Challenges of Reclaimed Design - Build A New Life in the Country - S05 EP8 - Real Estate

rebecca and jim constantine and their four  children have moved to the buckinghamshire   village where rebecca grew up they bought a 60s  bungalow on a plot of land and demolished it to   make way for something bigger i'm not quite  sure if it's absolutely disgusting or really   quite nice rebecca sourced tons of reclaimed  building materials to construct her dream home   oh my god but could it turn into  an expensive house of horrors   stressful and it's hard work i think anybody  who was thinking of doing the same thing   you know you need to think quite  carefully about what you're doing now i've met a lot of people  very passionate about buildings   but the people i'm about to  meet are something of a first   because they've designed their entire  house around a reclaimed georgian staircase 34 year old housewife rebecca and 38 year  old financial investigator jim and their   four young children have moved from a cramped  three-bedroom flat in wimbledon south west london   80 miles away to the rural buckinghamshire village  of sherington where rebecca was born [Music]   they're already embracing country life and  keeping pigs and last september they started   to build their house on the two acre plot  they bought on the edge of the village [Music]   when you were living in london did you ever  imagine yourselves out here with pigs and   chickens and all of that stuff no not at all not  when we first met i mean we you know we kind of   get to these points don't we you sort of look back  and you think well i guess it must have been the   right thing to do although we nearly bottled it  a couple of times to be honest with you but we   took the plunge and uh you know we're here now  so i guess it was the right decision was it very   much always part of the dream was to build your  own home yeah definitely yeah yeah my you know   my dad was a builder and always wanted to build  a house and and especially now really wanted to   sort of carry on what he'd done rebecca's father  was killed in a motorbike accident five years ago   as soon as she got the news of his death she moved  back home to be near her mother but rebecca jim   and the family have outgrown her mum's house and  so six months ago they started to build their own   the central feature of the house is  a 300 year old cantilevered staircase   that cost three thousand pounds you've actually  designed your entire house around a staircase yes   well it was the first thing we found we being me  um did you see it in situ in the previous house no   we saw it very green in a reclaimed yard yeah  an awful lot i've been sat there for seven years   there's a lot of stuff there and this was just  piled on pallets the treads i love i love the fact   you can see where people have been up and down  yeah i'm really really pleased with the staircase rebecca designed the georgian style house  herself and got an architect to draw up the plans   upstairs the property will have  five bedrooms three with ensuite   and one family bathroom a galleried landing  around the reclaimed feature staircase   allows light to flood down to the  ground floor where there's a dining room   and an office at the back of the house  is a drawing room with a reclaimed fireplace a glass link will connect the house  to the kitchen living room that the family call   the barn it's a single story building with  a floor space of nearly 100 square meters   the oak trusses that support the roof will all be  exposed to create a lovely vaulted ceiling [Music]   this is the uh what we call the barn right this  is our main living space really one space one   complete room i mean this is the size of my entire  house um i'm dreading hoovering it because i don't   think my flex will reach from one end to the other  but i was trying to think if i plugged it in the   middle whether i'd be able to do both things but  i still don't think i can and continuing rebecca's   unorthodox approach to building a house the barn  has been designed around three reclaimed doors   that came from a french vineyard wow look at  those they're enormous oh they're beautiful oh wow i love the shape really nice shape  on them how much were they out of interest   um i think we paid out two thousand pound for all  three three pairs of doors for two grand they're   lovely thank you but the doors and staircase are  just the tip of the iceberg rebecca has spent the   last few years collecting reclaimed materials to  use in the construction so where did you get all   this stuff from mostly it's all come from france  and literally all over france all the clay tiles   came with barns in champaign had some railings  there from down the bottom side of france towards   the south i've got some lovely old gates from  up in normandy you've got three contain four   containers what's in those most of the floorings  in the containers here and then with black space   in people's barns and everything around the  village so there's more than this lot yeah   and this is not it not really so what's in here  the flooring's in here well most of it is anyway   as you can see there's a fair bit have you got  any idea how much work laying that lot's gonna be   i don't know i'm trying not to think about it too  much i have laid quite a lot of flooring before   but nothing like this and not reclaim flooring  either which is a completely different ball game   i mean how much of of this is kind of becky's idea  and then you're just sort of left picking up the   pieces you may well ask we honestly couldn't  afford to put all new flooring of this kind   of quality in there and reclaim is a way around  that lovely stuff too a lot of work a lot of work rebecca and jim will be project managing  the build together even though jim commutes   to london during the week they hope to  move in at the end of summer until then   the family are living in two large static caravans  on site how much money do you think you've managed   to save with your extraordinary shopping abilities  the builders told my mum i'd saved a hundred grand   to be honest if we hadn't have done it this way  we wouldn't been able to build what we're building   out there so we had to save money you know as we  could ultimately we're probably trying to build   something that we probably shouldn't be trying to  build because we're not in that bracket but we're   trying to do it for us for the children trying to  build the biggest and the best we can for us now   the plot costs him 420 000 pounds and the budget  for the build is 350 000 the overall cost of 770   000 pounds will be found from the combination of  a mortgage and personal savings building such a   massive house on a very tight three hundred and  fifty thousand pound budget is going to be really   tough but my biggest concern is the reclaimed  materials because until they start restoring   them and fitting them together i don't think they  can really have any idea how long that is going to   take so i just hope they've got understanding  builders or deep pockets or preferably both rebecca and jim constantine and their family of  four have moved back to the village of sherington   in rural buckinghamshire to be near rebecca's  mother it's wonderful that they've come back and   they're enjoying all the things that i enjoyed  as a child and her grandmother and her great   grandmother and her great-grandmother before  her their ambitious 505th square meter georgian   style new build has been underway for seven months  it's being built to rebecca's exacting standards   so how deep is that it's roughly about five inches  i know nicotine i do have a symmetry problem but   um so i just wanted to be right really for us and  to look right at the end is quite important to me   the current focus of the build is the  huge kitchen at the back of the house   that the family call the barn today we are raising  the roof on the bar which is really exciting   um in the barn it's all going to be an oat truss  roof so finally going on the principal contractor   john and his team of three are working closely  with rebecca to make her quirky vision a reality   that they wanted is to have a this kitchen part  the part i think they're mainly going to live in   to look really oldy wildy so we've  made these all on the site out of um   it's dried oak it's an unusual job to have really  nowadays it's all trust is like the main house so   it's a nice change to be able to do this it's  quite exciting actually because it's finally   all taking shape and you feel like you've  spent your money on a house rather than a few   walls if you like one of rebecca's  more unusual finds are some tin window   frames originally part of the grand  architecture of baroque france [Music]   she's having three of them on her kitchen we've  gotta somehow fit this to the roof we're doing   and we don't know how yet john has to work  out what to build to accommodate the frames   that he affectionately calls herman munster  windows whatever possess him to buy these   he also has to arrange some repairs we've all  got to be made waterproof before we put them up   and then the new lid and that dress  around it to make the water tight [Music]   the next job on the house is tiling rebecca's  found enough tiles for the roof but they've   come from three different french properties  it's jim and six-year-old son harry's job   to sort them out some of them are slightly  different so to create the best effect   we're mixing the tiles so that when they go up all  being well it'll look like one complete picture as   opposed to sort of different patches of different  colors [Music] rebecca's constantly scouring the   internet for bargains to incorporate into the  house deliveries are a weekly occurrence today   more parquet flooring is arriving from paris it's  heavy it's just me i don't know it's too heavy i'll get it squirreled away as you do with 20  sacks of flooring she has so much reclaimed   building material that some has to be stored  in neighbors garages some windows we bought   there a thousand pound for the ten and then  here and all over here there are 70 doors   most normal people don't want 70 doors i did and  so i didn't know about 250 euros for the whole lot   and we will probably use only about 10 of them but  it's still cheaper than making one door [Music]   all the tars have been sorted and