can understand - if someone comes to the door,

you then let all your heat out through the front door.

But this is a very well insulated house with a wood-burning stove here.

I think this room is going to be too warm.

Another door less is another 100 quid that is in the pot, isn't it?

Don't give me that! I don't believe this is just for the saving.

I think you really want that connection between those spaces

and I think you put your foot down and tell your parents!

I just don't see the point in having a door if it's not needed.

Unless it needs closing, what's the point in having a door?

I feel like I've thrown everything at you this last 12 months.

I've taken you to the other end of the country to see amazing one-off

houses, I've taken you to reclamation yards, all those kind of things.

Tell me what that has been like.

Sometimes, an absolute pain in the ass.

Yeah, I really enjoyed and appreciated going to Holly Barn.

That really opened our eyes

and I think, you know, this sort of stems from there.

This building does prove that it is incredibly hard,

unbelievably hard, to build really exceptional low-cost houses.

But this is a good, solid low-cost house.

That makes me feel incredibly proud to have been involved with

Justin and Mary on this journey.

With just monthly pay packets, it will be a few months yet

until they finish the house.

But I want to know what they have spent so far.

We're up to about 66,000. Right.

You know, obviously, the kitchen has been bought.

It's only the bathrooms and the last little bit of labour, plastering.

And then sort of the final fittings like carpets and doors and things.

So I feel really optimistic that we will do it. Yeah.

But then, to be honest, the last sort of year,

we haven't had any sort of savings left.

It's been that we've been earning it and spending it on the house.

So, obviously, it has taken a lot longer but, at the end of it,

we have no debts and we will be able to just move in

and not have to worry about paying a mortgage or anything

because we haven't had to borrow anything. That's extraordinary,

though, to be in your early 20s and be mortgage-free.

I mean, that's just fantastic. It must make you feel good.

Yeah, it does. We're very lucky.

No doubt we'll get a mortgage on a bit of land or something

else instead, but in some ways, it has meant we are able to do that,

which we wouldn't have been able to do.

There's still a lot of work to do, but for the moment,

there's a chance to celebrate with friends and family...

Hello!

..all of whom are thrilled that Justin and Mary

have found a way to stay where they belong.

For me, the relief of knowing my eldest daughter has got a house...

I have always worried about what our children would do about housing,

so that's very important.

But the fact that it's also a beautiful house,

yeah, it's really exciting.

Love it. Love it.

It looked smaller to begin with,

but now it's together, it's a nice house.

And I'm sure that it'll last them for years. Hopefully.

You know, a lot of worktops...

Yeah, I mean, what they have proved here is that

you can build yourself a really nice house, a nice sort of

super-insulated eco-house, for less than ?100,000.

But it's not just about getting a house for a minimal budget.

This is about much more than that.

They have solved a problem through their own resourcefulness,

the time they put in, and that 66 grand that is

really facing people across the country in rural communities.

They found a way to stay in a place that means something really

important to them. It's where their family's from and, you know, it is

where they want to spend the rest of their life.

And with a baby on the way, it is

really exciting to feel that they've made a place under their own

steam that is going to be that base for them for future generations too.

It's us now, isn't it? It's where we live, it's where we're going to be.

You know, that's ours.

Earlier in the series, we followed the story of Ruth and Tony as

they built a new farmhouse in the beautiful Shropshire countryside.

In one scene, we saw Tony cutting into a gas cylinder.

We want to remind viewers that the dismantling of gas cylinders

in any way is dangerous and this should never be attempted.

Are you planning to build the home of your dreams from scratch

for less than ?100,000 or are even partway through?

If so, we'd love to hear your story. Please visit...

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd