Sue and Tim The House That £100k Built

We're in the midst of a low-cost self-build revolution.

We're going to have a house!

It's harder than ever to get onto the housing ladder, so a few

brave, ordinary people are resorting to the seemingly impossible...

Now bend it... Oooh! OK.

..building their own home from scratch, for less than £100,000.

I think it's scary how quickly the money's sort of going.

I'm Kieran Long, and with architect Piers Taylor, we're coming to

the aid of six families attempting this toughest of challenges.

That's bowing in the middle there.

-I wouldn't poke it.

-No, no.

'We'll try to help them with design dilemmas...'

OK, stop there. Why wouldn't you want to make that change?

'..challenge them to think bigger...'

There's just so much to look at... Just kind of soaking it all in!

'..and search out innovative solutions that make

'the most of their meagre budgets.'

Wow! That looks great!

'We'll all be pushed to the limit...'

We can't afford to stop.

'..as we attempt to turn these ordinary self-builds

'into outstanding homes.'

Wow! This is amazing.

'This time, Sue and Tim try to build

'a modern masterpiece in the countryside...'

We're building walls!

'..by making it up as they go.'

When we build, we'll walk around and we'll say, "What do we want?"

When you design a building, you design the plan of the building!

'But as they race ahead, are they making the right choices?'

-Is this what you want?

-Hadn't thought about it.

'And how will they cope when they run into big problems?'

It moved enough to actually be structurally unsound, in the end.

There's an awful lot that needs to come together now

to have any building at all.

'Sue and Tim have a 40-acre farm in Somerset.'

I love cows. They have been my life for the last 30 years.

Steady, big fella. Steady, big fella.

COW MOOS

There's 14,000 happy hens.

Ooh. That wasn't very clever!

SHE LAUGHS

'Both the cows and the hens have a decent home.'

COW MOOS

'But Sue and Tim don't.'

They have been together nearly nine years and moved here six years ago.

All that time they've been living in a caravan with their three dogs.

-Trailer trash!

-Trailer trash, you know.

But I don't find it too bad.

I don't feel I've a right to dislike it.

We've got everything you could possibly need, so...

-We haven't.

-What?

-We haven't got a bath.

-We haven't a bath, no.

Well, we HAVE got a bath, but it's got a hole in the bottom.

'Having waited years to get their finances in order, they're finally

'ready to start building on a field the other side of the cowsheds.'

When we first got together, one of the things we wanted to do

was build a house together.

Yeah, I'm quite practical, good with my hands. Sue's...

I can make a dovetail joint. Better than yours!

They have set limit on the budget of £100,000,

but there's none on their architectural ambition.

My godfather was an architect, and so I had quite a lot of that influence

of talking about the Modernist architects, Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright.

But this is the Somerset version.

Having crunched the numbers, taken advice and scrutinised

the architect's plans, they're confident they can build this

home for £100,000 - but it's astonishingly ambitious.

The two-storey farmhouse will be unashamedly modern.

A timber-clad first floor will

sit on top of a white rendered ground floor.

The house will appear to float in mid-air, thanks to a cantilever.

There will be two terraces which will make

the most of the rural views.

Downstairs will be the working hub of the farm, with a plant room,

boot room, store, farm office, two bedrooms and a bathroom.

Stairs will take you up onto a landing.

Then around the corner, the architect has outlined the main

living area and pantry, plus a large bedroom, dressing room and bathroom.

Building a home of this size and complexity

could easily cost £1,000 a square metre.

Sue and Tim are trying to do it for just over half that.

I'm on my way to meet them.

I want to understand how they plan to use their home

and why they are being so ambitious.

Tell me how this box on another box evolved?

No, I wanted something to challenge me, really,

and we wanted to be upside down because we wanted to be UP

and to take advantage of the view.

And it just works so well.

Tell me how you imagine using these spaces?

Is this part of the brief, something the architect has brought?

The only fixed point is this stairwell.

When we build, what we will do is we will build without

any internal walls, but what we will do is we will walk around and say,

-"What do we want, actually?"

-But I'm slightly surprised.

When you design a building, you design the plan of the building.

-And you really haven't done it...

-Why would we do that, though?

Why? That's what we want.

If it is undefined, then it's our living area rather than,

"We're going into the front, the sitting room,

"we are going into the kitchen..."

When it gets to that stage, we will make the decision then.

This building is 190 square metres in the proposal.

That's a very large house for just two of them.

And I'm hoping that that ambition doesn't end up overwhelming them.

The danger for Sue and Tim is that they don't make decisions now

that could transform their house into something really, really special.

They want to wait to make decisions later,

and I think that could be a problem for them.

There could be things they miss now that they come to regret.

But, after years of waiting... they're going for it.

We're building walls!

The ground floor is being built using around 700 blocks

made from recycled waste-timber, mixed with cement.

They even come pre-insulated.

We chose this because we can put it up ourselves.

It's relatively easy for amateurs.

And it's waterproof, fireproof and idiot-proof.

Almost!

-You've got that one in upside down.

-Who has?

-You have. We need a cut.

YOU'LL be upside down in a minute.

SUE CHUCKLES

'But Sue and Tim are not completely alone.

'They've got Lee, a builder, working with them.