now the main  part of the house is nearly watertight [Music]   it looks really authentic to me i'm  sure people will walk past going   isn't that meant to be new but um the house  has really started to take shape [Music]   jim sets off for work in london at 5 30 every day  leaving rebecca with the children good morning how   do you feel poor charlie you're not well don't  worry we'll sort you out hello mom you're right   having her mum just down the road has its  advantages my mum is invaluable and god she   comes up every morning bless her and she's been  having chemo she gets her makeup on she's here   sort of eight on the dot and she just she really  helps with that sort of awful hour between eight   and nine she um she'll take the children down to  school if she's feeling well and everything enough   for nanny nanny enough for yes it's wonderful  for me that rebecca and jim have ended up back   in sharington even though the circumstances in  which they decided to was very sad at the time   she moved um in with me on the day her father got  killed which was um a very sad time for all of us   that's a good boy i just love them being here two  three four there's another one there look fine the project is more than a family  home rebecca wants to build a legacy   just had a good thing yesterday  i was just hoping that building   something good for my dad really because  i want it to be what he'd like as well i can coming in you can drive in because a  big truck and uh not possible rebecca's got   yet another delivery and it's one she's hoping to  keep secret from husband jim i'm just gonna stash   a few lights away before he gets home i think  he's coming home at lunchtime today so it could   be a bit hit and miss we've gone now they're out  in the street this is what's more embarrassing   i was like the whole village to see what i bought  something like unloading in the streets [Music] if i have a weakness nowadays it's lights so this  one is the best one so yeah so i'll clean it all   up and i'll sparkly and it'll go my new pad  and i'm absolutely over the moon and if times   get really hard let's sell it yeah she's always  saying to me let me go on the internet mum and   get your lights i know you won't let me have the  light i have that but i've got some more coming but rebecca's constant bargain  hunting and use of reclaimed materials   is starting to have an impact on the cost  and schedule of the build the whole structure   of the kitchen is having to be adapted to  accommodate the massive wooden barn doors   the builders said if we put them on as they were  on hinges they'd peel the brickwork off as we open   them so we've had to have some steel frames  made to sit them in so that's cost us about   four and a half grand i think to do that  so the doors have got slightly expensive   another one of rebecca's purchases arrives twelve  thousand bricks that will eventually cloud the   barn and sides of the house basically we've got  lorry load of bricks which have been flown in   today which we didn't expect so it's a mad panic  unloading because of the awkwardness of the road   and then hopefully use them  straight away [Applause] i think the building will change a lot  in the next few weeks and it'll fly up   once this brickwork goes up things should happen  quite quickly the kids absolutely love it i mean   they love they love that we're building they love  the fact there's people here all the time [Music]   the central feature of the house is the  reclaimed grand staircase but it has no ironwork   so determined to find a bargain rebecca and  jim are off to paris but there's no time for   sightseeing it's straight to the outskirts and  the reclaimed yard oh that's nice this is amazing   that's great so what's the total length the rumpel  it's good for for escalating yeah but the balcony we made it's got about two and a half meters of  the balcony and we need a lot more but you can   actually have the angle of the ramp change so  you can make it into balcony so it can all be   adjusted because again as usual buying old stuff  means it's some work now i could spend all day   looking at things like this that's amazing  needless to say we seem to have lost becky   in a depth or some reclaim yard i  think it's time for lunch now dear yeah perfect perfect soon 287 yeah i will email  you said i have no idea where she's thinking or   like she says it'll be an email conversation  no doubt they'll just turn up what [Music] it's summer and i'm back for my second sight visit   keen to see if rebecca's unusual approach  to building a house is working out but first jim wants to show me  the new additions to the family   they're tiny well they're a few days  old they're a lot bigger than they were so did you know that they were pregnant yeah we  did well because we artificially inseminated them   we bought some sperm and artificially inseminated   who are sufficiently associated i mean my  pig partner really special kit how was that   different different the plan is to provide meat  for the family and to sell any surplus [Music]   i'm pleased to see all the tiles on the house  looking like they've been there for years   but i have a concern that the barn is out  