Derek & Christine 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...

How about making this the kitchen?

That's radical!

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

-What do you think of this place?

-Amazing.

-It's 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.

It's so not three bus windscreens, is it?

It's been transformed.

It's a challenge...

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

..that's as tough as it gets.

It's been one of the worst days of my life.

But some will turn low-cost self-builds...

..into fantastic homes.

It looks great!

This is amazing!

This time...

Oooh, very lovely!

..Derek and Christine love the modern...

Oh, yes, extremely lovely!

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've worked on this project for a year and is it all to waste?

HE STRAINS

In Huddersfield, Derek and Christine are on the move.

OK...

Life's just too good and too full of nice things

to be sitting down in front of the television.

We travel a lot, we party a lot, we go to music.

And hopefully, by keeping ourselves occupied,

we'll keep ourselves young.

Derek's a big fan of music festivals...

..and back in the '60s,

he was a roadie for Liverpool band The Notions,

which played regularly at The Cavern Club.

Later, he became an engineer, building power stations.

While Christine ran her own recruitment business.

Do you think we might have a cookie and coffee break at some point?

-Yeah.

-I'm not saying right now.

-I am!

Now, aged 67 and 71, they're starting a new life in Kent,

closer to friends and family...

..and building their new home there from scratch.

It is the next chapter of our lives.

It is exciting.

There'll loads more exciting steps.

We are children of the '60s.

Who needs convention?

HE LAUGHS

We are just elderly hippies.

Derek and Christine have bought a plot

on the Kent-Sussex border for £162,500

and have just 95K to build their home.

The front door will...be about here.

If they can pull it off,

they'll save getting on for 200 grand

on the cost of a similar local house.

A lot of money is at stake with this.

Our entire life savings are at stake with this.

£30,000 of life savings

have already been ploughed into a bespoke frame

for the house design that Christine devised

and the couple refined together.

I cannot afford to get it wrong.

There is just no possibility of it failing,

because I haven't got enough time left in my life to recover

if we...if we fail!

Without any previous design experience,

the odds are stacked against Derek and Christine

creating a fantastic home.

But their whole future depends on getting it right.

I've spent my whole career

searching out the best in modern architecture and design.

And Piers is one of Britain's most innovative and creative architects.

I've come to his studio so we can look for ways to help the couple

achieve the best house possible for the money.

Our first step is to understand exactly what they're building.

It's a three-bedroom, two-storey house,

which will be clad in traditional Kentish clapboard.

The front elevation is largely determined by planning rules.

But inside, they've avoided corridors and doors, where possible,

aiming to save cash and create a light, modern feel.

Upstairs, a steel and glass balcony

makes the most of the south-facing views from the living room

and the master bedroom.

Downstairs, there's Derek's study, which doubles as a guest bedroom,

a guest bathroom, the kitchen-diner,

and another guest bedroom, doubling as Christine's sewing room.

The plans are clear enough, but will this be a dream home for the couple?

I think there is a lot of bravery about Derek and Christine.

They're in their 70s. You know, this is a lot of work to take on.

So it's a big step. And you've got to admire them for taking it.

The strange thing about seeing these drawings, for me,

is that these people are flamboyant,

but you would not know who this building was for,

what kind of lifestyle it was designed to contain.

Developers all over the country are building houses

with a standard kitchen, a standard bathroom, standard room sizes.

When you've got the chance to do anything,

it's so shocking to see a building

that's so much like that lowest common denominator.

The windows are placed in such a way

that they don't even light the rooms.

And it's quite clear that, in this kitchen,

even washing-up with a view is impossible.

You're not allowed to look out the window while you're working.

And it's even things like ventilation.

So in a kitchen on a rainy day, a windy day,

you need to be able to open a window a crack

to be able to let some air in. Here, you can't do that.

You open a patio door and it bangs around in the wind.

You can't vent through a patio door.

And I think the second thing is,

there's a kitchen and dining room downstairs.

The lounge is upstairs.

So there's no relationship between them.

The two most important things, as you know, in architecture

are the organisation of space and the penetration of daylight.

This house has neither of those things.

They're constrained by planning,

in terms of how it looks on the outside,

but there must be stuff we can do inside.

I think the biggest challenge

is that you can't make this better by adding wallpaper, colour, finish.

It needs to be a fundamental, structural reorganisation

of space and light here to get it to work.

Derek and Christine's home needs to be lighter

and better suited to their sociable lifestyle.

Piers wants to help them make it that way.

They have spent a long time working on these plans

and I think they could be a bit defensive.

So I need to tread quite carefully.

But at the same time, I want them to unpick

all of the decisions they've made and reconsider everything.

-Hi, Derek. Hi, Christine.

-Hiya.

-How are you doing?

-Hi, Piers. How are you doing?

-Good. Good to meet you.

-Hi, how do you do?

-So, look at this.

This is about a week's work.

-Yes, it is.

-Yeah, two-and-a-half days.

-Amazing. From almost nothing there's what looks like a house.

-Yeah, yeah.

Christine, did you imagine this space?

I wanted it light and airy, modern.

-I didn't want any little nooks and crannies...

-Yeah.

..that collected dust and dirt.

I want something that had a spacious, open, airy feel.

The only thing that I do regret,

that I wish we'd put a window in that wall.

-It's quite dark, that corner, isn't it?

-It is. That's what I feel.

For me, you know, you look like unconventional people.

