Alistair & Karen The House That £100k Built

The cheapest way to a dream home is to build it yourself.

Right, get a shovel, Sam. Get plenty of shovels.

But can it be done for less than £100,000?

If you think outside the box, you can build something extraordinary.

Architect Piers Taylor will help families facing dilemmas.

But when you can do anything, you don't need to have rooms.

But I like rooms.

While I, Kieran Long, will show them a world of inspiring design...

-What do you think of this place?

-Amazing.

-Spectacular.

..packed with ideas that can work in any home.

This is the kind of thing we want to do for our grandchildren.

And they needn't be expensive.

You could do the same thing with a couple of trestles

-and a beautiful piece of timber on the top.

-Absolutely, yeah.

-It's a challenge...

-In this case, I think we've just got to start again.

-..that's as tough as it gets.

-Been one of the worst days of my life.

But some will turn low-cost self-builds into fantastic homes.

It looks great! It's just fantastic.

-This time...

-Wow!

-..we push Alistair and Karen...

-Looks absolutely fantastic!

-Very similar to what we had planned.

..to make every inch of their new build amazing.

-How about making this the kitchen?

-That's radical!

-What do you reckon?

Alistair's not convinced.

But will the tough realities of self-building...

You start with the best aspirations and I think you start

whittling them down as you get into it.

..dash their hopes of a perfect home?

-How much have you got to fit the building out?

-£25,000.

It's never going to do it.

I grew up here in the farm just behind us.

That was where I was born and reared all my life.

It was a lovely, quiet, rural location to grow up in,

so happy memories.

Alistair and Karen dream of a mortgage-free life.

They're seizing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity

to build a family home in County Antrim, Northern Ireland,

in a place close to Alistair's heart.

Really, from the day we met,

Alistair's always said he wanted to build a house at home

and when his mother decided to sell up,

we saw that as an opportunity to try and realise that dream.

Their dream began when they bought a small plot of family land

across the road from the farm.

Here we go. Throw this one.

-That was a big throw.

-That was good.

This is their chance to give son Matthew

the idyllic childhood that Alistair enjoyed.

This is going to be the garden, essentially.

It's going to be his little playground.

He'll enjoy running about here.

-Can you put your stick in the water, give it a stir?

-You stir the water.

Any fish in there?

Building their own home close to family also gives them the chance

to design a house to meet the needs of an uncertain future.

2007, I took ill. I went straight to the local hospital here

and they did a battery of tests on me

and it finished up with an MRI brain scan,

which clearly indicated multiple sclerosis at that stage.

You can't change what's happened.

Deal with it as best you can, I don't let it take away life.

If there's a life to be lived, get on with it.

-That's one set.

-That's one set.

Alistair's MS diagnosis has influenced their design decisions

and underpins the whole reason for this house.

There doesn't have to be level access at the back,

as long as you have level access at the front.

I think, certainly on balance,

on the plans and what we can see in front of us,

the house should be totally, um, future-proof

for wheelchair use, if it comes to it.

Yeah, we wanted to try and put a lot of thought into it

before we started and because we know it's very difficult to go back

and change anything and we're limited budget-wise.

OK.

The sale of their old house has given them £100,000

for the build and a small contingency.

If we can possibly be mortgage-free, that would be the dream for us.

Under the circumstances, take the pressure off

Alistair having to work or anything like that in the future.

But building a low-cost home and living mortgage-free

on this sloping site is going to be tough.

Slab number one.

To make it suitable for future wheelchair use,

they've already spent a fifth of their budget on foundations.

We're talking about £22,000 to get to this level.

And this is double what it would have cost to do normal foundations.

At least double, yeah. That's lessons we're learning,

being completely novice at it and first time, so...

With costs already spiralling,

this couple are in desperate need of help

to complete the rest of this build within their 100K budget.

I've spent 20 years writing about architecture

'and I'm fascinated by how we use the spaces in our home.

'As an architect,

'Piers is constantly finding new ways to use materials.

'I've come to his studio to see how we can help the couple

'achieve the best house possible on their budget.

'This is the first time we get to see their plans.

'Alistair and Karen are building

'a single-storey blockwork and render house

'in three distinct sections.'

The house is entered via a covered carport,

leading to a glass entrance hall

which links both wings and houses a small utility room.

To the right, access to the main living area

is through a wide doorway, leading to a double-height,

open-plan living-kitchen-dining space.

On the other side of the glass link,

a long corridor gives access to three bedrooms and two bathrooms.

This is an ambitious build,

especially for someone who's never done it before.

Alistair and Karen have spent about 20% of their budget already

on foundations. So, they've got a tough challenge.

The bungalow has a kind of bad reputation, doesn't it?

It's very much associated with the '70s,

with kind of large floor plans,

with very dark spaces in the centre of the floor plan.

You're right, but what they've done here is to make

two slightly smaller bungalows and that's nice.

But they still have a long corridor and they have a piece of space

in the middle of the house which doesn't seem to do very much.

This is going to be a real puzzle, because it's a glazed link,

which you can sort of understand, architecturally,

why you would have that thought, but it has no function.

And it's the most expensive bit, per square metre, to build,

because you've got to have big pieces of glass, a flat roof.

We have to try to get them to think

about what these spaces are actually for

and how they're going to live in them.

I think that's right and I think we also need to get them to find

a way of reducing the perceived length of this corridor,

because this will seem like a long, dark tunnel to nowhere.

I'm just wondering about its image as a rural building.

It sits in a context of farms and of quite messy sheds,

and it's this perfect white render.

This feels, to me, very much like a house

that doesn't really have material or texture.

The vernacular, locally, is things like black metal, black slate,

and materials that are quite robust.

Maybe one of our key tasks is to find a way

to give it some material, give it some character,

give it a sense of belonging through that stuff.

It's even more essential that Alistair and Karen think

about how this fits into the context cos this is where Alistair grew up.

It feels, to me, like they need to add something that's really a sign

of their generation's approach to this beautiful place.

This is going to say something about Alistair

50 years after he grew up in this place.

It's essential he gets it right.

Piers needs to talk to them before any of the walls start to go up...

-Hi, Alistair, how are you doing?

-Hi, Piers, nice to meet you.

-Hi, Karen.

-Hi, Piers.

..to get them thinking

about how they will use the spaces they're building.

So, what I want to do is to mark out where this utility is,

mark out where that corridor goes,

and just get a handle on whether or not it's the right thing to do

to put the utility there.

-Let's grab some of these and map it out.

-OK.

-Let's get them up.

For any self-builder,

mocking up the interior walls is a great way to understand the space.

-It's actually wider than what I thought it was.

-Yeah.

-Much more spacious than I thought.

-It was so I wouldn't scrape

my knuckles on the wheelchair as I go down.

You've got to think future-proof.

Seeing this mapped out, I think I realise that this utility room

really compromises the potential of this space,

if you left this exactly as it was.

But then what else are we going to do with a glass, you know...?

How about taking out the utility and making this the kitchen?

-That's radical! Oh!

-That's a big change.

-That's a big change.

Moving the utility out of the glazed link

and making the most expensive part of the build a centrepiece kitchen

would make it the heart of the home.

Now, Piers has to figure out if it's possible.

So, seeing it like this, you can see that this is a big room

and, as soon as you cut into it,

what it does is stop you

using this glazed space effectively, I think.

But the options for here are moving your utility there,

something like that,

and you had a door going into it from underside the carport.

So, you could have your kitchen all down this end

and you could have a big dining table down there, if you wanted.

Our only concern with that would be, one, to eat into this bedroom

-a little bit, cos we would like a utility somewhere.

-Yeah.

And two, access, if we were ever at wheelchair phase,

-might be a bit more difficult with the kitchen in the middle.

-Mm-hmm.

Moving the utility out and the kitchen into the link

is too big a step for Alistair and Karen,

so now Piers must find a way to reimagine the space

so it's not dominated by the utility room and long corridor.

Option two is possibly cutting that nib back to there

but then just doing something different with this.

It could have a curved geometry.

By putting the curve in it, the corridor essentially starts here.

-Totally.

-I think it's a great idea.

-A good idea.

And it's something we hadn't even thought of.

This is a simple and elegant alteration

which would help differentiate

the bedroom corridor from the entrance hall.

By softening the utility wall into a curve,

the glass link becomes a functional living space.

Widening the door into the open-plan living room helps the flow

from one area to the next.

Piers also wants to challenge them on their ideas for the exterior.

Their current plan is to render both blocks.

But he wants to show them a way

to make their home feel more in keeping with the rural environment.

So, this is the farm, isn't it, that you grew up in, Alistair, here?

-Absolutely.

-And it's amazing, seeing it from this field,

because there are two buildings that we can see here

-and, in effect, that is a similar composition to your house.

-Mm-hmm.

We hadn't thought of looking at it that way, linking the buildings

with the gap in the middle, which is what we'll have as well.

And then, as palette of materials, one is rendered over blockwork,

the other clad entirely in that beautiful black sheet material.

That black, with all this green, looks amazing, doesn't it?

-Absolutely stands out really sharp there.

-And it belongs here.

-Yeah.

Piers hopes to convince them to use the same materials on their build.

So, this as a sort of entirely black corrugated, simple building.

-This all glass next to it.

-Yeah.

-I think it would be lovely, yeah.

-Yeah, I like that.

-That's a good idea.

Simple materials used everywhere are what makes these types of buildings

and that black barn beautiful.

Changing external materials would have planning

and building regulation implications.

But Piers's suggestion would make a striking architectural statement.

Replacing the white render and roof tiles on the bedroom block

with black corrugated sheets will give this wing a barn-like feel.

The contrast between that and the white rendered living block

will make the glass link stand out and the overall effect

will be in keeping with the rural landscape.

Piers has suggested some good ideas today,

which we hadn't really looked at or considered.

He's given us the push that we needed, maybe,

to jump in with both feet and go for it.

It's definitely a push for us

to start costing that side of things up.

It took Alistair and Karen almost four years

to get planning permission for their build.

Now, after just six weeks, the blockwork is up to roof level...

..and the trusses are already going in.

I have the lead there for the lead tray, maybe get that done today.

It's reasonably straightforward.

Finishing the blockwork has taken their spend to around £33,000

and they've budgeted a further £10,000 for the roof.

To keep costs down, Alistair is doing as much labouring as possible.

And having his builder brother George living close by

is a huge advantage.

It's been great having him help us.

Essentially, I may be the project manager,

but without George's help here, we couldn't have done it.

I do what I'm told, basically. That's usually the way it is.

If he keeps doing what he's told, everything will be OK.

THEY LAUGH

With the internal walls in place,

the footprint of the house is becoming clearer.

-That's the big entrance through there.

-Yeah.

It's three metres-ish, maybe.

Alistair and Karen have taken on board Piers's idea

and widened the doorway into the open-plan living space.

And they've also curved the utility wall.

This has transformed the glass link from a hallway to a potential room.

But they still have no idea what to use it for.

The centre link, obviously, is not really taken up with anything else.

At the minute, it's just spare space.

There's a huge risk that the £2,500 glazing bill for this space

will be completely wasted if its sole function is a corridor.

They need to decide how to use this space now,

before it's too late to put that money to better use elsewhere.

The design for Alistair and Karen's house really hinges

on this glass linking piece,

connecting the two blocks of accommodation,

and I think Piers has pushed them really hard to try to get them

to think about that room as something interesting.

I've brought them to the Highlands of Scotland to see a house

that elegantly resolves the same problem.

I'm hoping it will inspire them to push their building further.

This is Torispardon Cottage,

an incredible private home near Aviemore.

This contemporary building uses old materials with modern ones

to create a distinct line between old and new.

So, I love this view from here,

where you start to see these pieces coming together,

but what's your first impression?

You can see the glass link and it looks fantastic.

Similar elevations to ours.

Once the site of an old croft,

architects Stuart Archer and Liz Marinko used reclaimed materials

from the original buildings to create two traditional

stone-walled structures, linked by a contemporary glass block.

From a distance, it looks like it's three separate buildings

-and then you see this glass connector.

-Absolutely.

You don't see that from a distance.

No, you've put your finger right on it.

That whole idea of trying to just disconnect these pieces

and make them look a bit like separate buildings

is sort of achieved by these pieces of frameless glass.

Alistair and Karen are clearly impressed by the outside,.

But I want them to experience how the interior might help them

visualise how they could inhabit their own house.

-Wow! Fantastic!

-It's beautiful.

So, this is how they've used that glass linking piece.

Here, the glass link is a beautiful kitchen-dining space,

full of clever ideas to make the most of its stunning position.

By using two or three simple neutral colours,

you can increase the sense of space without detracting from the view.

A bespoke roof light matches the dimensions of the units

and is positioned to throw natural light on to the work surfaces.

And the positioning of the dining table

makes the most of the panoramic view.

Don't you just want yours to be more than just an entrance,

more than just a front door, when you see this?

The whole thing works superbly but, of course,

their link is so much wider than ours would be.

-Yeah, this is much bigger than yours on plan.

-Absolutely.

I suppose the interesting thing here is how they found a way

to inhabit this wonderful space.

Just think about how that piece you're building in the middle there

could take on more than just entrance and kicking boots off

and getting to the lounge.

I think the solution, having just looked at it, is this.

-The dining area.

-Possibly put a dining area in there.

You think you would be able to bring some furniture in there?

-Have the dining area there.

-Yeah.

As a dining space, I think it would work well.

That sounds like a great idea to me, it really does.

Alistair and Karen have seen the value of turning

their expensive glass link into somewhere they can use every day.

Now I want to push them to see other ways

they can raise their home out of the ordinary.

I really like how the whole house is united by this single floor material

and you can see all the way down to the very extent of the house

in that direction, and in this direction,

it sort of leads you through to the other living space.

And, of course, the doors, too, being hidden away, almost invisible.

This is an absolutely beautiful way of removing barriers between rooms.

You can by pocket door kits from as little as £100.

Avoiding swinging doors helps declutter rooms

and improves the flow between spaces.

The door leads to a double-height living area.

Just like Alistair and Karen's this has a vaulted ceiling

but, here, extra light comes from a series of skylights.

It's so clever how this building

takes you through all these different atmospheres,

and here, you see how height can have an effect.

I just wonder if there's any potential, in your two blocks,

to create a bit more of that drama and that sort of spatial experience.

You see the light coming in.

That's something we possibly could look at incorporating,

before it's too late - putting in a Velux of some description.

Light also floods in from the corner picture window.

Butting the panes up against each other removes distractions

and invites you to enjoy the view.

It's one space, but it's zoned,

so you can sit and have a wee snug and a read in that bit,

but comfy living and watch a bit of TV in this bit.

But it's still the same room.

Here, you get a sense of a whole sort of terrain

that you can occupy in different ways, always with the view,

-always with beautiful light.

-I think, when you look at it on plan,

you tend to stick with what's there,

but seeing something like this is fantastic,

because it shows you how you can utilise the space much better.

-I think that's right.

-Or for different purposes, you know.

Seeing how the space is used here

has given Alistair and Karen inspiration for their own build.

We're leaving with lots of ideas.

Plenty to go away home with and think about and try and plan

and add to our design now, incorporate.

Before we get too far in, at least we can use some of these ideas.

Absolutely, there's half a dozen or more things here

that we would like to look at and do.

I think Alistair and Karen have really enjoyed seeing a house

that so closely mirrors the one they're designing.

They seemed to immediately see the potential of their glazed link

as somewhere to inhabit and somewhere to use.

As soon as they saw the dining table downstairs,

they were saying, "Yes, we can do this."

And I think it's opened their eyes.

It's October.

Alistair and Karen need to get the roof finished

and the building watertight before the weather starts to turn.

Alistair is working long days on site, doing as much as he can.

But Karen is constantly aware of the toll this could take on his health.

You tell him to rest, but he's happy enough to keep going,

so I try and just let him...do what he thinks he's capable of.

I think you always worry.

It's in the back of your mind that he's got MS,

but he knows how to manage it and he's on his medication

and you just try and keep the pressure off here.

After Piers's visit, they were keen to use materials

that would help their bungalow sit in the landscape.

They wanted natural slate tiles for the living block roof

but to keep costs down,

they've opted for a mass-produced tile instead.

These are a fibre cement slate.

I suppose you could call them a fake slate.

But they're so much cheaper than genuine slate.

Straightaway, it was something we had to make a decision on.

Our budget didn't stretch to that, so again,

it's a compromise on cost against what you're after, at the same time.

But they still want to go with Piers's idea

of using corrugated black sheets

on the walls and roof of the bedroom block,

but that's proving difficult.

This, we can get local, but we can't get the black colour.

-It has to be ordered in from England.

-Right.

In hindsight, if we'd gone from the start and planned that in,

we'd have went with that but I think we've left it too late in the game.

And the cost of bringing it across,

plus if you forget a piece and you haven't measured it correctly,

-you can't just go and grab a piece locally.

-Yeah, you have to wait.

Out of the options, I think that's probably,

maybe not achievable for us just at this point, I think.

You start with wish list of all the things you would really love

in your ideal perfect home

and then your budget tells you what you can and can't have, basically.

It starts to dictate things.

You start with the best wishes in the world and the best aspirations

and I think you start whittling them down as you get into it.

But, of course, you don't realise the cost of things

until you start the process.

After such a disappointment, it's easy to lose heart.

It's four years since they bought the land and started the project

and they're getting ground down by the building process.

It's getting heavier.

With the budget so tight, it's tempting to go for easy options

but they're in danger of compromising key design details.

We need to find them another solution

for the outside finish fast.

Alistair and Karen are at a real turning point

in terms of not quite knowing how to finish the outside of their building

and, for most architects, that's the most important bit -

how a building sits in a landscape.

And the detail of it, the material, all of it,

the composition of the outside of the building,

is really important to get right.

Traditional rural buildings sit effortlessly in the landscape,

but that's tough to pull off with new builds.

But I've found a contemporary house

that works perfectly within its rural context

and might be the key for us to help Alistair and Karen's home.

This is Ty Pren in the Brecon Beacons,

an ultra-modern building designed by architects Feilden Fowles

and inspired by its surroundings.

One way to make a very direct reference to a context is,

of course, to use the material that comes from that place

and there aren't many more Welsh materials than slate

and this building uses recycled slate.

It's beautiful and robust and has a certain character.

But we can also see that it's not structural.

Slate is, of course, a very thin material,

and this is just cladding a very, very modern frame behind.

And I love that because it means the building somehow tells a story

of something very, very ancient and old

and something totally contemporary.

Using the same slate on the roof and walls and concealing the gutters

gives the building a barn-like shape.

The cladding here is like a finely-tailored suit.

All of the materials meet in a very sharp way and beautiful way.

It just goes to show that a building with such a simple silhouette

really takes effort in the details to achieve.

Using recycled slates on the exposed north side

helps protect it from harsh weather.

On the south-facing side,

they were able to use a slightly less robust material.

The southern side of the building is clad in larch,

locally grown just a couple of miles from here and sawn on site.

And you can see that it's been untreated

and it's beginning to warp and bend now

and take on a real character. And I love that.

It looks like an old coaching inn or something,

starting to settle down into its site.

So, I love this ambiguity between ancient and modern

that a beautiful natural material like this can bring.

This is a stunning example of a perfect finish

that suits its rural context.

The huge challenge for Piers is achieving this level of beauty

within the limitations of Alistair and Karen's budget.

All of the buildings I've done here over the years

have been as frugal as possible.

What's curious about this building is that it's only stripy

because we didn't have enough wood to finish it

and we worked out where we could use the wood we had

and then just introduced a black waterproof membrane

behind that wood to allow the building to be waterproof.

Piers has an idea about a material

they are already using on their build.

-This is your tile, isn't it?

-Is that the exact same one? I think it is.

Yeah, I guess I just thought, "Why wouldn't you just use

"the same thing on the walls and hang it in the same way?"

-I've never seen hung slate before.

-Yeah.

I think we should hang them together and see what they look like.

I think so too.

Using their choice of roof tiles on the walls as well

-has an added advantage.

-OK, next one.

-They could do it themselves.

You can just cut it with a knife.

Like one...two...

..three times and then you can just...

-Yeah, super.

-There you are. That's it. Perfect.

Using the same material to cover an entire block

would be a dramatic design feature.

What do you reckon, looking back?

-Looks really crisp and sharp.

-Very sharp and very clean-looking.

It looks great against the greenery,

which we've got behind with the trees.

This is less than £10 a metre, isn't it?

And compared to other cladding things,

I think this is probably about as cheap as you can go.

I'm chuffed to bits with it.

I really think it's the answer we were looking for.

This could be the perfect solution

but they may need to reapply for planning mission.

It's a big day on site. While work continues on the roof...

..the bespoke glazing units, which are a key feature of their design,

are being fitted.

There's over £8,000 sitting there, so near 25 pieces, all told.

It's a significant part of our money.

Inspired by the house we saw in Scotland,

they've added skylights into the open-plan living block.

When choosing windows and doors,

insulation and energy efficiency are key.

With so much glazing in this build,

Alistair has opted for a higher specification

than building regulations required.

We could have went with 70mm frames,

which is the normal window frame you would have went for,

but we were able to get the 90mm frame for very little more money

which we felt, at the time, was probably worth going for.

With all 25 units installed in just one day,

there's a definite sense of progress

and they're well on their way to a watertight building.

It's late November.

The family have been living in the caravan for over 16 months.

-You want one more?

-Going have these.

While Karen's at work,

Alistair is taking care of Matthew and running the build.

He's took a real bad dose of chicken pox this week,

so it's held us back a bit

in so much as I had to take a couple of days to look after him.

These things happen, I guess, and we've lost a few days,

but not to worry.

They've managed to get the house watertight before the winter

but work has slowed right down.

It's a bit frustrating sometimes when things don't always go to plan

and schedules aren't kept. Um...

Yeah, it's goes on and on and the money just disappears rapidly,

but you've started so you have to finish,

but we'll get there, I think.

The reality of self-building

is clearly having an impact on Alistair,

so I've come to check in with Karen to see how he's coping.

Do you ever get worried about him?

Yeah, he is doing a lot and he does get tired

and then there is still, inevitably, responsibilities at home as well.

-Yeah.

-So, it is a lot for him to take on.

Are there ever times when you wish you'd just bought a house

and not had to live in this place for a year and a half?