'They've only budgeted to have him on site for four months.

'By then, they hope to be watertight and able to continue alone.'

It's unusual for us to have the client so involved.

'They are not used to building at all, and Sue is full of questions.'

There's not a reverse corner, is there?

Do you get a special cut one, then? Or...?

'We are trying to crack on and she's questions, questions, questions!'

Do they stay in, those green things, then?

But these people are extremely practical

and really passionate about it as well.

And they'll need to be.

After just ten days, Lee's novice labour force

are facing their biggest challenge.

The blocks need to be filled with concrete and

two-and-a-half tonnes is arriving on site.

Wow!

It's massive!

The concrete rushing into the blocks will be the ultimate

test of how well they've been put together.

Lee guides the first batch into the cavities.

It has the potential, if you don't fill them slowly and in a measured way,

it has the potential to blow the walls.

But this is not going to happen!

Oh, bloody hell...

Oh, no!

You think you've done enough bracing, but there's a lot of pressure coming down,

and we've got a break-out.

At over £80 a cubic metre, mistakes are costly,

but so are delays.

The concrete in the mixer will only last a few hours before it goes off.

-Take it down to four...

-OK.

They need to rebuild the wall fast and hope for no more collapses.

-Are we going to shutter it up and fill it up later?

-Yeah.

Thankfully, the rest of walls hold up, but Sue and Tim

are realising what an extreme baptism in building this is.

It's a vertical learning curve in the building trade.

If anyone thinks it's easy, they're an idiot.

Having got the basic bones up, it's now vital Piers gets to site.

He wants to tackle them on their design decisions - or lack of.

This build is now at a really critical stage.

What they are doing is really extraordinary,

because nobody plays so fast and loose with their house as they're building it, really,

except for the most experienced architect, after a lifetime of it.

But that's what Sue and Tim are doing now, with no training, ever.

Before they go any further, Piers must challenge them

on their idea to leave the upstairs unplanned until the space is built.

We have to have the structural walls... But we want to live in it a bit!

What I want, more than anything else, is a feeling of

space and light, rather than cut it up and divide it off.

You are absolutely right that it's great to have all that space

and great to have all those views, but the danger is that

you will end up with something that is undesigned,

slightly making it up as you go along.

And I think, for me, what we need to find

is a strategy for allowing you to occupy that space

in a really brilliant and poetic and unconventional way.

Having turned their back on the layout suggested

by the architect, Sue and Tim now appear to have virtually no plans.

Piers wants to help them imagine what arriving into

that first floor space will be like.

For me, I think it would be an amazing thing to arrive, and walk up and gradually...

You see that fantastic view, through there.

So if you're going to take walls out, it's potentially that one.

But these were almost the ONLY walls Sue and Tim wanted to keep.

At the moment, you arrive at a blank wall. Is this what you want?

-Hadn't thought about it.

-Yep. But it is your journey...

For me, the overriding story here is that you leave all the grit

of the farm and you come up to this beautiful box that perches

on the top and you see this landscape.

You mean, you come up

and it gradually gets revealed as you walk up?

As you get to the top of the stairs.

And then you see that amazing light and that light also

floods down the stairs, down below.

What I also get is, maintaining the sense of the whole building

as one beautiful cylinder and not a building

that's subdivided with little connectional doors.

That is something I've been struggling with for a while,

is this subdivision of kitchen and how we get over that

and still maintain this space.

How would we do that?

So, what is shown on the drawing is a bank of cupboards,

then a pantry and a kind of cooking zone. What's driven that?

-Good point.

-Don't know. Yes, good point.

I mean, this space actually doesn't need to be made out of stud work and plasterboard,

it could be that you make this incredibly beautiful, translucent

multipurpose pod that you circulate around.

When I was a child, we didn't have worktops or all that malarkey.

We had a blooming great table.

-Can't this be the blooming great table?

-I think so!

THEY LAUGH

Piers' suggestion for losing the wall at the top of the stairs

will optimise the light, space and drama as you enter the living area.

Sue and Tim then plan to lose all the other internal walls

except the bedroom wall.

The storage pod would allow them to keep an open-plan

living area and create something bespoke.

The couple have made firm decisions on the exterior.

White render below, and then for the cantilevered first floor,

the same inexpensive timber they've used on their chicken shed.

This costs just over £5 per square metre.

So this is your boarding, isn't it?

And clearly, this is a cheap material,

and just because it's cheap and on this barn,

doesn't mean necessarily you need to use it.

-Well, I like it. I do like it. And...

-It was purely price.

-Yes.

Using low-cost, rough materials on rural buildings

can help them fit well into their setting.

But this is potentially a crisp modern home,

sitting in the landscape.

Piers believes Sue and Tim can be far more ambitious.

This building is good, but at the moment,

I feel it is too straightforward. When I think of white render,

I don't see material richness.

What we don't want to do is do anything with the finishes

that are going to detract from the line,

-and I suppose the white render is there to enhance the...

-Other stuff.

Other stuff.

And if that IS the case, I'm not so sure that Yorkshire boarding

is the material that is special enough.

Oh, right.

Piers wants Sue and Tim to reconsider key design elements

before they go too far.

Piers has given us a lot of thought.

I think probably we thought we were being quite radical with our ideas,

but actually, clearly not radical enough, and that is great!

Because we don't actually want it to look like every other Modernist house

that's been built in the last ten years.

As Head of Design and Architecture at the Victoria and Albert Museum,

I keep up-to-date with some of the most

remarkable new buildings in the UK.

I've invited Sue and Tim to join me

at one I've found in South London.

Sue and Tim are pushing ahead with their build.

But I really want to start challenging them now

on the detail of their house.

They're in danger of making decisions based on budget alone,

and just choosing the cheapest possible solution.

I want them to keep their aspirations super-high,

and keep their sights on the architecture.

Good to see you and welcome.

I'm so excited to show you this beautiful house.

The Tree House by McChesney Architects will show them

how an inspired combination of exterior materials can

achieve a stunning effect.

I think it's absolutely spectacular.

And shiny, which I love.

-The sky in the reflection is magic, actually.

-Isn't it just?

Valued at over £1.5 million,

it's in another league in terms of cost.

But the architectural trick produced by the opaque black glass is

priceless.

This reflectiveness really helps it somehow

melt into the beautiful landscape, doesn't it?

Yeah. It's just stunning.

That something so simple can be so clever.

Simple, but expensive.

This glass facade is built to a high specification.

Costs to achieve a similar effect could easily

run into hundreds of pounds per square metre.

But before they reject it, I want them to consider what it does.

I think the way that the simplicity is created here is so effective.

Just two materials, that glass and the beautiful red wood,

and then the way that they meet, being so precise.

No gutter lines, no down pipes, that sense of a building being one

thing, but the material having a beauty in itself.

The reflection of the outside world stops it becoming monolithic,

because you've got the lightness...

And there's a depth.

Yeah, the depth, and also it's like having a film

played on the outside of your house that changes.

-I didn't think you'd be able to surprise us!

-Well, I'm glad we have.

Inside, there's a dramatic arrival into a large,

open-plan space with views extending out into the trees.

I just think it sort of lifts the soul somehow

if you've got the feeling of space.

It's simple, nice, clean and purposeful.

The main living area is open-plan,

but defined through placement of lighting and a double-sided stove.

The furniture is carefully-chosen and doesn't overwhelm the space.

But there are further tricks that can be done on almost any budget.

Single flooring material, which just runs all the way through

the house and everything else is just white painted,

kind of unifying this space.

I think these doors are quite clever, aren't they?

It's another sort of thing that contributes to that

feeling of quite unencumbered space, because it completely disappears.

Known as pocket doors,

these are not as space-hungry as ordinary hinged ones.

Kits start at around £150.

The architect here has also considered the scale.

-I like the height of those doors.

-Standard doors...

If that was a standard door,

it wouldn't have nearly the impact it does.

A stunning wood and glass staircase had a price tag of £20,000.

But the real reward at the top is the wash of natural light.

It's lovely up here, isn't it?

It's like being in a little room in the sky.

Opening that gives you more of a view.

I know it's only trees and rooftops, etc,

but it does let the outside in again.

The building is fantastic.

The way they've used the light and brought the outside in and

the inside out, it was just exactly everything I would like to achieve.

I think the outside of the building is spectacular.

The way that the glass reflects the outside world is amazing.

How we can do this on our budget will require some pretty

clever ingenuity, really.

The cladding here is like a bespoke suit.

They're going to struggle to recreate that,

but I loved how resourceful they were being.

They were already talking about, you know, what kind of glass could they

get that might be a lot cheaper, paint the back of it themselves.

It's not going to end up being Savile Row.

It's going to be down on the farm,

but I think they were so inspired, they might well take

some of these lessons and apply them directly in their house.

I've got two bits of wood down here for you.

Oh, brilliant.

It's three months since Sue

and Tim began work on their ambitious farmhouse.

Lift up the arm.

Is that it?

Yeah, perfect.

The timber first-floor structure has been engineered

off-site by a separate contractor.

It cost Sue and Tim £22,000.

As the wall panels go up,

they're finally getting a sense of that space.

-Ha-ha-ha!

-I'm trying the bed.

But it hasn't all turned up.

Everything was going to arrive on an artic,

and the artic rolled up and there was no roof.

And every day, practically, we've been saying, "Where's the roof?

"Where's the roof?"

It's raining.

Can we get that plastic out and stick it over the balcony?

This building will not stand being left out to the elements.

It would destroy it.

They're also getting close to the end of the money they'd

budgeted for Lee.

The delays mean they'll need him for many more months yet.

Sue's budget has a grim forecast.

We've spent over...

..60 so far.

That's 20K more than they'd planned.

Some of the overrun is to do with getting out the ground.

We could have had cheaper windows, but we've got triple-glazed,

all-bells-and-whistles, lovely windows.

But they're going to be there for the duration of the house.

The danger always is that if you're on a budget,

it's going to look as if it's on a budget.

We owe it to the design to do it justice.

We need to get the finish right.

Sue's now determined to find a cheap way to replicate the high-end

glass cladding she saw, and has found an incredible online bargain.

I've got a load of glass.

I've sourced some glass for £90, the lot.

And it was so cheap, I thought, "Well, even if it doesn't work...