And at the moment, I see a very conventional house.

Why is it so ordinary so far,

when the planners haven't defined what's inside?

Why hasn't it got sparkly, dangly...?

You know, why is it...?

The bandanna!

The finished article

might have sparkly, dangly earrings and a bandanna.

-At the moment, you are seeing the bare bones of it.

-Yeah, yeah.

I mean, you talk about this house being modern.

But, you know, you can't sprinkle some modern dust on this

and suddenly it's a modern house.

I mean, how do you do something here

that is a contemporary building,

without just putting some modern fittings in it?

-You know, what do you like?

-What do I like, personally?

-Buildings you like?

-Erm, clean, simple, efficient...

-Yeah.

-..I think are probably the key words.

Have you gone to a building that you like?

You love, I'd say, actually?

I don't think so, particularly.

Derek doesn't appear to care about buildings,

but I suspect, even if he doesn't realise it,

if he lived in a really nasty building, he certainly would.

What's curious about Derek and Christine

is that they're so likeable.

They're so interesting and quirky

and, you know, if you took all those adjectives

and applied it to a building, it sure wouldn't look like this one.

For me, this is very hard.

Because, at the moment, there's not really any brief.

There's just a set of spaces

that have conventional room names attached to them.

A kitchen, a study, a living room, a bedroom...

And not much else.

Derek and Christine seem to believe it's the decor

that will add character to their home.

In reality, it's good use of space and light

that'll make it a pleasure to live in.

Piers seizes the chance to challenge them.

Where's the kind of...

You know, where's the passion for this building?

You could build anything. This is your one shot at building anything.

You're coming at it from a totally different point of view.

-And we appreciate that.

-What do you love about it?

We love the geographical position of it.

We love the way it's capturing the south-facing views.

We like the disposition of the rooms.

We can visualise a good lifestyle.

We know what our friends are like.

We know how our social life's going to develop

and we can see that fitting in here.

All of that ticks all the boxes that we really want to kick.

Piers has an idea for a fundamental change

that would transform this ordinary house into something special

and ideal for socialising.

Why don't you put the kitchen upstairs with the living room

and put your bedroom down there?

DEREK LAUGHS

You know, coming up to kind of kitchen living,

which had a stair that arrived in the middle.

However you finish it, it would always be amazing.

At the moment, what's curious

is that the building depends on your taste, your decor,

to make it amazing.

Whereas having, irrespective of style,

a big space with lots of south-facing light,

with lots of south-facing balcony...

..it's kind of priceless.

I do prefer a separate lounge.

I just think, if you're entertaining,

I don't like people in the kitchen when you're trying to cook.

I do like to, say, eat in the kitchen

and then go into a separate lounge.

I think, if you were to solve a problem,

it would be to allow the two rooms to benefit from one another.

So you put them both upstairs

and you put a dividing thing

that allows you to borrow the light from one to the other,

borrow the view from one to the other,

borrow the sense of space from one to the other.

Your valid concern that you're in the kitchen making something,

-people are having dinner and you don't want them to see them.

-Yeah.

I mean, there's lots of ways around that, absolutely.

-I think this idea of moving the kitchen upstairs...

-Mm.

..does have some mileage in it.

Piers's suggestion would turn a conventional home

into one flooded with light and perfect for entertaining.

His idea is to swap the master bedroom and kitchen-diner,

bringing the kitchen-diner up to the first floor.

The central wall upstairs is currently blocking light and views.

Removing it and replacing it with a more innovative form of screening

would give privacy, when needed,

but allow the whole of the upstairs

to become a spacious and flexible living area

for the couple and their guests.

Derek has to deal with the practicalities of changes,

including checking them with planning and building control.

Can Piers persuade him?

This wall, you know, is a block to

A, that fantastic oast house,

but B, the kind of distant view beyond.

And, you know, having a space that's this big from here to there

would just be amazing, really.

I mean, how do you feel about undoing stuff?

If we feel the benefit is there,

then the hell with the amount of work.

It's me and, I don't know, 50 quid for a few bits of wood or something.

But we're open to this idea and we want to experiment with it.

Experiment is, you know, that's one of my favourite words.

And, you know, I guess this house could do with a bit of that.

Piers has had a breakthrough, showing Christine and Derek

a huge improvement to their house is still possible.

Now I need to fire them up with a vision of how amazing it could be.

I've found a home which is spacious, sociable

and not divided into conventional rooms.

It's Mission Hall in Sussex, by Adam Richards Architects.

And I hope this will become the first modern home

to inspire the couple.

I wanted to bring you to this house

to start to think about how you really live

-in a contemporary interior...

-Yes, yes.

-..how you live in an elevated interior.

-Indeed.

This house is an upside-down house

and we can just think about that living space, how it works,

that can really add a lot to a building.

-Right. Lead on.

-Indeed. Yeah.

Come on in. Come into the cool.

Oh, it's beautiful.

This is so nice, this space.

It's kind of cave-like and I love this shallow vault here.

It feels a bit like a kind of a very glamorous cellar.

The bedrooms are downstairs, where it's naturally darker,

with corridors adding to the snug feel.

It's a deliberate move to contrast with what lies above.

That staircase makes you want to touch it

-and go up there to see what's...

-It does, doesn't it?

-It feels like its mysterious.

-Well, let's do that.

-Let's go upstairs!

Like Derek and Christine,

the owners of Mission Hall love to entertain

and enjoy the landscape beyond the home.