I think probably six months ago,

I wish we'd have just bought a house and we didn't have do all this,

-but now, you can see the benefit of doing it yourself.

-Yeah.

You can see what you've worked towards

and what you're going to get at the end.

And it's a lovely site up there and it's a great place for Matthew,

which we couldn't have afforded, if not, so that's brilliant for him.

After the disappointment of not being able to use corrugated sheets

on the bedroom block,

I'm keen to find out what's happening with the outside.

We went with Piers and looked at the hung slate

and we were really impressed with it,

-so we made a decision that's the finish we'd like to go with.

-Great.

It does mean we have a process to go back the planning, obviously.

If we can get permission to do it, we'd love to do it.

It would have been easy, when the guys were plastering

the outside of this block, to see this plaster on and finish it.

I'm proud that you stuck to your guns.

Is it a bit nerve-racking waiting for that planning decision?

-Well, it's in the hands of the planners now really.

-Yeah.

They have no idea how long the planning decision will take,

but while they wait,

they should really be pressing on with the inside.

First of all, I'm blown away by the space,

I'm seriously impressed with it.

But it does feel a bit quiet on site today and I was just wondering

how it's going with the interior because, you know,

-there's still a lot to do in here.

-Absolutely.

It's a bit like a graveyard today.

It seems to be, with the building trade, guys are caught in one job

with delays, it rolls over, so it's a knock-on effect.

I think there's no point getting wound up about it.

You just have to accept it and that's the way it goes.

And in terms of the money, in terms of what you've got left to spend.

How much have you got to fit the building out?

-We're...£75,000?

-Yeah, up to here, we've spent about £75,000, so...

In reality, it leaves us £25,000 or just over to finish it now.

It's never going to do it.

Alistair's right. At this moment, this large building is just a shell.

There's still the plumbing and electrics,

the kitchen and bathroom fittings,

the plasterboarding and all the internal finishes to be done.

They could easily spend £40,000 to £50,000

on finishing a house this size.

Karen, how much over do you think you're going to go then,

over the £100,000?

Realistically wouldn't like to go any more than £20,000,

-I would say, over budget.

-Mm.

I mean, and that's everything finished.

Realistically, we're probably looking at a small loan or mortgage

to cover that amount, I would say.

This is a real blow.

They wanted to be mortgage-free because of the uncertain future,

due to Alistair's health.

So, it is going to be about borrowing and spending money

you don't necessarily have,

so it feels like maybe Piers and I have got some help to give you,

in terms of ideas to finish cheaply and efficiently and beautifully.

To get to the finish line now is going to be tight within budget,

so any ideas that we feel could be used,

we're absolutely up for using them, so...

With money rapidly running out and planning decisions pending,

the build is losing momentum.

I need to remind them of what they could achieve

if they can just keep going.

I've brought them to County Kildare in the Republic of Ireland

to see a house that I hope will give them the push they need

to finish their build.

-So, here we are.

-Looks fantastic.

Looks like it's dropped in from outer space.

This is the C House,

designed by Steven Connolly, Alan Connolly and Grainne Daly.

This is a contemporary interpretation of an Irish bungalow.

I know you're a fan of slate.

The slate is the exact slate that we have got, actually.

I think it's quite interesting how the architect here has brought

that colour down to the walls as well, this charcoal grey wall.

It actually works very well there.

This is an impressive exterior

but it's the inside space that I think they'll really appreciate.

This fabulous open-plan kitchen-dining space

is the heart of this contemporary home.

So, hopefully, you can see why I wanted to bring you here, guys.

This is a really beautiful space.

With its vaulted ceiling and windows on three aspects,

this room is strikingly similar to Alistair and Karen's plans.

One of the things I think is really successful here

is this lighting scheme - a mix of indirect and direct light.

It's beautiful. I love the high ceilings and the skylight.

-That's brilliant.

-I can see how just a very simple bulb,

no lampshades, and it really works across this space.

And definitely not expensive, either.

These are standard off-the-peg pendant fittings

which you can buy from around £10.

The flexibility to hang them at different lengths

makes these ideal for very high ceilings.

The island here. Is this sort of how you imagine yours?

Yeah, it's very similar to something we have planned.

Kitchen islands are really popular

but you have to think carefully about positioning.

There's quite a gap between the island and the kitchen

and that works well. It allows through passage of people crossing.

We could actually moves ours across to make the bigger gap.

This layout was designed with socialising in mind,

so the 1.6-metre gap leaves plenty of circulation space.

Whatever size your kitchen is,

the main thing to factor in is enough clearance for opening doors.

Using mirrored glass as a splashback

cleverly reflects light back into a room.

It's quick to install and easier to clean than tiling

but you have to use toughened glass.

One of the things I think we all notice right away

is this beautiful table. It's just fantastic, isn't it?

It's super. A very simple design to it.

Super minimal and it fits the space beautifully

and it's the same timber as the windows.

And what's wonderful about it is it was designed by the architect

for the space, made by a joiner in Ireland here for 1,000 euros.

For me, that would be a great addition to an interior anywhere,

especially in a house like yours.

Just one piece of bespoke furniture can totally transform a room.

This is a modern interpretation of a classic farmhouse table

found in homes throughout rural Ireland.

Alistair and Karen should look for ways

to introduce details like this into their home.

I think there's stuff that we can do

and ideas that we can take away from here.

The lighting, for instance, moving the kitchen island...

Island's a similar size to that, so moving it doesn't cost us anything.

It does us the wee lift we need, the inspiration,

enthusiasm to get cracking on again and the big push for the finish now.

Two months have passed and the whole house has been plasterboarded,

ready for painting.

In a space this big, that's an expensive and time-consuming job,

but Alistair's found a shortcut.