of proportion to the rest of the building   but how are you feeling in general about progress  because i mean a lot has happened since i was last   here yeah it's really coming on isn't it really  pleased with what's happened and we seem to be   on schedule and so these are the famous hermann  monster windows yes i think they work really well   they've been fixed up now so hopefully they'll  be watertight they've gone out reasonably well   so yeah i think i think they look good because  i mean it's a big old building isn't it yeah   it is actually it was going to be a lot bigger so  i'm really glad you shrunk it yeah to be totally   honest with you i think it's still a little bit  too big compared to the size of the main house   i know what you mean because it looks to me  like the rear windows there uh looking to the   back side of the roof is that right they do they  do the roof does sit a bit too high doesn't it   what came first the size of the barn or the  doors it was designed around the doors in many   respects i don't think it's a design approach  that any professional would advise you to go   through and i think anybody who was thinking of  doing the same thing you know you need to think   quite carefully about what you're doing there's  no doubt that rebecca's got an eye for quirky   architectural features but it remains to be seen  if she can successfully bring them all together   in one building i sort of feel that you're in  an interesting place in terms of design in that   there is the potential for it to look quite  disney yeah i mean i'm hoping it will look quite grand but not look over the top  and not look too you know footballers   wives and that but yeah i do think it's a  really fine line you tread and sometimes   when you sort of thinking about things on your  own you're not quite sure if it's absolutely   disgusting or really actually really quite  nice well this is quite some project one thing   it's massive it's absolutely vast but also  i find the the approach really intriguing   of mixing the the reclaimed with the new build  and normally when you're involved in a build   like this you have a really strong sense at  this stage how much you're going to like it   when it's finished but with this project i  have absolutely no idea only time will tell jim and rebecca constantine have  been building their new home in   rural buckinghamshire for 10 months i'm  hoping it will look quite grand but not look   over the top rebecca's incorporating as many  unusual reclaimed materials into the build   as possible her plan is to cloud the front of  the house with stone that came from a hospital   in the northeast of england but before fitting  it has to be cut to size a process that will   take weeks hopefully there'll be enough to do the  building but until we cut it we can't really tell the central feature of the house remains rebecca's  reclaimed staircase that's still awaiting its   ironwork the balustrade that rebecca bought in  france has been shipped here to the heart of the   fence because it needs to be altered and extended  so she's brought it to a place called stackwell   forge and it's one of the few places in the  country that can actually do the work blacksmith   paul bodger has already started the job so this is  actually the stuff that rebecca bought in france   and had shipped over yeah what do you think of  it is it good quality oh it's some of the best   quality i've seen so if she was getting something  similar made from scratch what do you think it   would have cost her of this quality um i would put  a standing figure of a bit 30k on it 30 000 pounds   and she's going to do it for about eight thousand  pounds possibly yeah eight or nine thousand pounds   so she's done really well i think she has yeah  rebecca needs to create six more meters of   iron work to go round her landing other sections  will have to be adapted to fit the angle of her   stairs it will take paul seven weeks to complete  the job so you're effectively turning this piece   into the template that you're going to  form everything else on yeah we're using it   like tracing paper if you wish can i have a go  if you want it are you sure yeah i'd love to all yours in total over 70  meters of steel will be used   that looks good [Music] so i have done it before  i have to be honest with you what a long time   ago yeah i'll put that bit in and i'm not going  to tell rebecca where it is see if she knows   you can blame me for anything then can't you  again no charlie did one bit you work it out   back on site there's good news  the sandstone cladding is half on   now the builders can see exactly  how much stone the house needs   and what they have left to work with it does  look quite bland at the moment but once the   actual white works in the windows and it's going  to stand it it'll really stand out really well   it will need to clean down as well after we're  finished to ease the financial strain of this   massive build jim spends evenings and weekends  working on the property tonight he's fitting   central heating it's really our time to to get  involved now i've done bathrooms and kitchens   and bits and bobs before i've never run um  i've never run