The house is tailor-made for both.

Oooh, very lovely.

Oh, yes, extremely lovely.

Oh, yes.

When you go up to your living space and you have the beautiful view,

is this how you would like to feel?

You know, I mean, being up here and amongst the trees

-with the view across the farmland here.

-There is a similarity.

The view is across the farmland.

There are trees with the neighbour's house. So there is a similarity.

I don't think we have any intentions of photocopying the place,

because we've got our own furniture and our own stuff.

All I'm interested in is...

I'm interested in how you feel right now.

This whole space here, with these high ceilings,

the kind of sense of being surrounded by the trees,

-it does sort of lift you.

-Oh, it does.

A good view can be framed elegantly

by using plain curtains and white walls,

which will also keep things bright inside.

Contrasting colours and textures stop the white from feeling stark.

So I think most importantly for you guys

-is to come and stand out here on this balcony.

-Yes.

It is quite a shallow balcony here. This is about a metre.

-You've got just a bit more than a metre.

-Yeah, yeah.

-When you go towards the light and...

-Yes. Oh, yes, yes!

-I can tell you love this.

-Yeah, you can't help but smile, can you?

When you look at the sunshine

and the view and the flowers, it is beautiful.

And it's beautiful to imagine having a living space

that really has this view as part of it.

-Yes, yes.

-It's just fabulous.

But, I mean, how do you feel when you're standing up here,

looking at a beautiful, long view,

do you start to feel a bit like, "This is what I could win"?

This is what I could achieve!

The first floor shows walls aren't needed to create rooms.

You can use a rug and grouping of sofas to create a sitting room,

and add striking pendant lights above the table

to help define a dining area,

all within one generous open-plan space.

And if you want the option of privacy, like Christine,

it can be created with a solution

that's far more imaginative than acres of plasterboard.

My eye's just caught on the kitchen, which is hidden away behind here.

And this effectively is,

although it's a beautiful piece of furniture in its own right,

it's effectively a room divider screening the kitchen off.

-But without the need for doors...

-Without the need for doors.

Without the need for a wall construction or whatever.

And it's a very interesting use of space.

So, Derek, it is really nice, isn't it, to get into this room

without going through a door

and just past this very beautiful temple-like piece of joinery?

-It is.

-The thing I like most about it is how sociable this could be.

-Oh, indeed.

-You could be cooking

and somebody could be lounging on the sofa, you can see them.

But they're not in the space.

You know, it's connected, but not divided.

I think that's really strong.

Open-plan spaces are prone to feeling cavernous,

but this home shows how you can use furniture to create cosy areas.

And when you need space for throwing parties, furniture is movable,

unlike solid walls.

There's certainly ideas to explore, avenues to explore there.

I can see something's awakening in your mind.

Oh, something's very much awake in my mind!

Having seen how well an open-plan first floor space can work,

Derek and Christine must now weigh

whether to make a dramatic change to the layout of their home.

I think the way they have done it here

has been in a very clever, innovative and beautiful way.

Erm, but whether it would be applicable to us, I don't know.

It's been an absolutely brilliant day here with Derek and Christine

and I loved how they're just immediately embraced this building.

And they understood the gesture of the architecture, which was great.

What's harder with them

is to get them to see the connection between this and their build.

They're trying to understand how to make a beautiful,

open-plan living space at first-floor level with a great view.

It's just the same problem that is cracked so magnificently here.

So I hope they go away, think about it a bit further,

and start to adjust their attitude

to that thorny problem on their first floor.

After a few days mulling over upside-down living,

Christine's realised there are some snags

with applying the idea to their home.

I liked the idea of the kitchen upstairs. I was very sold on that.

But I didn't like the idea of moving the bedroom downstairs.

Because there are practical benefits of having the kitchen downstairs.

It means I haven't got to carry the shopping upstairs.

Derek's also concluded the disadvantages outweigh the benefits.

We've been to quite a few lectures at building trade exhibitions.

And the common theme was to keep it simple.

Diminish corridors, keep it open, keep it straightforward.

And we adopted that as our design brief.

And when we looked at Piers' plans for downstairs,

that seemed to be putting in corridors and doors

that we'd designed out.

So we weren't overly impressed with that.

I like to think,

and I think Christine's with me on this, as well,

that the time we spent in the early design stage has paid off

and we've got something that we are happy with.

It's really disappointing Derek and Christine have rejected this change.

Piers and I need to work out what other ways of improving the house

will appeal to them more.

But right now, the couple are preoccupied.

During the build, they and visiting family

are living in a caravan nearby and Derek's feeling under pressure.

We don't have anywhere to go other than this caravan.

But we're not looking forward to a winter in it.

We might think it'll be extremely cold.

So there's a great incentive to get ourselves into gear

and get into habitation.

Even though it'll probably only be half the house to start with,

if we've got running water, if we've got electricity,

if we've got a loo and a bedroom, that's cool, we'll live with that.

Let's just lift it up a bit and have a look at it.

Derek and Christine have been partners for 23 years

and each has two children from an earlier marriage.

Today, Derek's son Christopher is lending some muscle power.

Can you get that under there from there?

Work at the house is progressing well,

when there's staggering news from the council.

We've had an e-mail from planning,

which suggests that we've built the house in the wrong place.

It really is absolutely devastating.

There is no word to describe the depths that your feelings go to.

It's despair. It's, erm...

