Grand Designs: 25 Years & Counting – people enduring hell for a slightly nicer house? It’s TV made in heaven

14 comments

1. The best bit about grand designs are the insane jobs people do, yet have seemingly unlimited budgets.

   How do you have a 2 million pound budget when you sell clothes you weaved from goat wool, Frances?

2. I’ve watched Grand Designs with you. That smile when some eco-glass gets delayed on its way from Antwerp and the nice couple gets pushed over budget. That’s the real you.

3. Always love the usual arc:

   * Fairly well off person has idea for wacky house in the middle of nowhere.
   * Goes almost bankrupt financing house.
   * House nearly falls down due to a fundamental mistake.
   * Girlfriend / wife gets pregnant.
   * They live in house for six months and then spend the rest of their life trying to sell it as not baby friendly.

4. “we’ve decided to make it harder by firing the project manager and knocking up the wife”

5. That episode were the guy decided to build a mansion on the edge of a cliff and his wife later divorced him. And the house is still struggling to be sold off 5 yrs later. Peak TV 👌

6. [🎼 Grand Designs, Grand Designs](https://youtu.be/GKxO57g8kAI?si=AY31FX0SM4idyB4m)

7. Weren’t shows like these part of a reason the 2008 financial crash because people were buying houses to renovate and resell for profit?

8. Anyone else think it was odd how the wives/partners would very often fall pregnant after Kevin visited?

9. The funniest thing about grand designs is when Kevin revisits old houses to see how the couple are getting on and it’s astonishing how ugly and dated all of these houses have become in such a short amount of time.

10. I was raving to my colleague about an episode which didn’t follow the usual ark, in that the whole project was an unmitigated clusterfuck without the usual redemption at the end. (It’s the cliffside one if you’re a fan.) The owner made some *very* bad decisions, especially towards the end.

    Colleague told me he started watching on my recommendation, but wandered off leaving his wife watching. Half an hour later he heard her shouting “YOU IDIOT” at the TV.

11. Where does Kevin disappear off to at the end of every episode?!

12. “On tonight’s program we have David and Joanne, who plan to build an eco friendly family home suspended from the face of the White Cliffs of Dover.

    Their ambitious new home will be constructed entirely out of Unicorn Resin, insulated with Dodo feathers, and clad in Norwegian Dragon Scales.

    David teaches squirrels to tap dance and Joanne works part time popping bubbles in an aquarium. Their budget is £2.5 million.”

13. “materials”

    Every house looks like a clinic, sharp edges a must particularly with toddlers around.

    Apart from the house that guy built in the cave and the old lighthouse building.

14. The one near me is still surrounded by a high multi coloured 10 foot wall to keep out nosey people, on a main road next to a shell garage. And no one in the area could afford or want to live there.