We had looked at costing the house up at the start to get it sprayed

and we had figured it was £1,500, £2,000 to get it sprayed.

But we managed to get a guy to come in and quote for it at £370.

It's much cheaper than what we ever expected it to be.

For self-builders, it's tempting to try and save money

by doing as much as you can yourself.

But sometimes, cleverly outsourcing jobs to the professionals

can work out to be the cheaper option.

This machine here is worth about four to five men.

If you were to put maybe two painters

in here on a Monday morning, they wouldn't have this finished...

Well, it would take Wednesday night for them to get it finished,

whereas I can do it in a day.

But even with such a big saving in both time and money,

they're still financially stretched to the limit.

Money's getting tight now, so it's at the end of the build

where you really have to watch what you spend it on.

Certain things can't be avoided. You have to pay for them.

Even with money so tight,

Alistair is keen to put some kind of sliding partition

between the living space and the glass link.

This is a chance to build something bespoke

into the fabric of their home.

I think Alistair and Karen could actually take a few risks.

It's all too easy just to go and get the materials you're familiar with -

timber and plaster and paint, those sorts of things.

And, actually, they could use a few materials

that really defined this house and made a big difference.

This is an area where Alistair is keen to bring ideas

that reflect rural Ireland into their home.

-Your opening is something like three metres or so, isn't it?

-Yeah.

It's a big, wide opening.

So, you're definitely going to make a sliding door,

which you can hang on some kind of track.

Yeah, we still want to do a big commercial style sliding door

between the two, and what we're sitting at, we looked at earlier

and it's something that would be perfect for us.

One of the worries about using plywood is that when it's shut,

this becomes a forgotten space.

It's a good idea to have the kind of sliding door

you'd find in a rural building,

but get the material wrong and the magic of the space could be lost.

The quality of light that will come from this

could allow us to think about using a different type of material.

-This is a sort of honeycomb...

-Yeah, it lets the light through.

Still obscures. You can get ones with dichromatic film.

-Ah, right.

-That's nice, yeah.

-It's pretty amazing, isn't it?

That's fantastic, yeah.

The problem with this stuff is that it is quite expensive.

There is another option, which is more affordable than this.

Let me grab a sheet.

This stuff is polycarbonate. Super cheap.

This is left over from when I was building this place.

Polycarbonate sheets like these

are readily available in builder's merchants.

They come in a range of widths, thicknesses and colours

and most places will cut them to size.

This is used for shed roofs and things

but this doesn't look like something

-you just find on a shed here, does it?

-No, absolutely not.

Particularly if you get a beautiful frame made up.

Yeah, if you have a nice frame made.

What sort of money is a sheet of this, just out of curiosity?

-About 20 quid a sheet.

-I like that. It's an alternative to that.

The quality of light is still great coming through there, isn't it?

-It's beautiful stuff.

-I like the blue.

-That's something that we could make a nice door out of.

-Mm-hmm.

-Yeah.

I can see them really mulling this over.

I don't quite know what configuration they'll use it

but I think they will use this, if not in the door,

then maybe somewhere else. But I'm hoping the door.

It's April.

After almost two years in a mobile home,

the family are desperate to move into their new house.

Right, hammer it in with that.

HAMMERING

But the outside still isn't finished.

After waiting months for planning permission

to clad the bedroom block in hung slate,

they were asked to submit a whole new set of drawings,

which would cost several hundred pounds.

A new set of plans is a lot of money

and that's with no guarantee of it

actually being passed at the end of it,

so we just made the difficult decision then, right,

it's better that we pull out at this point,

rather than throw more money at it.

We're very, very disappointed

with the whole way things turned out with that.

They have no choice but to revert to their original plan

to white render both blocks.

This is a really big disappointment for Alistair and Karen,

because the hung slate would have made all the difference

to what could be quite an ordinary house otherwise.

I think if they'd hung on,

they would have got an approval for the slate,

but they were just ground down by the system and needed to get on.

We were sort of disappointed with the slate issue

-but it just got to the point where we had to pull the plug on it.

-Yeah.

All is not lost here. I think there's still some things

-you could do to make this a bit different.

-Right.

-So, let's go inside anyway and have a look.

-OK, let's go.

Piers has an idea to make a feature of the rendered walls

and tie the inside to the outside.

What about painting that whole corner a bright colour?

-So, that wall there and that.

-This outside...?

-That outside wall and that.

-The left-hand corridor?

So, standing here,

it would stop this feeling like a corridor

but also, just arriving at the house,

and seeing it as a bit different would be great.

I think it's a good idea and it's not expensive either.

-I do like the way it ties the outside to the inside.

-Exactly.

-You need to do both or not at all.

-Not at all, yeah.

Before changing the external colour of your house,

you should consult your local planning authority.

-What about that kind of colour?

-That's nice, yeah.

-That yellow is great, isn't it? The sort of acid bright yellow.

-Yeah.

The off-the-peg kitchen, including appliances, has cost over £10,000.

It's practical but Piers has concerns

it just isn't working in the space.

However nice this kitchen is, at the moment I think it floats slightly

in this sea of white and I wonder about making the storage

actually tie this whole kitchen into this corner.

For example, if you designed a storage thing

to run along at the height of that top cupboard around there

and drop down here could be great.

Could you lend us £3,000 or £4,000?

Well, actually, you could do it really cheaply.

We can draw it and see how it'll work.

What I'm suggesting is homemade, low-cost pegboard

and you wrap it around...like that.

You can make your own out of MDF, which is about £12 a sheet.

What do you reckon?

-Yeah.

-It's clever, isn't it?

-Alistair's not convinced.

I think what we ought to do is just do a panel

and do it with the holes and the dowels and see what it's like.