It's... We've worked on this project for a year and is it all to waste?

This dimension between the corner of the house and the pub

is less than was expected.

I think we're talking about half a metre to a metre.

The planning advisers that we've spoken to

tell us that, strictly speaking, in law,

a millimetre is enough to create a problem.

We have been advised to stop work on site.

Derek thinks lack of detail in the original plans,

showing the plot's shape and size, may be the root of the problem.

Christine is clear about her role.

I try and be as supportive as possible and try and be realistic

and say, "We will find a way forward.

"We had all the good times when things were going really well,

"this is just a bad time."

Derek is finding it harder to stay positive.

With the plot and the build together,

we reckon we're round about £220,000 in

and we just cannot afford to lose that.

There is no contingency in the world

that allows for complete dismantling and rebuild of a house.

If we can't resolve the problem, maybe we're doomed

to live in rented accommodation for the rest of our lives,

I just don't know.

The couple have submitted a brand-new planning application

to keep the house where it is but, with autumn approaching,

Derek is desperate to crack on - without waiting for formal approval.

Piers heads to the site,

determined to spell out the dangers of doing so.

This is the stuff of nightmares for self-builders.

Derek and Christine have built their house in the wrong place

and that's a really, really big deal.

And in planning, there are some things you can be cavalier about,

but building your house in the wrong place and being told then to stop,

I mean, that really is a big deal and you really don't mess with that.

-Hello?

-Oh, hiya. Hi.

-Hi, Christine.

-Hiya.

-How are you doing?

-Fine, thank you.

-Good to see again.

-Hi, Derek.

-Morning, Piers.

-How's things?

-Ah, good. Good, good.

-Yeah?

-We've been cautioned...

erm...

and we've taken the decision

that we've got to make some minimal progress.

So you're throwing caution to the wind?

We have been advised by the planning authority

that the new planning application we've made

is to regularise the process.

OK, yes, yes.

So, assuming that that passes, then this dispute disappears.

They've given you, informally,

-a sense that this is likely to gain approval now?

-Yes.

Piers is slightly reassured about the risk.

However, the new planning application was a chance

to introduce big improvements to the design at no extra cost,

and the couple haven't taken it.

Did you not think that you might use that period

-to rethink certain things?

-Not really.

Because the essence of our design we've revisited

and we're totally satisfied with.

You know, what I find surprising

is that everything that I come in and can see at a glance

is as ordinary as it can be.

I mean, it's an off-the-peg staircase

with an off-the-peg newel post

and off-the-peg doors and off-the-peg...

I mean, why would you do that?

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

-Because we are constrained by finance.

-No, you're not.

You're doing it as if a house-builder was doing it.

But you're doing a house for you that's your fantasy,

that's your dream, that's your life savings,

that you're going to grow old and adore,

and yet you're doing something

that the lowest common denominator house-builder would do.

-Maybe we adore, that is our dream, a bog-standard staircase.

-Maybe.

But, I mean, in which case, it's not a very fruitful conversation,

but one would think that you'd work out how, when you came in,

to make the most of a set of spaces.

And here all I can see is a staircase

that blocks me from actually seeing

the one bit of daylight in a room that's quite dark.

It's been clear from the outset, the dark kitchen is a big problem.

Piers has a final chance to persuade Derek and Christine

to do something about it.

I mean, you'd think that washing-up or cooking

or doing something with a sense of daylight or a view

would be one of life's fundamental things.

I mean, really, I know I'm pushing you quite hard

and I haven't come here to really...

Well, actually, I have come here to challenge you a bit!

-That's OK, that's fine.

-But I haven't come to sound off.

What I've come to do is really just try and understand

if there are ways, now that you can see the building around you,

that you could change things to make it better for you.

Yes.

What you could do is put a lovely low window here,

that did allow you to bring light in.

Right, if we're going to the bother of cutting a hole in that

and putting a window in, then I want a proper window that,

being a tall person, I can see out of.

Fantastic. Whether it stops there or whether it's there is up to you.

-I mean, that's...

-Right, right, yes.

-So we are in agreement on the window.

-I think so.

Good! Well, it's been a productive morning.

It seems like a breakthrough and Piers isn't done yet.

The couple rejected the idea of moving the kitchen,

but he thinks there's still scope

for a radical improvement of the upstairs,

if they'll take his advice.

-So the view does get better as you come up, doesn't it?

-It's beautiful.

Oh, it's beautiful. It's what we bought the plot for.

You've decided not to connect these two spaces at all?

No, because it's not the kitchen.

But the way that this nice room...

-Yes?

-..connects with that room, that big opening,

you'd think you could think about just doing more with.

I mean, I wonder whether, for example...

I mean, this wall, it's so...

I'm going to use the word literal, it's so literal.

Whatever you do to this now, whatever you put on it,

-it will still just be a wall.

-No, no, no. No, no, not at all.

One of the possibilities that we're considering

is going to an architectural scrapyard

and getting some leaded glass or something of that sort.

But I would argue that that makes little difference.

I mean, why wouldn't you take it out, take the whole thing out,

and then not have a standard door in?

Have one beautiful bit,

you know, a whole beautiful wall from here to here,

from here to there of this stained-glass etc, etc, etc.

Because it would be beautiful,

but it would also allow the light to come through.

It would allow all of these spaces to feel big, feel generous.

Yes, certainly I'm liking that idea

of not having that as a conventional partition wall

and making it a feature.