"I'll have to make a big greenhouse or something out of it."

-What would it cost to have that properly, that glass?

-Oh, God.

You wouldn't get much change out of 15 grand, I would have thought.

-15 grand!

-Yeah, possibly more.

As well as the glass, Sue's also picked up four doors

and six bags of insulation for nothing.

We're Wombles, really, aren't we? We're Wombles.

-Make good use of the things that we find.

-Yeah.

The things that the everyday folk leave behind.

But contemporary homes aren't typically created

out of up-cycled and salvaged materials.

Piers must get to site to see if the idea can work in reality.

Sue is amazingly resourceful,

and she's gone and bought a whole stack of glass for less than

£100, but it's not enough to do the whole of the

outside of the building, so my quest will be how can she incorporate this

into a piece of architecture that is very, very carefully considered.

First, they've got to decide which section of the building

they should use the glass on.

We want to clad downstairs with the glass

and upstairs with a timber

so that it has the feeling of the upstairs actually floating.

I think if this building is to truly float,

you'd clad the upstairs in glass

because it would just disappear against the sky and it would

change and shimmer the reflective, beautiful, jewel-like building.

I like either way, really.

I mean, in a way,

my instinct is rather than standing here saying that needs to be

that, that needs to be that, we need to allow ourselves some

way of trying out and seeing what's best and then making a decision.

They haven't got enough glass to clad the entire first floor,

so Piers needs to find a clever way of using it.

This is one option

of, you know, the timber

and the glass interspersed all the way round the building.

You'd paint the timber

black and you'd paint the glass black,

but all you'd see is this subtle difference in texture.

And you would really unify the whole thing.

Right, so that's the kind of layering effect.

But, I mean, from over here, I think it...

You know, you really see the trees and the reflection, don't you?

Despite the fact that there's little panels.

Yeah.

What do you reckon?

I don't know.

I think by breaking up the glass you do lost the drama of the large,

expansive reflection.

Piers goes back to the drawing board.

How about we use the big expanse of glass and we do something like this?

That's glass, that's glass, that's obviously glass, that's glass,

where all the glass is in the middle, this band of glass,

with timber top and bottom.

I mean, for me, it changes the look of the building completely.

Yeah. I like the flow going right along the side of that building,

and also we'd have enough glass for it as well.

Yeah, absolutely.

-I'm happy with that.

-Good, me too.

-I like that a lot.

The exterior design is agreed, and Sue puts the plan into action.

With her horsebox packed with glass,

she heads from Somerset to visit a glass treatment company in Kent.

I have no idea whether I'm going to have 20 sheets of glass or

just a pile of fragments.

Oh, wow. OK. Big sheets.

The toughened glass will need to be trimmed to ensure it fits

Piers' design, but there's barely any to spare.

Yeah, I think if you're definitely going to cut it,

we would like to get it cut before we paint it.

Oh, OK.

It's making me feel a bit ill,

watching it.

OK, so we're just having a little look over the panels.

You've got 21 panels here.

Erm, two of them are a bit shorter than the others,

and one of them unfortunately is broken.

It'll be fine. It has to be fine.

No other choice!

No other choice.

-What are you thinking in regards to colours?

-Well, it has to be black.

Because it's the most reflective

and also it will contrast with the black, rough...

-Wood.

-Wood.

I hope you've got a good window cleaner.

I know!

Sue's having a test panel made up to ensure she's happy with

the colour and finish.

The glass is cleaned and then sprayed with a resin

and pigment mix.

She's negotiated a price of £35 per square metre.

Brand-new back-painted glass could cost at least double that.

We want to achieve that whole

treehouse look that we saw and fell in love with.

This would be the colour that we've chosen for you.

Ooh, wow!

That's lovely.

So that's the sort of reflective black

you're going to get from the glass.

Oh, my goodness.

Lovely!

My biggest worry is managing to get the 15 panels

we need on the wall, and I think at the moment they're all up

and fixed, then I will breathe of relief, but up until then...

It's a fragile thing, glass.

Five months after they started,

Sue, Tim and Lee have finally got the roof on.

They've battled on, and a sleek,

modern home with a distinctive cantilever is starting to emerge.

Well, so here it is! What amazing progress and it's a huge building.

It's interesting,

because we've lived in Lilliput all this time in the caravan.

Actually, everything does feel enormous to us.

See, we've waited five years and all of a sudden it's here.

And I come up by myself and it chokes me up sometimes.

I see it, and I think, "God, we're going to get there."

Tell me where you are with money right now.

We're probably up around the 80 mark now.

That's fairly significant overrun.

Yes. Yeah, it's making me squeal a bit.

It's my first opportunity to see the enormous space they've created,

and the alterations they've made to their design.

Originally, you'd come up the stairs

and there would have been a wall across here, but when Piers

had a look at the drawings, he said, "Well, why do you want to do that?

"Why not just come straight up and - boof - there's a magical view."

And he's quite right.

That sounds like a really good decision.

This space here is really quite extraordinary, isn't it?

I mean, these openings are huge.

In the summer, sunrise is there, and then the sun will come round

and in the evening the sun sets over there, so it'll be lovely.

In the summer, we'll eat out all the time.

But they've already spent 80% of their budget.