a sort of complete system now my daily routine is um up at half five leave  here by six into the office by about seven   and then back here by um about five and then  usually out here for two to three hours really there's no other choice really is it that one that one hello oh nuts as long as i remember put the right  bits in where hopefully won't leak with the pipes in it's a quick  good night to the children   before he moves on to sanding down the old door so  they're ready for the builders to fit it's just a   matter of keeping up really so john can come here  in the day and then one of the boys can fit the   frame whatever it meant to be they're not waiting  for you know something to be stripped because   the builders aren't here to to strip doors and  things like that here to do the important stuff   it's tiring i usually try and finish it about  half of nine ten o'clock in the evenings   trying to get enough sleep and then  after work in the morning just a   matter of keeping on top of it really and  not thinking about it too much sometimes we had enough [Music] three months after beginning work and a month  later than scheduled paul the blacksmith is   on site to fit but he's having problems with the  banister no no i can't be done with that gap but   i'm not sure what we can do because we're  using old materials paul's got a gap   on their stairwell just trying to work  out how to make it look pretty i was just   wondering if we could just put a bit in the  top and a bit and have the gap as a feature and head builder john is also having trouble with  the barn doors that came from the french vineyard   i've got to take 10 mil off the bottom  to match this one we'll offer it up   and then we're going to have to  either take a bit more off the frame   or off the top of the arch  because the arch is not the same do some puzzles determined to get the family out  of the caravans rebecca's roped in everyone she   can down the road stepfather john is hard  at work these were old sash windows that   were um reclaimed and now it's a question  of fitting um over 80 double glazed panels   and rebecca has found jobs for her uncles and  tristan are cleaning up all the old oak flooring   that's come out from france so we'll see um it's  a lot cheaper to bring back from france but it   comes at a price and the price is gonna clean  it so they're cleaning out all the tongue and   grooves ready for jim to lay it justin used to  work with my dad on the on the um building sites   and everything so i think if his dad was here  it'd probably be on the finishing touches by now   it's a long way off still i think a long way off finally one of the three barn doors is in place   we expect it to be a bit of a nightmare um  and it's turned out to be a bit of a nightmare   yeah i'm really pleased with those they've  hardly been in any trouble [Laughter]   yes it's the lesson to be learned replay there's a  lot of fiddling about but i think it'd be worth it   the reclaim materials have  definitely cost us time if you like   having to do things up all the time  and [Music] things like that living   on a building site for longer than expected is  getting the whole family down have we been in and guess what we've eaten for 15 months pasta  and the stops slightly depressing the fact that   we're going to be out in the caravans longer but i  don't think we could have realized the scale of it   can't ask the builders to work any  longer they work all the hours god sends it's the cold and the just the close proximity  of everybody i mean it'll be amazing when we go   in there the space that we've got  compared to what we've got in here   um i think will make a big difference  but we want to get out [Music] it's been four months since i last visited jim and  rebecca here in sherington now the plan was always   that the builders would be finished by the end  of summer and that jim would then work through   to get the family into the house when winter came  but i've heard that the builders are still on site   well it's good to see they managed  to get all that stonework up i was   worried they wouldn't have enough clearly they  have scaffolding's come down the roof is looking   very good and it looks very grand but there's  still no finished windows and no front door [Music]   inside it's a similar story it looks like  every room is a long way from being complete   and jim and rebecca are  still living in the caravans so the the builders are still here why is that  because the reclaimed materials have taken a lot   longer to um sort out and get on the building the  barn doors have taken john two weeks to fit them   and i don't think they're finished yet how much  time do you think you've lost from your initial   schedule well we we hope really to be out sometime  towards the end of the summer stroke autumn so i   don't know probably four four weeks plus on top  of that at the moment no more than four weeks   four months yeah i mean when john sort of said  a year didn't he when he started and that was   he september so a year to september so we'll  probably be four months behind by the time we   get in if you like are there any other  implications of the schedule running behind yeah   