Ugly House To Lovely House With George Clarke | Only Human

there's a way to make an entrance my destiny it was now a conspiracy of witches download today [Music] i feel a little bit embarrassed it's pretty ugly isn't it it generally looks a bit dreary it's definitely not a looker across the country there are people stuck with an embarrassing problem you certainly wouldn't drive path and go i want to live in that house it's a very tired house it feels like it's gone [Music] and these aren't just the unlucky few thousands of us feel burdens with houses that are dated and dreary but a fresh eye can transform even the ugliest house into a dream home i need to make this space exciting to create fantastic drama i'm given the owners of some of britain's ugliest houses the services of some of our most talented architects what i strive for find the heart of the home and it's just getting that back getting the kind of the life and soul back with money tight i'm not hopeful about what we can get for that 50 000 and ambitions high delivering a vision that everyone will be happy with won't be easy i do have reservations about this for clients chips away too much of the design starts to look very ordinary again but if they get it right it will prove that great architecture doesn't have to cost the earth i actually can't believe that we live in a house like this and has the power to transform not just buildings it's fulfilled our dreams really but lives it's gone from dark to something wonderful it's so different it's as if someone's lifted our house out and put a new one in its face [Music] the veil of glamorgan in south wales is the epitome of the rural idol [Music] known for its queen cottages which naturally nestle in the rolling countryside [Music] now in a place as beautiful as this you'd hope that the architecture would do everything in its power to blend in and avoid the worst design crime of all to be totally unsympathetic to its surroundings like this 1970s house complete with a sturdy pebble dash characterless upvc windows and shabby carport it's not exactly the picture of country living i think it's the type of house you would see on any estate in any town it just generally looks a bit i guess dated and dreary it stands out a bit like a sore throne because it's a lovely setting where it is some of the neighbors seem equally unimpressed too it's an ugly house it is an ugly house you know it's like something you'd see in the 1970s it's got that dismal unhappy sort of look which is which is such a shame pretty miserable really tony and sarah bought this house because they want to bring up their daughter india in the countryside six seven i'm a country girl at heart i had a lovely childhood full of lovely memories of things we did like i love the fact india already she loves animals and insects and things like that and i just think the countryside there's just so much it can offer a child especially when they're young [Music] when they purchased the property in 2014 for 342 000 pounds it was the only place in the village they could afford of that size but it still had significant drawbacks the deco has hardly changed in almost 40 years it is quite dated it's not really a style that we would choose there are some things from your childhood which you like to keep and what you isn't one of them [Music] unable to live with the outdate outdated features any longer tony a heating engineer and no stranger to the building trade has already started stripping back the house [Music] we realised we'd be able to sort of do the basics ourselves i've been down quite well i think i think we wanted to achieve more than that really and make it a bit more special you know we want this to be our family house for a long time [Music] morning sarah how are you hi you're the proud owners of this house very proud do you love it tell the truth we're on our way it's bagel that's what drew it to us and big windows in good light yeah and how do you feel about pebble dash it's not my number one choice and i really don't like the brick oh do you know is there anything that you do like about it i like the setting and you look out it's really nice you can honestly say in all the years that i've looked at buildings and houses i don't think i've heard anyone say about their own house i don't like much about it but i like looking out from it that's quite damning isn't it can we go inside and have a look yeah lead the way does the inside look as ugly as the outside at 1700 square feet this house has a generous floor plan the ground floor has a living dining room kitchen shower room and study upstairs there are two double bedrooms two singles and a bathroom interesting ceilings you stripped them out already not ready yeah to make a mess why have you done that chip you can really see the potential i think that's one of the good things about those at this period a lot of them the space standards were really good i mean this is a nice wide room you've been able to see all the way through those big windows from front to back so this is little mini kind of dining area on the street yeah so what's the kind of main problem with this space do you think well through there the garage and the only access to the garden oh a few boxes in there that but for your in order to run through this space past all the boxes navigate past the washing machine dryer oh yeah look at that nice little pattern area yeah it matches the driveway wraps around the house it's just kind of in the wrong position isn't it yeah your inside outside space is linked in between garage and patio which is kind of not ideal is it really that takes the charm off having such a kind of sloping garden