How on Earth do they expect to finish this?

He can do plastering.

I can plaster, you see.

So that saves on the cost, and so the ceiling's insulation has got

to be on the outside so it's left us a ledge.

That's quite interesting, isn't it?

Because these beams, they're not designed to be seen.

-They're quite nice, these timber high beams.

-Absolutely.

Actually, if you just painted those white,

this could look quite extraordinary,

and it would be the cheapest way to deal with your ceiling.

Yeah.

They're racing along, but are they any closer to deciding on a layout?

Being up in the space and walking around in the space and seeing what

you see out of the windows and then sort of the idea formulates, really.

I want to help Sue and Tim make the most of this large living

space, in spite of their budget.

Finding the right position for their stove could define the room,

but won't cost a penny more.

-This is your cardboard wood burner.

-This is my wood burner.

I can absolutely imagine that being a beautiful thing

silhouetted against this huge window. It could be fantastic.

What we want is the view channelled up that way,

so we thought that that corner there would be the correct place for it.

It just feels a bit tucked away.

Feels a bit apologetic there in the corner. I don't know.

Because I could imagine maybe making a setting for this stove

somehow, that just gives it a reason to be in the space.

Because I think one of the problems with this open-plan,

we don't know where anything goes. There's no logic.

You're absolutely right. We've got to make the decision.

Because, once it's there, it's there.

Well, I admire you for this. I might spend a bit too much of my time

looking at architectural drawings. I expect you to have a plan.

But you're still working with this space as a container.

I think that's really exciting. But it does have some risks, doesn't it?

You've got to, at some point, decide, how are you going to make final decisions?

We know in the back of our minds what our picture is,

but now it's here, we start to look and see and get the feeling

of what it's going to be like and how we're going to arrange at all.

There's still so many decisions to make, it's almost frightening.

How are they going to decide where to put walls,

where to put in habitable places in this vast, cavernous space?

I think it's a real challenge.

My fear is, they won't make the most of this generous living area.

They need a vision for how they might live in it before they go any further.

So, I've brought them to a house today that I think shares

exactly the same brief as their house.

It's a modern farmhouse in a beautiful landscape,

but what it does really well is create one beautiful,

generous, connected living space.

I think they can take lessons directly from here back

to their place.

This contemporary farmhouse in Buckinghamshire was

created by Ecospace IPT Architects.

It cost 275K to build and was constructed in just 15 weeks.

The first thing I want to show them is the cladding.

If they stained their Yorkshire boarding black,

they could get the same crisp exterior.

I like the way the cladding is top to bottom on this one.

I really like that.

And the different shapes with the door entrances, they're quite deep.

And the way that's cut in. I think that's really very clever.

This larch cladding was £35 a square metre.

So seven times more than their Yorkshire boarding.

But, they could achieve similar results -

a sharp, modern silhouette in a rural setting.

Well, we're mainly here today to talk about interiors.

Why don't we go and have a look in this entrance space?

I think this space is super-interesting.

What I like here is, we have a covered threshold.

You're out of the rain and wind.

There's a small bench here, you can kick your boots off.

But I also think this is creating a beautiful terrace,

west facing, to dine on.

And you're sort of enclosed and not just exposed to the farm.

I think this is doing a lot of work.

By investing in the architecture,

low-cost items are then easily incorporated.

This table and chair set was less than £100,

and the boot store and bench was knocked up from larch offcuts.

Tell me what your impression of this space is.

For me, I prefer being outside to being inside all the time,

so this would absolutely work perfectly.

I could put my feet up, have my beer there, and I could start to relax.

Sounds all right to me, too, actually. I'll join you!

Let's take a look inside. Come on.

So, this is all one large, connected living space.

Light, is my first impression.

It is beautiful, isn't it?

The main living area is open-plan, but the interior's been

arranged to create zones for cooking, eating and relaxing,

all linked by one flooring material.

In this case, engineered oak for just £25 per square metre.

But this connected space,

I mean, is this somehow how you imagine your flowing between zones?

-Yes.

-It is. Almost perfectly.

Cleverly positioned furniture helps the outside become

part of the inside.

And it's this west corner.

So this is evening sun, imagine that,

you're cooking in the evening and, Sue, sit down here for a second.

I want you to sit here. This sort of feels like, it's

a bit strange to have a sofa just facing directly out of the window.

But it's an opportunity for you to think about, you know,

you're going to have these kinds of beautiful views.

I do feel quite relaxed just sitting here.

The kitchen is there, which is very functional,

but then two steps away, you've got all of this in front of you.

Absolutely. I want to show you something else about this space.

Because this is relaxing. But when you open this up and you realise,

this could be a really great place for a party,

to invite friends to dine inside and outside,

-I mean, is that part of your thinking?

-Absolutely.

And I think the fact that we've got the situation where we've got

the terraces on both sides,

that outside space will be very much part of the inside space.

Even though we've got windows everywhere,

the light quality here changes the atmosphere.

It's a little bit darker.

You've still got the view in two directions.

Why don't we go and try this space over here?

It does feel quite relaxed.

And here, you have the hearth, you have the fireplace,

adding to the atmosphere in the evening.

You've got the view there, that's nice, but also, you've got

the space and the length, here, each area has got its functions.