the main ones are caravans and the fact we've only  got permission to live in these caravans until the   31st december this year so you have to move out  by the 31st of december in theory yes given the   fact you've got a house that is clearly quite a  long way from being finished and you've got this   this real hard deadline of getting out of these  caravans by the 31st of december i mean how are   you gonna run the next six weeks our budget  doesn't allow us to just chuck money on it but   if we can get in there by the 31st december  we'll get some sort of a bathroom up and running   and some sort of a kitchen up and running it can't  be any worse than being out here it's probably a   lot warmer so we'll go for it there's a lot to do  in the next six weeks the plan is for jim to do   even more of the laboring now the shell's complete  i mean how are you feeling about the build because   you're not only holding down a full-time job in  london with a commute you've got the four kids and   then you're taking an awful lot on your shoulders  to get this finished stressful it's hard on this   hard work i mean no doubt about that whatsoever  but um we've got a vision we i can't afford to   pay someone else to do all that vision so we have  to do it ourselves that's that's ultimately it   okay well should we uh see how it's  done yeah sure there are 500 square   meters of parquet flooring to be laid so i've  never laid parkour neither until i did this it's not as easy to lay as a as a new floor it's not as easy as it looks  isn't it it's a hell of a task i'm going to be an expert by the time you  finish this an expert with a bad back [Laughter]   with rebecca's vision starting to take shape  it's an opportunity for her to take stock   standing here looking back are you proud yeah very  proud yeah i get all upset because i think my dad   do you and is that really what sort  of driving you forward yeah definitely   is that why you're pushing yourself so hard no i  mean we always push ourselves hard but i sort of hope now that we've done it and  hopefully my dad would be very pleased   you think you would i'm so flying i hope you  would beat he would have loved to about that i think how awful given that this is such an  emotionally charged project and they put so   much of their heart and soul in it jim and rebecca  are really stuck between a rock and a hard place   because they have got to get out of their  caravans in the next six weeks because of   their planning and in order to hit that  deadline i think there will be a real temptation   to rush and possibly cut corners  i think that would be a real shame for the past few years lorries from  all over europe have been arriving   in this quiet buckinghamshire village bringing  the most incredible old building materials   these have been altered restored and  assembled to create a very grand family home   for the constantines it's been a real  adventure and for rebecca a chance to go on   one of the biggest shopping trips in history  and i'm here to see how it's all turned out [Music] well from the outside rebecca and jim  have certainly achieved what they set out to   the clever use of old stone makes this georgian  style house look as if it could have been here for years [Music] thank you now this has come on  hasn't it it's come on a long way   yeah we absolutely love it the  staircase looks incredible [Music]   has it worked out the way you'd hoped yeah  definitely absolutely love it and the fact you've   managed to make it cantilever properly is really  nice i think we've done it justice really do you   know which one of those i made i think that's  the one we had to replace that was it fell off so are you living in the house yet no  not in here yet still in the caravans   but still but we're getting there we are getting  there because i thought you had a really sort of   hard deadline at the end of december you had to  be out of the caravans because of planning we did   and i contacted the planners at the beginning of  december um and i haven't done anything back so   with that in mind we're just just trying to get  out as soon as possible we're over the worst with   this now so you just feel like you're on the home  straight i suppose what are you thinking about   in terms of colors in here i'm thinking yellow  yellow really bright bright yellow at the moment   could be good it could be nuts you'd never  quite know i don't like stealing by halves   no i've noticed that i've lifted if you  don't try won't see the drawing room with   its reclaimed fireplace isn't finished yet but  you get a sense of how impressive it will be   it's really nice having this kind of daylight  at the end of the corridor isn't it to aim at well this has really come on in here that roof  is beautiful isn't it yeah really pleased with it   beams upgraded yeah really nice roof structure  it's an amazing space to swim yeah absolutely   really when you think of what it was as the  kitchen's in yes very excited about kitchen   where did you get all the kitchen units from  i actually bought a complete kitchen off um an   internet auction site so these are all second hand  yeah and that looks like a sort of an industrial   kind of catering