-With my limited DIY skills, even I could maybe do that.

-Yeah. Me too.

THEY LAUGH

After the disappointment of the slates,

we need to help the couple add some bespoke touches to their home

for as little outlay as possible.

-So, let me go and grab the grey paint.

-OK.

Not having seen your kitchen,

I just got something that was neutral and grey.

So, what we've done, in about 15 minutes,

is drill these 15mm holes for the dowel.

If we had another hour, we could actually get it all done.

Probably could. Could do the whole lot.

LAUGHTER

Let's do it there. That's it. Bring that forward a tiny bit.

So, let's see how it looks with some cups on.

-What do you reckon?

-I'm really impressed with it.

-I was apprehensive, maybe.

-Yeah, suspicious.

-Suspicious, but I like it.

-Great.

-Yeah, it's a good idea.

That's two good ideas you came out with today, Piers.

-You can go home now.

-THEY LAUGH

It'll definitely stand out, that's for sure,

and we'll blame Piers if it all goes horribly wrong.

Alistair and Karen are racing to put into practice Piers's ideas

and finally finish their house.

Before I started this process,

I could just about have built a dog kennel, probably.

And now we're at the end of the process,

I could still build a dog kennel

but I would do it slightly quicker because I've got a nail gun.

The last big job is the sliding door.

There's 3.8 metres.

They've gone with Piers's polycarbonate idea.

-We want to be two there.

-The track is up.

I'm just going to put this up against...

But they still don't know how to put it all together.

-Would you screw that in, would you?

-Um, might be too industrial looking.

-But this is too short.

-Right.

Alistair and Karen have been incredibly willing

to adopt our ideas...

..but are they enough to do the trick

and turn their bungalow into something extraordinary?

Building a house for £100,000 is tough enough.

But for Alistair and Karen,

they were taking on the added responsibility

of this beautiful place that they know and love.

There was always the risk that a new building in this setting

might detract from the beautiful character

of Alistair's childhood home.

So, have they managed to create a place

where the next generation of their family can really put down roots?

After a ten-month build and a few challenges along the way,

Piers and I can't wait to see what they've achieved.

-Hi.

-Hi, Keiran. Hi, Piers. Nice to see you.

-Great to be here.

It's looking so fantastic. Look, it's crisp and clear...

-KIERAN AND PIERS:

-And finished!

-LAUGHTER

We're pretty happy with it now.

You had some challenges along the way.

I remember when we last spoke, you had all sorts of creative ideas

-about cladding, ambitions for the outside.

-Yeah.

-How do you feel about the result?

-We're very happy with how it looks.

It's very sleek looking, we think.

-A little bit of me thinks, "Well, simplicity has won."

-Yeah.

I think it works really well.

Reverting back to their original plan

for two white rendered blocks has paid off.

The pristine white is complemented

by Alistair's bargain fake slate roof tiles

and I'm pleased to see they've fully embraced

Piers's idea for a splash of colour.

Alistair and Karen have kept their finishes very simple -

no fascias or soffits.

And their choice of plain black window frames

and simple concrete sills keeps the look clean and sharp.

I'm really keen to go and look at this window,

which is like a little bit of kind of modernism -

this corner taken away, just this slot cut out.

It really is lovely, and how much nicer than just a single opening.

I love the way there isn't any load-bearing structure

between here and here. There's just a lintel that runs around.

I think it's a beautiful little detail.

The bungalow is unashamedly a modern building,

yet still looks at home in its rural landscape.

The outside is a real success but the big question is,

has that tricky glass link worked as well?

-Wow, what a brilliant space to come into!

-This is fantastic!

What could have been wasted space is now a beautiful dining area.

Taking inspiration from the house we saw in Scotland,

they've moved their table,

freeing up space in the living room and making the most of the view.

Originally, this was rather a mean little lobby, wasn't it,

with a hard corner here, a conventional corridor

and, actually, quite an unusable space.

And now, this doesn't feel like I'm in a corridor and you're in a room.

This just all feels like a beautiful space with light both sides.

-And this curve has worked really well.

-That is really good.

We love the curve. It was a great idea.

It's just opened up this whole space.

Alistair and Karen's choice of lighting improves it further.

A line of pendant fittings draws the eye down the corridor

and exposed bulbs minimise shadows.

Using coloured glass blocks to break up the curved wall

also let's light through.

The other thing that works really well is this yellow.

I really love the way this yellow comes all the way in

-and actually makes that very much the bedroom wing, doesn't it?

-Yeah.

Took a day or two to get used to it and, actually, we love it now.

And also, so pleased to you have made this polycarbonate door.

And I can't wait to see what's on the other side of it.

Yeah, let's get in.

-Oh, wow!

-This is amazing! What a great space!

The double-height, open-plan living-dining area

is totally unexpected in a rural bungalow.

This has the feel of a contemporary loft apartment.

The room is filled with light,

from the skylights in the vaulted ceiling to the vast picture window

which, just like at the Scottish house,

is an inviting spot to settle down and enjoy the view.

Do you get a sense of the luxuriousness of space you've got,

especially after being in the caravan for all that time?

Definitely we feel like we've got so much space

and just to be able to come out there

and look all the way through that window is brilliant.

This whole axis of the house is long and roomy

and visually connected to the outside.

I think it's really successful.

The flow through the house is helped by the huge sliding door,

made with Pier's suggestion of polycarbonate sheets.

This is a bit of material that's different

from most other things in the building.

But, actually, what it does is let light all the way through

and instead of being something

that's very heavy and difficult to operate,

you could operate this with your little finger.

But that is just an agricultural track, isn't it?

Piers, you're constantly trying to convince people to do things

with industrial materials. You've got galvanised and polycarb...