It's the space and the openings.

They are sort of speaking for themselves, really.

These windows are extremely large.

The breadth of this opening is fantastic, isn't it?

It does kind of define a room-like space.

-I like the width of these. It makes it wider.

-That's spot-on,

and that's a very modernist architectural idea, isn't it?

The horizontal window as a way to kind of frame the landscape,

almost as if it's on widescreen.

There's one more space I want to show you.

It's interesting to me because it's the darkest part of the plan.

It has a bit more of the feeling of a kind of snug.

You haven't got the view any more.

The thing I'm interested in here is the idea of taking away

the view, being lit by a skylight rather than by the view.

And actually having a slightly more intimate, perhaps cosy,

movie-night-type area.

So, you could potentially use a bookcase to cosy it up a bit.

Yes, this is just totally standard, off-the-shelf bookcases.

This space has been defined using just three bookcases at £15 each.

The lesson here is that, if you create a great space,

it can be furnished on any budget.

I think I'm absolutely in love with the place, you know?

I think it's brilliant.

It was the windows, the size, the proportions,

the heights of the ceilings.

-The colour.

-The colour. That's what was important to us.

I didn't even notice, to be honest, the furniture.

It was just, the proportions are simple,

and the application of everything else, basically.

Sue and Tim have reacted really well to this building.

In fact, I think it's the thing that I've shown them that they have liked the most.

They've finally come a bit out of their shell, and particularly

in Tim's case, just really enjoyed spending time in this space.

The challenge, though, for Sue and Tim, is reaching the standard that this building sets.

This is a beautiful, single space, casually

and naturally zoned into very usable parts of the house,

which take in the lovely view, and make the most of the setting.

They keep talking about wanting to do that, but I still haven't

seen much evidence of HOW they're going to do it.

So that's the real challenge, and I think this sets the bar very high for them.

But my ambitions for their interior are suddenly dashed.

Six months into their build, they've run into serious problems

and all work has had to stop.

There's an issue with the cantilever -

one of the defining features of the building. It's moving.

Lee was looking at it all the time and saying, you know,

it's moving, its moving, it's moving.

It moved enough to be structurally unsound in the end.

The structure that was bowing,

the deflection was up to 40mm.

We waited for all those years with those plans in front of me,

and then it's gone.

We've got to the point where we can't go any further,

because we can't put any more windows in upstairs,

until we've got it secure, structurally, downstairs,

so we are in a bad situation, for sure.

The timber structure, which was engineered off site, has a problem.

Piers returns to Somerset to find out if Sue and Tim

can save this critical design feature.

This is a big deal. In a way, this is the biggest thing that can happen to this house.

It is THE significant thing about this building, and suddenly,

it might have to be redesigned, and I think that's a big issue.

-Not all is well, is it?

-No.

The construction engineers have been around

and we've now got to put steels up there.

-Is it a kind of 1000, 5,000 or £20,000 cost?

-It will be between 10,000 and 20,000.

Here are the structural engineers' drawings.

The current plan is for the cantilever

to be supported by three steel beams in a goalpost formation.

But Piers wants to see if he can help improve the design of this support.

At the moment, you've got a pair of posts,

and the alternative is that you have a single, you know, V.

We sort of erred away from that

because obviously there's steps that go up here.

There's other things. You could do a concrete wall

and make a beautiful sort of sculptural opening in it that

you could kind of sit in.

Anything's possible.

But there's also a cost attached to anything,

but anything's possible, isn't it?

If we had plenty of time and plenty of money, yes,

we could look at other options.

But I've got a deadline, we've got to get on and do it, get it done.

I think the longer you leave it, the more it's costing you as well. Isn't it?

I think maybe the simplest thing to do is just have a pair of posts, you know?

And the only change I would suggest to this is that you do

the round posts rather than clunky RSJs,

just because they'll seem more elegant, and you get them

galvanised, and they kind of take on the hue of the sky. They will

disappear, and actually, this will still seem like a cantilever.

-Yeah, definitely.

-This will be great.

I don't like the sticks.

But I will learn to love the sticks.

Because they are actually holding my house up.

There's an awful lot that needs to come together now,

not just to have a good building, but to have any building at all.

Once the steels arrive,

a tonne of metal has to be carefully fitted into place.

Ready, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Down a bit, down a bit. You all right? There.

I'm still missing my cantilever,

but at least we've got something that can stand up straight.

Sue and Tim haven't gone with Piers' design for rounded posts.

We think it would look a little bit like a supermarket,

if it has got round steels.

I always said I didn't want to have sticks, but they're solid and

they're workmanlike and they're, you know, I think they're in proportion.

And, at the end of the day, they're doing a job.

And the whole thing about a house is, it has to function.

Function kind of has to come before form.

The whole saga has had a huge impact.

It has put a lot of pressure on them.

It's been a worry for Sue,

and Tim's hated not having the cantilevers.

Yeah, they have felt it.

And it's been the worst possible news for their tight budget.

We are going to be over the 100,000.

I think that we are in the 120s.

I suppose I've failed, if you like,

because I said you could do it for 100,000,

and I suppose I've failed in that respect, yep. I admit it.

Despite being at crisis point with the budget,

this pair are determined not to give up on their dream.