Could you run it right the way down, so it became the balustrade,

and that was a beautiful triangle of stained glass

that came up into a wall of stained glass?

So the whole thing in the middle of the house was this beautiful wall.

Piers is reiterating his idea

that Derek and Christine replace the plasterboard wall

with a subtle partition.

However, he's now taking it a step further

by suggesting a combined glass partition and balustrade

that could be an integrated, striking feature

at the heart of the house.

The upstairs room would be improved

and the balustrade would allow light

to flood the stairs and kitchen-diner,

which are currently dark.

There's technical reservations and difficulties to overcome,

but I like what we're trying to achieve,

I like where we're trying to point.

I thought the idea

with the potential glass balustrade in and that wall,

I think could be absolutely stunning.

Four months after Derek and Christine were advised

to stop work on their house, there's a crucial development.

The big news is that we have planning permission.

This is it, we can go

and we have gone and we've ordered all sorts of things

and the building is progressing very quickly.

Getting the green light

to continue building the house in the same position is a relief,

but the 17-week delay has serious consequences.

We constructed the main body of the house in sort of late spring,

with a view to doing most of the build during summer,

with extended evenings and warm weather.

And we're now forced to do the same thing with a short working day,

with cold, with frost, with damp and rain.

The changing weather is also making life in the caravan harder to bear.

It's the damp. Everywhere is damp.

I always feel that, when you put your clothes on,

they feel slightly damp to me.

Now it's getting a bit colder, I've attempted double glazing.

I just ripped up an old plastic sheet from the building site

and I've tried to stick it.

Weatherproofing is also the most critical job at the house.

It's suffering in the rain.

There have been times when we've been lying awake in the caravan

at three o'clock in the morning listening to the rain, thinking,

"What's happening at the house?

"Are our possessions getting soaked through?"

So far, 65K of the 95K budget has gone,

including £8,000 worth of windows and doors.

To economise, Derek's fitting them himself,

with help from Christine's son Greg.

It would have helped if it wasn't raining,

but I guess what we're doing is trying to stop the rain coming in,

so maybe, as we progress, we can test the theory.

-Now, are you OK with that?

-Yeah, I'm worried about you, though.

Don't worry about me.

It's backbreaking work.

At the end of a hard day, Derek's goal of a basic house fit to live in

is one step closer.

The front door...is now locked.

There's a good chance, within the next 24, 48 hours,

we'll be properly watertight and secure

and that's a long way towards what a house is.

What is a house?

A house is somewhere that's watertight and secure.

So, you know, we're nearly there.

Derek and Christine's focus

on getting into their house is understandable,

but as they've already ruled out an upside-down layout,

I fear they could plod on with their original plans

and miss opportunities to make it uniquely theirs.

They loved Piers' idea of a combined glass partition and balustrade,

but haven't made any decision on how to incorporate it.

I'm going to show them something I hope will inspire them to get going.

You've been thinking about coloured glass, haven't you?

Yeah, that's an option, certainly. It brings light through

and we think the colours could add something to it.

Have you got any specific ideas of what you want that to be, you know?

Not at the moment, but looking for inspiration.

This London showroom

is a collaboration between graphic designer Peter Saville

and architect David Adjaye.

So, come in.

This is what I wanted to show you.

-This is a showroom for a Danish fabric manufacturer...

-Right.

..who make very beautiful, like, coloured fabrics.

So colour is very important to them.

Christine, what you make of these colours, because it's quite a simple

selection of colours, in one way, isn't it?

I think they're beautiful colours. They're like jewel colours.

Especially with the light in them, glowing.

I think it works beautifully in this big space.

I'm not sure about in a smaller space.

How does that compare with the kinds of ideas you've had so far?

It's totally different and it's interesting and refreshing.

And the idea of three or four single panes, one colour each pane,

there's less work involved, there's less construction involved,

it could be a simpler, therefore cheaper, way of doing it.

Derek, I like how you recognise that one great thing about minimalism

is it can be cheap!

This project reimagines a staircase

as something that allows light through a building,

rather than blocking it.

The same principle applies to using translucent furniture,

such as tables and chairs.

You certainly get the full effect of the colours as you walk down.

It's lovely here, isn't it,

when you see the kind of doubles of reflections

-and your own reflection in the colour?

-Yeah.

Everything else about it is very, very simple.

Solid, light wood floor,

simple steel handrail and a steel trim at the top.

You know, this glass is not going to be cheap,

but I think, as you said Derek,

a similar effect with panels of colour is achievable.

This is obviously an old building.

It's an old warehouse that has been converted,

but this very modern idea does marry very well with the old building,

and it's a bit like our house.

From the outside it is, it's not an old building,

but it's a traditional building,

and we're trying to do something a bit contemporary inside.

Having these kinds of ideas

-might just be the thing that makes your interior really special.

-Yes.

I think the difficulty now is going back home

and translating this into reality, discussing the price.

Both of which are serious impingements on any idea.

But the idea of filtering different colours into the bedroom is superb

and it would be very nice

to be able to translate it into reality, if we can.

This staircase cost around £170,000.

Our visit seems to have inspired Derek and Christine,

but the challenge now is to help them create an affordable version

for their house.

That's where Piers' ingenuity with low-cost solutions comes into play.

And he thinks the answer is in a bus breakers' yard in Barnsley.