I can see how happy you are.

Well, it's just what people do in rural places.

-This stuff is off-the-peg.

-We weren't going to do it.

We ran out of money, essentially,

but at the eleventh hour, we pressed on with it

and we put it together ourselves on the floor here.

-How much was this frame?

-The frame was £90 for all the aluminium

and the two sheets were £110 each.

A bespoke door for this would have cost probably three times

what it cost us there, so by doing it ourselves,

it certainly helped that side of things.

You're being too modest. I don't think it's just about cost.

You made some really good choices

and I'd love to have that in a place I lived in.

-It's a beautiful thing.

-Totally.

The kitchen area is dominated by an island,

which doubles as a breakfast bar.

After our visit to Kildare, Alistair and Karen took on board

how important it is to get the positioning right

and have made sure their island has plenty of space to move around.

I really love the choices you've made here, spatially.

And here, we're now inside this beautiful window

which we were admiring from the outside.

It's quite unusual, actually.

It's great with the worktop going all the way through to the window.

Totally and the window makes total sense in here when you sit down.

I think it's the best place for a window in the kitchen,

partly because of this eye-level, but also because you don't lose

-any wall space because it's below where you need to put storage.

-Yeah.

And here, there is plenty of space for storage

as, after a bit of convincing,

Alistair wholeheartedly took on Piers's idea for a pegboard.

-I was slightly sceptical but love it.

-Mm-hmm.

It's great to hear you say that cos, actually, when I last came,

those three units were swimming in all this white space

and the kitchen didn't make sense.

And the point of the pegboard was to anchor this kitchen

-into the architecture, which I think it does.

-Absolutely.

This looks like it's, you know, the £1,000 option

to add onto the kitchen, but instead it's, what, £100, £150?

-Oh, far less. £30 or £40.

-Wow!

-It was really cheap to do.

The whole space is a great success and is beautifully finished.

Their attention to detail continues in the other block,

with two high-quality bathrooms and three bedrooms...

..including Matthew's first room.

A big throw.

It must be quite a special moment, in a way,

to have him in his first real bedroom.

Yeah, his first proper bedroom with his own bed

and just all his stuff around him.

And we can tell Matthew we built this house

and he will remember bits of this being built, this house.

And Alistair was literally brought up across the road

and he played in this field and we've pictures... We've one here.

-Oh, yeah.

-Alistair, and this is his daddy.

-That's Alistair.

We've pictures like this of them going up in this place.

Part of the idea of the house was giving you both security

and a base to whatever might happen with Alistair.

That's it, and with Alistair's MS,

just knowing we're in a bungalow and in a house that can accommodate

what, hopefully might not come in the future,

but what might be part of our future, you know,

that we can basically grow old in this house.

Alistair and Karen have got the family home they dreamt of,

which can take them into that future.

-Is that nice tea?

-But at what cost?

So, when I came to see you guys in the winter,

it was freezing cold here, it was a shell of a house,

you were already approaching the £100,000 mark.

Tell me where you're up to now with the budget.

To date, we're £141,800, as of two nights ago.

There's a couple of small bills to come in

for steelwork and bits and pieces

but we're probably anticipating £143,000 all told.

It's obviously a big percentage over the £100,000.

You'd got 20-something thousand

before you'd even got above ground here,

but how have you been able to cover that cost?

Well, we did run out of money, we approached the bank,

we borrowed £18,000 from them.

We've used credit cards, we borrowed a little bit off my mum,

we've used whatever bit of savings we had,

so really, we had to scrape through to the end,

but we wanted to finish, so rather than have a half-finished project,

-we went as far as we could to get it finished.

-Sure.

It must be stressful, having to be hand to mouth like that.

Yeah, it's stressful. I'm just glad it's over, that's all I would say.

If you do it once, you're half mad.

If you do it ever again, you're fully mad.

Certainly, there's a lot of lessons, as a beginner.

You make mistakes but you learn lessons.

This is a really good house for Alistair and Karen and their family.

But it's a really good model for self-builders everywhere,

because it shows that self-building isn't about adding things

to make your house better.

It's about thinking cleverly about detail, material, space and light.

What I really like is that they've been so up for the ride.

They really enjoyed going to see places with Kieran,

they really enjoyed exploring ideas with me on site

and the whole process of exploration.

They haven't been fixed in their ideas.

They've been totally up for seeing what's around the corner.

Have you managed to meet your own expectations,

that kind of dream you had at the beginning for this project?

The day, really, I ever met Alistair,

he always wanted to build a house at home.

And really, we started out with a modest budget,

wanting a modest house on this site,

and I do think we've exceeded that by far.

It's a beautiful house and to be able to bring Matthew up here,

where Alistair was brought up, is, you know, a real treat really.

Personally, I think we've far exceeded it and it's turned out

much nicer and better than what we ever thought.

Good quality low-cost architecture in a rural setting

is really rare in the UK

and I think what Alistair and Karen have made here is a building

that's respectful of its context.

It's dignified, it's well-made. It's a great example of that type.

But I think perhaps even more than that,

this is a building that has a deeper meaning.

No-one loves this site more than they do,

and they've got all the same hopes,

fears and expectations for their family that any family has.

They've made a building that will have a long life,

that will accommodate their futures

and I think that's why this is such a great role model

of what low-cost building can be.

-Next time...

-Oh, very lovely.

Derek and Christine love the modern...

-Oh, yes!

-..and the quirky.

-I love the door handles.

But plans for their home don't add up.

It's an off-the-peg staircase and off-the-peg doors.

If you can build a house that's anything, why would you do that?

And a devastating blow threatens the entire house.

We have been advised to stop work on site.

We have worked on this project for a year and is it all to waste?