With the arrival of the warm weather in July, they work as hard

as they can to try to finish the exterior of their home.

Tim starts to tackle the first coat of render.

It's very important to us, because we want the finishing to look absolutely perfect.

And having decided to stain the Yorkshire boarding black,

Sue begins the mammoth task.

There's 300 boards this side,

and then I've got another 125 to do,

which is the height of the cantilever.

It's all building to perhaps the most nerve-racking day so far.

It's finally time to fit the glass panels to the exterior of the house.

And there's no margin for error.

We've got exactly the right amount of panes of glass.

Yeah, and they're all different sizes.

There's no second chance.

It's about as bespoke as you can get, really.

Lee has already fitted much of the Yorkshire boarding.

This whole project has been about

striving for a high-end finish with the cheapest materials.

The Yorkshire boarding was a real test. None of it was uniform.

These frames are all ply.

With the budget in mind, we are stretching the boundaries

of the materials all the time, so it's been a challenge.

The first step in fitting the glass

is fixing special retaining clips to wooden battens.

But the timber frame has been exposed to some very bad weather.

If there's been any warping, it'll make attaching the straight,

rigid glass panes almost impossible.

How's it looking up there, Lee?

We are a little bit out of plumb by two or three millimetres.

If we get a curve and the glass is flat,

will we be able to slot it in?

-If it starts to curve, we will never get it on.

-Yeah.

Or, the glass will crack.

The next step is preparing the glass.

That's the cleaner, that's the primer.

To avoid unsightly fixings,

Sue and Tim are using a system of interlocking clips.

One is screwed to the building, the other is attached to the glass,

using super-strength adhesive tape.

Everything has to be absolutely spot-on.

Lee, us, everybody, this is all new territory.

They've sourced the specialist hanging kit from the USA

for just over £1,800.

The glass could look amazing if they get it right.

There is no DIY manual.

I found one of my old DIY manuals yesterday and I threw it away

because we've done it all.

There is nothing on the manual for this any more.

The first pane is ready to fit.

Every millimetre matters.

SUE GASPS

There's no plan B.

Ah... It'll be fine.

I trust you.

-OK.

-You tell me when.

Up you go.

Right.

I have actually stopped breathing, you realise that, don't you?

Sue and Tim have never shied away from the challenges

created by their high aspirations, despite their low budget.

-One screw.

-OK.

There's a screw a bit proud.

But can they really pull it off?

They're thumping the glass!

Argh!

Sue and Tim have always had sky-high ambition for their build,

but with a budget of just £100,000

it was always going to be difficult to meet that.

Over the last 11 months they faced a series of issues they couldn't

have anticipated that have sent costs spiralling

and derailed the project.

But despite all of that, they have never lost their ambition to

build something out of the ordinary.

We know they're still a fair way off moving in,

but Piers and I have returned to Somerset

to see what progress they've made.

It's great to be back

but I'm wondering how you must feel after years of thinking

about this project and designing it and imagining it to be near the end.

-How does it feel?

-We have had few problems which have set us back.

We just think we're getting there,

but then it just seems to move slightly away again all the time.

But it's really exciting to get the building to this stage.

Getting the scaffolding down was amazing, actually.

It was the first time we had actually seen the building as it was designed.

Sue and Tim have certainly had their share of problems with the build,

so how far have they got?

Well, it's so nice.

It's not quite finished, but you can see it's becoming really crisp,

really, really tight, sort of lovely box sitting up there.

It looks great.

This decision to take the living space off the floor,

you can see now that it does have a certain sort of,

like a little top hat for this piece of geography, somehow.

For me, it's absolutely the natural decision to have it up there.

Because you're up in the heavens.

The original plan was to clad the house in rough timber

and white render.

It's evolved into something far more sophisticated.

As soon as I came up the hill here, the first thing that struck me

was these expanses of glass and the way that they reflect the sky

and, Sue, I remember getting so excited with you, both of you,

but particularly you, Sue, about the treehouse,

which was a wonderful moment, wasn't it?

It lit up in your mind.

I don't think you were expecting us to take that literally, were you?

No.

Yeah, it's just stunning, the way the sky is reflected

and the tree is reflected.

The house we saw in London, it was all glass.

Here, we had to use it...

-You know...

-Strategically.

-Strategically.

This amazing effect has been created with second-hand glass,

specialist painting and clever fixings.

High-end glazing systems can run into hundreds of pounds

per square metre, but this works out at under 75.

This is a palette of materials that is quite a humble,

ordinary palette of materials.

The design is how those things come together.

It's the painstaking care around the edges of things.

That's where design happens.

This is a beautiful, refined piece of architecture.

There's lots more to do on the exterior,

including rendering,

but I really want to see what they've done inside.

-Can we take a look?

-OK.

-Great.

Oh, well, this is fantastic. What a wonderful space.

So beautifully lit from every direction.

I love the feeling of being surrounded by this landscape.

Absolutely, it's a big relief to come up and see this space

because it's incredibly dramatic.

I remember on the plan that I saw, there was

a wall, wasn't there, that stopped you experiencing the drama of this.

Yes, it was a stroke of genius because it has made it, really.

TIM: It's made it.