Coming here may be, initially, a bit of a let-down

but, actually, this is a treasure trove of incredible stuff,

really good-quality stuff that can be reused,

repurposed into something truly spectacular.

Well, as you've seen,

Kieran gets to take you to these amazing, glamorous places,

whereas I get to take you to a breakers' yard.

-This is where buses come to die?

-It is, absolutely.

In theory, they've reached the end of their life,

but everything gets repurposed and reused,

and finding something here that we can make your glass wall out of

could be amazing.

-Let's go and have a scavenge.

-Right.

So, as you can see, this is a bus that's been already stripped

and this is just sheet aluminium that gets taken off

and will get recycled

and, critically, all the glass comes out of it.

Good-quality, low-cost glass.

-Yeah.

-Right.

Jeff Ripley runs the breakers' yard.

Tell me about this.

-I mean, this is toughened or laminated?

-That's toughened, that.

You get your kite mark on these, if you see down here, look.

-And because it's toughened, we can't cut it.

-No, you can't, no.

And what would a piece like that cost?

Roughly it would cost you about £25.

At that price, a large glass feature

is infinitely more affordable than buying a bespoke system,

though it's vital to check it complies with building regulations

and it will take a bit of work.

-There is quite a lot that you would need to do to this.

-Yes.

Otherwise, it will just look like a bus window.

So I think the colour and the tinting of it

is something we can play with,

but also the method of fixing so that it does become a wall,

not a loose piece of glass.

Piers wants to help Derek and Christine visualise a glass wall

by making a quick mock-up.

So if you imagine this is your wall stud work

or this is vertical timber, when it's laid up,

-what we'll actually do is lay the glass on top of this.

-Right.

So they still look like old bus windscreens at the moment.

It certainly does and I'm very interested to see

how you can prettify this into a work of art.

In these boxes...

-Right.

-..I've got some stained-glass film.

And this comes in all sorts of different colours.

I mean, this is one size but, again,

you can get it in all sorts of different sizes.

This starts at about five quid a sheet.

So you could go from, say, a deep mustard,

to a sunshine yellow,

-to a primrose? You could, if you wanted?

-Absolutely.

Or you could go from something that was relatively opaque,

down to something that was completely translucent

-and transparent...

-Right.

-Yeah.

-..which would be interesting.

What do you reckon, Christine?

I think it's got potential.

THEY LAUGH

Before you have my judgment, let's see the finished item.

With your imagination, you could run riot with these, couldn't you?

-Oh, absolutely.

-You could have all sorts of designs.

Yeah, yeah. One, two, three...

Keep going, keep going.

Oh, very nice, yes.

So let's stand back, see how it looks. It's great.

-Yeah, get the full effect.

-Yeah.

Or hide the imperfections.

-Whatever.

-I think it's great, I love it.

It's so not three bus windscreens, is it?

No, it's been transformed.

And you could do so many things with those colours.

-We've just had a very basic...

-Absolutely.

I think, looking from the example the other day,

I was quite taken with the very light pastel colours

and I think there's room for experimentation.

But it doesn't matter, you're demonstrating a principle today,

which we can take forward.

Ten months into the build,

Derek and Christine are struggling to finish their interior.

The 95K budget is all gone

and extra spending will eat into savings

earmarked for enjoying retirement.

You think some coving?

Interior finishes can run into tens of thousands of pounds,

but the couple will have to manage on a shoestring

and find a way to make them look stylish,

when combined with all their existing possessions.

Maybe a plastic finish, I don't know.

It's a tall order, so I've brought them to a home

that could have valuable lessons for them.

What we're going to see today is a house

that feels a bit like it's been evolved over time,

lots of very personal possessions, lots of rich materials,

not your typical minimal-designed, architect-designed interior.

I'm hoping you're going to pick up

on some of the warmth and cosiness of that

and maybe it'll give you some ideas.

-This sounds like a really homely home.

-Sounds good.

-That's what I'm hoping you're going to like.

-Let's go and see it, yeah.

This is the London home of Swedish interior designer Lotta Cole,

who effortlessly blends old and new, plain and patterned.

Well, what a beautiful big room.

-Lovely, isn't it?

-It is. It's lovely.

The full width of the house up here.

Oh, look! Oh, look!

Oh, there's a surprise.

-Oh, wow.

-Right.

Really luxurious, generous bathroom, isn't it?

They must really love their baths.

I think this room is really calm, really beautiful.

But I think one of the things that's interesting

is there's still a lot of different things in here.

We've got early modern furniture, which is clearly Swedish,

you know, the designer's Swedish, you see that atmosphere here.

-We've got almost kind of Moorish, North African style.

-Moroccan.

You could say this is quite eclectic, but still very calm.

Yes, but overall, it's the cool colours in here.

Yes, they're all cool colours.

Mixing styles can look chaotic,

but by keeping walls, floors and window-dressing simple,

interesting items can take centre stage

without it all feeling overwhelming.

What about for you, Derek?

Do you think there's anything here you can learn from or take?

That diagonal board behind the bed,

perhaps that's something we could incorporate.

In a living room, an eclectic mix of possessions against dark walls

can be used for a cosy effect.

Oh, wow...!

That was a good reaction, Christine.

-Lovely.

-Yeah.

So I can see the smile on your face.

Christine, tell me what you think of this space.

There's so much to take in, that's my first impression.

It will take a long time to have a look at everything.

