Here are some of the biggest mistakes that people make on Grand Designs, according to its host Kevin McCloud.
The Channel 4 show returns to the small screen on Wednesday for a special episode commemorating 25 years and a brand new series. It is a show that still resonates with audiences now as much as when it first started, with viewers at home getting invested in each of projects. Over the years, people on the show have faced a number of hurdles along the way while building their homes and there have been some very memorable Grand Designs journeys.
We see McCloud getting involved with the projects and trying to offer some much needed advice to people building their dream homes on camera. Some of the host’s meddling does end up on the editing floor too.
“I do a lot of that on camera,” he previously told Yahoo in an interview in December. “But some of it just doesn’t make the cut because I’m not seen to be meddling. Off camera, I meddle a great deal… Or I’ll tell people that what they’re doing is really not up to par and that they should really speak to another firm or just point them in the direction of a spreadsheet or a supplier or some help because people need it.”
So what are some of the biggest mistakes people make on Grand Designs?
Read more
Grand Designs’ most memorable projects
What we know about Grand Designs’ 25th anniversary series
Don’t do it
McCloud previously joked people should not embark on huge projects to build their ideal homes, hinting at some of the disasters that befall some of the ambitious people on the Channel 4 show. Asked about what are the biggest mistakes, he previously joked: “The biggest negative piece of advice I can possibly give anybody is just don’t do it.”
In all seriousness, disasters do unfold in front of McCloud’s eyes on Grand Designs – shocking people watching from the comfort of their own homes. The most notable example is the lighthouse which has been dubbed the “saddest” Grand Designs in the whole 25-year series.
It was a magnificent vision but Edward Short lost his marriage and faced money woes when he refused to give up on his dream of building a lighthouse on the dramatic clifftop of North Devon coastline. After all of the heartache and 11 years, it is finished and on the market waiting to bag a buyer but it always courts interest.
McCloud told House Beautiful in May: “He’s had a couple of celebrities and I think he’s had a comedian or two, because it is quite an expensive house, and so consequently for people who are interested, they need to make loads of money, and that includes actors and performers and singers.
“Last time I met Ed he was sort of close to a deal, so that’s all I know. It’s a fabulous story. A story of hubris and over-reaching and destruction really, of things, of personal life, turned into a sort of story about redemption and growth, so it was an amazing thing. People called it the last ever Grand Designs, as if that was it, we were going to go out on a low.”
Hope, the host said, has always spurred people on – even when they face the greatest of hardships. “You can’t show people the future, you can only warn them,” he previously told Yahoo. “Even in the worst situations, Edward Short – who borrowed millions to finish his lighthouse that he is still trying to sell in Devon – even at his worst moment, he was still full of hope and that’s the most amazing thing to discover the energy that human beings have… Goodness me, they become superhuman.”
Houses that are too big
It is no big secret to any fan of Grand Designs that McCloud warns people from being too ambitious and building houses too big. He previously told Yahoo: “I often say to people you could have made this house two thirds the size and you wouldn’t have noticed in the house of shrunk overnight to be two thirds the size it is, you would not even notice.”
The presenter has good reasoning for this. He explained: “I think that’s a terrible waste of resources and time and money and everything. I think just trying to be doing too much is what we’re all guilty of it. We buy too much food. We over plan. We over want, we over reach, I think that’s a difficulty. But then if we didn’t do that we’d all be living in holes in the ground.”
The TV host called it his “biggest bugbear” in a new interview too. He also told The Radio Times recently: “My biggest bugbear is things being too big. Most houses could shrink overnight by a third, and the occupants would never notice.”
Too many toilets
Another sticking point when it comes to the Grand Design builds for McCloud are a house with more toilets than people who are going to be living in the house. He added to The Radio Times. “Number two? Houses with more toilets than physical occupants. Why do people judge the status of a house by how many toilets you can offer your guests? It’s absurd.”