The sun rises there, it comes right around

and it sets over there at this time of year.

You've got light coming in from the top,

coming in from the bottom and sides at all times of day.

The interior still has a long way to go, too,

but this temporary finish will help Sue and Tim

decide how best to use it.

Just with everything painted white, it's like a blank canvas

that the light can play on and you can learn about its qualities.

I know you resisted for a long time taking decisions

-about the layout up here.

-Yes.

You always said, "We want to leave it, we want to decide later."

-Are you happy?

-Oh, absolutely.

We've got to have a kitchen, we've got to have the stove,

we've got to have the cooker, but everything else is still fluid.

If you start cluttering a space like this,

if you start introducing things that shouldn't be here,

it'll spoil that space.

Let's keep it fluid, let's keep it open, is all very well,

but you've got to have a cooker at some point.

We are going to put the kitchen over there.

Over there, tell me where?

-It's not going to be a conventional kitchen.

-Here?

It's going to be exactly here.

The kitchen is just going to be an island unit.

There's going to be nothing on the walls.

I don't think you should call it an island unit,

it's going to be something more beautiful.

It'll be a beautiful, beautiful piece of furniture.

It's all about the space, the view, the light, the dimension

and I must say, that's a real compliment to you guys.

Even though this looks pretty unfinished to many people's tastes,

you're hanging onto that process.

No doubt the island plan will evolve,

but critical to the success of this space are the large windows.

So I really like how much you've focused on

and invested in the fabric of this building.

What proportion of your build costs were these windows?

Well, they were 20,000, the windows.

-You're trying to build this for around £100,000?

-Yes.

That's a big chunk of money, isn't it?

Equally, you could argue that they're almost 20% of the walls.

They give you so much. They are the architecture, in some ways.

They're the mechanism by which this house connects you

to this landscape, aren't they?

Even now, as we speak, I just feel it's almost like you're

feeling as if you're in the field. It's extraordinary, actually.

The space and light inside are a triumph,

but for Tim having to compromise the cantilever was a huge blow.

To me it was an integral part of the design.

It was an integral part of the building.

It was something that I'd really looked forward to.

I was devastated, but I think we've come up with the best option

and the best options financially because we did this at a budget,

but we could have done other things which cost an awful lot more

money but we stepped back from.

Builder Lee played a big role in helping solve the structural problem.

Do you wish that there was another solution that had been found

which meant that the building hadn't needed those two legs?

Absolutely, it was a very difficult time

when the building was drooping

and I tried lots of different methods,

with the budget in mind, obviously.

It's a shame, but it's OK as it is.

-It's OK.

-In my mind, I'd love to have seen a refined

and engineered solution that allowed the building to

retain its cantilever but...

Actually, I can that see in that instance

a compromise really was necessary to keep the project moving forward.

This was always an ambitious build for the budget and having had

to do remedial work too, I'm wondering how the finances have turned out?

So tell me how much you had in the budget to begin with

and how much you've spent so far on the build?

The aim has always been to build the house for £100,000

to prove that it can be done to build something

architecturally exciting on a budget.

However, we have gone over quite badly.

We're around the 135, but that includes money we have had to

use to rectify the problems and issues that we had along the way.

-You're at 135,000 now?

-Yeah.

How much do you think it is going to take to get you to the end,

to actually finish the build?

Probably 20,000 now would see us to the end.

Tell me how far away you are from actually

moving into the building?

I would like to think now that we could move up here

on a permanent basis within three to four months.

There's some way to go, with the main bedroom

and the whole downstairs yet to finish.

Sue and Tim are first to acknowledge the role their builders

played in getting them this far.

With all honesty, we could not have done it without them.

We just could not have done it.

And to have... Every build should have a Lee.

It's been nearly a year of backbreaking work for all of them

so what's the verdict?

Have you met your own very high ambition in terms

of architectural quality and excitement?

That would be more for you to tell us, Kieran!

-Do you feel...

-Yeah!

I think it's a beautiful space.

I think, yeah, it is quite

breathtaking, I think.

Every time I walk up that road, every time I look at it

and I see something that's worth having.

What's surprising is the restraint in the finished house,

or the nearly finished house.

It is very simple, singular building that makes best use of resources.

And Sue and Tim, underneath the breezy exterior,

and underneath this freewheeling sense of just doing anything,

actually, they're incredibly careful, incredibly determined

and have incredible judgment.

-Oh!

-Yay!

It's time to celebrate what's been achieved so far.

-Cheers, everyone.

-Cheers.

-Congratulations, guys.

And give Lee a tip-off.

Have Sue and Tim told you about their plans for the downstairs?

Sue's got a van load of stuff to incorporate into their...

And Tim's got my number! Yeah.

I think this building was probably always

too complicated to build for just £100,000.

Its design had cantilevers

and all sorts of design features that always looked expensive.

I think for Sue and Tim, some of their ambition about design

was contained in those gestures but I hope what they've learned

through this process and by creating such a beautiful, simple space

upstairs, is that architecture is not about shapes,

it's about creating a space that's beautifully lit,

that gives you great qualities and allows you to have the good life,

and that's what they've got here.

I'm really proud of them for sticking to their guns, sticking

with their ambition of creating a space that's really beautiful.