This is the classic trick of grouping a collection,

while adding splashes of colour against a dark backdrop

encourages the eye to travel from one item to the next.

The colours are rather beautiful in here, isn't it?

-This deep blue and this deep red.

-It is. It is.

But to me, because it's quite a small room

and it's quite a dark room,

I find this colour quite oppressive, to me.

-This is more your style?

-Yes, yes.

You were talking in there about darkness and you didn't like that.

-This is the absolute opposite.

-Absolutely, yes.

-Flooded with light, white, beautiful colours.

-Yes.

The kitchen-diner is a great example for Derek and Christine

of combining treasured old possessions in a modern room.

Lots of battered old items together can create a junk shop effect,

but if selected shabby pieces are contrasted with sleek modern lines,

the results are great.

So I wanted to just explore a bit around here,

because there's a lot of detail here which is quite charming, isn't it?

Oh, it is. It's lovely.

-First of all, these really quirky door handles.

-Absolutely lovely.

I love the door handles.

-And I think some of these things are quite cheap and basic.

-Oh, yeah.

But they have dressed up to look different and expensive.

Now, I can't believe that these fronts are expensive.

And I tell you what else I like about these spoons and forks,

that they don't match, they're all different, they're all different.

That's really nice that, because it's kind of controlled chaos.

-It is. It's thought-about chaos.

-Absolutely.

Shall we just have a seat,

because I want to talk about this beautiful table?

-It is. This lovely bespoke table.

-It's really nice, isn't it?

You'll just see these faint circular shadows here.

These were shelves in a cheese-making factory.

And so the rounds of cheese would have stood here.

And they sort of contain that history now, these pieces of timber.

The legs are 40 quid from architectural salvage.

So, you know, this is a super cheap piece of furniture,

but it's got loads of character and loads of history.

It's our style. It's very much us.

And it's cheap, which is also very much us!

It's now 14 months

since the frame of Derek and Christine's house went up

and the project has taken almost twice as long as expected.

Derek is exhausted

and finding it increasingly hard to get things done.

Despite that,

he's working on two pieces inspired by the visit to Lotta Cole's house.

This table is made principally from these iron supports.

They were bought on the internet

and we've joined them together with scaffold boards.

And with that we have a very nice dining table

that cost us, in total, the princely sum of, oh, about £100, £110,

something like that.

Derek's also hard at work creating a bench seat.

We were very taken with the idea of the seat

which was done with diagonal panelling, the same as this.

All it takes is surplus timber from the build

and around £25 worth of tongue-and-groove panelling.

Christine's created a seat cushion from foam and a fabric remnant,

keeping additional costs negligible.

There we are.

We'll just run a bit of skirting board around that tomorrow

and that will just finish it off nicely.

We've followed Derek and Christine's progress for nearly two years,

through good times and bad.

Now Piers and I are back, to find out what the couple have achieved.

Derek and Christine dreamt

of moving to the south of England for their retirement

and the only way to achieve that

was to plough their life savings into a self-build.

We've tried our best to steer them away

from the ordinary and the standard and help them build a home

that reflects them and the way they want to live

and makes the most of their £95,000 budget.

I genuinely don't know what to expect today,

because it's been such a hard road

and I really pushed Derek and Christine

and, at times, I really felt upset

and quite challenged by this whole process.

And actually, I should be really detached.

So it could be a real dog's dinner or it could be great,

and there's no way of knowing until I go inside.

-Here we are.

-Hi, Derek. Hi, Christine.

-Hello again.

-Nice to see you.

So it's an amazing feeling for me to be standing here

with this pristine new house. How do you feel to have finished it?

Well, if it's amazing for you, it's wonderful for us!

The exterior of the house is in good shape, unlike Derek,

who's got a bad back.

We're just immensely proud and glad that we've got

sort of almost to the end and very proud of what we've achieved.

I can't wait to see it, Christine. Can we take a look.

Certainly, come and look. Can't wait to show you.

Having rejected Piers' idea of an upside-down house,

the couple were on track for a dark, pokey kitchen.

So this is it. What a great space.

But thanks to Piers' nagging,

they finally added a window that's transformed it.

I've got to commend you on this window

because, of course, it looks great

and the light that comes in is fantastic.

-Will you admit that window's a good idea?

-It's worked incredibly well.

Particularly now, as the sun is coming round due south

and it floods in through those two windows. I think it's beautiful.

The couple have injected fun and originality to the kitchen

by buying the cheapest kitchen units they could find,

then having them sprayed at a car body shop for just £550.

The high-gloss metallic finish has another big plus...

I'm so pleased that you've done these cupboards,

because the point of them is to reflect

a lovely warm, glowing light back into this kitchen

and they do that, don't they?

The window's a real success story.

Piers' next big suggestion

was to create a floor-to-ceiling wall of recycled coloured glass.

We've incorporated glass, as you desired.

Safety fittings, like a handrail, have yet to be installed,

and Derek's glass may be plain, not coloured,

but light from upstairs is flooding into the kitchen-diner.

However, Piers hoped for more.

I thought we were talking about this wall.

You're selling piece for that idea

was to let more light into the bedroom.

And we spent some considerable time

sitting up in bed looking at different angles,

sitting on the settee looking at different angles,

and deciding that your idea actually didn't add any extra light.

If you sit in the bed now and look out,

you can see out of both windows without using your idea.

We will have to agree to disagree.

The ground floor works better than expected,

thanks to the extra sources of daylight.