cooker yeah i'm gonna have a big  roast in there when we get in here is that what   you're looking forward to and have you worked  out if you can hoover the whole thing yet flex   do you know i was sweeping this screeded floor the  other day and it took me about three hours and it   suddenly dawned on me that i was always going to  be sweeping this floor forever more now and it's   going to take forever well i think this room is  is great it's probably my favorite room upstairs   the children's bedrooms have been made a priority  because they've spent so long sharing a room in   the caravan today's the first time they've seen  them what do you think wow look at that [Music]   wow daddy's got my name on it i love  my room my favorite thing is my carpet what do you think like the diggers whose  beds are these look you're bouncing what do you think look [Music] like it but in gym and rebecca's room there's still a  long way to go well this doesn't look like a   bedroom looks more like a furniture store  house yeah i've just started tempting the   containers out jim probably hasn't seen 90  of the stuff in this room i try and ignore it   but do you think i mean you're going to  walk into this house and there's going to be   very little of your taste in it is that not  slightly strange no you're fine with that   yeah it doesn't really interest you doesn't it  doesn't interest me not interested in shopping or   anything like that anyway so it's not my bag  luckily jim and rebecca don't want to admit how   much they've gone over their 350 000 pound budget  but some of the reclaim has ended up costing a lot   more than rebecca bargain for the two thousand  pound barn doors ended up costing ten thousand   to install but other features like the fireplace  stairs banister parquet flooring and radiators   have given this new build a high quality  finish that rebecca couldn't have achieved   without spending tens of thousands more as well  as holding down a full-time job and working on   the house jim has spent the last year rearing pigs  so those are the piglets that i saw yeah the same   lot we sold three as wieners to a friend but then  we've got the the seven left out of the ten yeah   they've really grown haven't they yeah they have  yeah we've done that we're really pleased with   this stop so where the the other pigs gone they've  they've gone there their sausages some of them   gone to the pub and um we sell someone's friends  and whatnot so yeah they've gone good sausages   yeah yeah very good excellent rebecca's mum  jackie is also impressed by what's been achieved   i think the house is absolutely fantastic and it's  um a credit to rebecca her father would have been   very proud of her because he built a big  house like this you think her dad would   have liked what she's done oh he would have been  so proud she's actually done it for him in a way   now that you're getting towards the end  of this project how do you feel about   the process i mean it's been a big big  old project isn't it it's been a really   long project um and it has been really stressful  at times but you know we're getting towards the   end of it now and we're getting really excited  about the next step but yeah we're really looking   forward to getting in there and what's it like  standing out here and sort of seeing things like   your hermann monster windows and your doors kind  of in and looking finished for me it's a big   relief because obviously when i was buying some  of them you know it's my decision and a bit of a   worry but to see them on there and done it's just  fantastic it's it's great feeling there's a lot of   blood sweat and anguish i know that part  of this project was about a legacy for   your dad i mean how are you feeling about  that now it's you know nearly finished   i think i hope i've done a good job i would hope  i've said that i think he'd be immensely proud or   i don't think i know he'd be immensely proud of  rebecca definitely well i think it's amazing i   think it's a real testament it's a real testament  to sort of backing yourself and following what   you believe and i think it's incredible  what you've achieved thank you very much well this has certainly been a unique  project and personally i have found rebecca's   resourcefulness a real inspiration and  with a team of great builders and jim's   endless stamina they are well on their  way to creating their dream family home   but over the past year it's become clear  to me that this project is not just about   opulent staircases and grand stone facades it's  about creating a fitting tribute to rebecca's   dad and i'm sure he would be immensely proud  with what they've achieved [Music] wow [Music] wow you

Channel: Banijay Home and Garden

Views: 66,853

Keywords: architect george clarke, architect guidance, buckinghamshire living, country living, countryside living, diy home, family home projects, george clarke, home makeover, home renovation, house restoration, interior design, property conversion, property development, real estate, reclaimed home, rural life, rural renovation, unique design

Id: XLUANkFDG_I

Length: 44min 39sec (2679 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 26 2021