But Piers and I couldn't persuade Derek and Christine

to take the big step of creating a flexible living space upstairs.

Piers wants to explore why.

You know, in a modern house that you can build from scratch,

you could have big spaces, lots of light

-and rethink the configuration.

-Yes.

And however good this house is, it feels quite conventional.

Smallish rooms, all linked by staircases or doors,

and small doors out onto a garden.

Why is it so conventional?

We had endless discussions between ourselves,

as to how big the rooms could go to maintain that budget.

Hang on there. What's interesting about contemporary architecture

is that you don't need to have rooms

and the notion of rooms

is a fairly traditional way of looking at a set of spaces,

and it's an inherited model of building,

based around only heating small spaces

and based around construction techniques.

But when you can do anything,

you can have any configuration of spaces in the world,

you end up with something that has rooms

and the familiar language of a conventional house.

I like rooms. You made this point before, but I like rooms.

I like the fact that Derek can go in that room,

shut the door and I haven't got to listen to his horrible music.

The ground floor has remained

as Derek and Christine originally planned it,

with the two guest bedrooms doubling as a study for Derek

and a sewing room for Christine

and they're pleased with the results.

Regardless of the architectural anaesthetics,

this suits our lifestyle.

Derek and Christine didn't go

for some of the big ideas we showed them,

but the furniture designs they took on have worked out beautifully.

Upstairs, the master bedroom is light and cheerful.

The living room, with its double aspect and stunning view,

is exactly what Christine and Derek planned.

It's always bright, it's always inviting

and that is beyond price.

But it doesn't look like the modern interior

they said they were aiming for.

I think it's really interesting

that you've made this room the way you have,

because you've created a wholly new house, from scratch,

and this room, basically everything in it

could have been any time from the last 40 years.

Like this is the eternal British living room,

with a floral sofa and magnolia walls

and Anaglypta ceiling and all of that in a brand-new house.

And there's something about it, for me,

the key to which are these photos.

Because I look at this gallery and think,

"This is really what you care about."

You want this to be cosy and nice, you want to have a nice view,

but these are the things you're creating a stage for,

which is your social lives, your memories, all of those things.

And this house is going to work like that.

It's probably the room that's most familiar

to people watching this right now.

It is reproduced constantly.

That means it's what people want.

The living room may be different from what Piers and I imagined,

but the balcony is exactly as planned.

So this is the real payoff, isn't it?

I mean, this lovely terrace.

-Is it working the way you hoped?

-Oh, absolutely.

This was an absolutely integral, non-negotiable part of the design.

I am glad that we had this glass.

It's something modern on an otherwise traditional building.

And it means you get the view, no matter where you sit in the room.

Actually, this is a house that has generous spaces,

there's lots of light,

it's full of things like this, that are unconventional,

and this is a really low-cost house,

and that's really unexpected.

And you knew what you were talking about all along!

THEY ALL LAUGH

Derek, I can see where the money's gone, on your hot tub. Absolutely.

It's very important to us to be able to relax at the end of the day.

-Absolutely.

-Hot tub aside, though, I like that you,

unlike many people who do low-cost houses,

have thought about how the house meets the garden.

Derek and Christine have created a useful extension

to the kitchen-diner with a generous deck that's great for entertaining.

Fear of overspending was one of the key reasons

the couple rejected big changes during their build.

So how have the finances worked out?

You originally said you had a budget of 95,000 for this build.

How much have you spent, to date?

We've done it for 108,000.

And that 108,000 includes everything.

But did you have a contingency? How have you handled that?

We hoped we'd have quite a lot of holidays.

-Now we'll only have a few holidays!

-Right.

Was there any big-ticket item that blew the budget

or was it just a cumulative thing?

It was an extra couple of thousand on the foundations,

delays in planning,

we had scaffolding up around the house

and we were paying rental on the scaffolding.

That's an unforeseen cost and it was really out of our control.

But whatever, within 10% of our start budget,

I'm quite happy with that.

Throughout the build,

Piers hasn't pulled his punches.

So is Derek feeling bruised?

It is important to test your comfort zones.

And actually, just to explore alternative ways of doing things,

even if you come back to build something that you're familiar with.

We always wanted challenging, and you've done that.

And, OK, we haven't accepted all your ideas, but it's been good fun.

Has it taken a lot out of you, building this?

Yes.

Undoubtedly.

It's difficult, but it's great fun.

It's a damn good challenge and it's well worth it.

Remarkably, Derek and Christine have achieved their dream

of a house in the south of England for a build cost of just £108,000.

As they finally enjoy the fruits of their labours,

Piers and I still have a lot to dwell on.

What's important about this build

is it challenges people like Piers and I

to think about what design is really for.

There's no way that this building is ever going to win any design awards,

but it's about Derek and Christine creating a lifestyle for themselves.

And this building is all about enabling that.

For their retirement, they want to be sociable,

they want to enjoy themselves

and this is a building tuned to all of those purposes.

So I think they've done this with bravery and energy

and it's a great testament to their own vision.

Next time...

Jason and Riikka attempt to build a low-cost home

with high ambition.

I thought the house we were building had a lot of glass.

-But, wow...

-This is all glass, isn't it?

But is theirs even possible for 100K?

If I saw these drawings, I would say that this would be about 450 grand.

But will Jason's obsession with detail...

Two, three.

It has to be millimetre perfect.

..be his downfall?

I just can't believe this.