makes you feel even more detached from the house really doesn't it yeah but i'll tell you what in terms of the size of it yeah i think it's great i mean it's a really good size house if you think this would have been built at a time which would have been yes a little bit aspirational but it had to be affordable as well and when you think now minimum space standards don't really exist in those new build developments so they tend to be quite pokey and small unless you're paying an absolute fortune for it you've got yourself a really good sized house this project presents a huge challenge for just 60 000 pounds tony and sarah want to completely reimagine their home now yes it's solidly built with wonderful proportions but it has one fundamental problem it doesn't connect with its surroundings transforming it into something beautiful with a genuine sense of place on a very limited budget is going to require a brilliant piece of design and that's the job of an architect greg blee has a talent for designing buildings that reflect their surroundings his approach has led to the creation of some radically dramatic spaces this house is called triptych because it's got three volumes that are exactly the same and they face in different directions the kitchen faces the morning and the living room face the evening so you can enjoy the setting sun coming through the trees architecture for me is about lots of different problems and trying to create a solution that is very simple very elegant and i think that's a really difficult task but to prove a solution can always be found even for an ugly house greg has volunteered to take on sarah and tony's home what we want to do is create an extension that really takes in the welsh countryside and to not um and to not just feel like a conventional building so the big idea is to take a shard-like extension which faces the best views and then put that against the existing house it'll feel great when you step into that space because you'll be surrounded by a lot of windows so you'll have the connection with the greenery of the landscape outside it's going to be unusual to take that sort of building and put it next to a boring box but i think it needs to have that sort of sense of drama and excitement i think greg has a really distinctive start and a strong sense of place but i suppose the big question is will his vision fit in with what tony and sarah have in mind and will it fit in with the veil of glamorgan this looks well impressive yeah shall i show you around your new house yes okay what i'm proposing is a shardy extension that creates this elegant piece of architecture and we're thinking about untreated timber for the facades which will make it more of a sort of hole because at the moment you've got lots of different materials sort of fighting each other and none of them are particularly nice greg's plan for the house is based around three key design ideas which will help it reflect its surroundings his first idea is to convert the garage into a dramatic dining room extension to connect the inside to the garden the cleverly designed triangular roof will rise steeply to a point to give the internal space volume and height placing the extension at 45 degrees to the house with large sliding doors means it will also face the countryside views inside most of the internal downstairs walls will be removed to create a large open-plan kitchen living area greg's second big idea is to replace the glazing at the rear of the house with two new feature windows one long and horizontal and the other floor to ceiling perfectly framing the landscape his final transformative idea is to clad both the extension and top half of the house in large that will silver with age helping the house blend in with its surroundings [Music] it's dramatic there's no doubt about that it's impressive isn't it i think the extension we're pretty much 100 happy with we'd already thought about things like untreated timber graze and silver some kind of looking um i like any question i'd have i guess thinking practically is i don't know where money is being spent i feel like i don't know what's being spent on what [Music] i have to say i share sarah's concerns for 60 000 pounds this does seem an extremely ambitious design i'm really excited about it i think it could be amazing but i'm really worried about the costs i don't want to do it and then it'd feel half-hearted that we've gone for it can i ask you how finished do you imagine the house being with your 60 grand um it doesn't have to be all decorated i suppose what i'm getting at is you might end up spending a bit more money on the structural changes to get the spaces that you really want and then you might put in a more affordable kitchen a very basic bathroom you might have your bedroom done and the other ones you might not fit out yeah yeah at all and that's quite a big decision for you guys to make actually whether that's acceptable as an architect you relish the chance to create something bold and unique and you hope that you'll have a client who's brave enough to back your decisions now i do think tony and sarah are willing to take a leap of faith but i wonder what a wooden box with a wooden pyramid will look like in this landscape in wales tony and sarah have been granted planning permission to transform their bland 1970s house it's kind of like a house a child would draw i think there's windows doors flat there's no features it's just a bit dreary in the 1970s houses like this were rolled out in their thousands across the country by developers their standardized nor thrills design made no attempt to reflect their surrounding environments they were branded anywhere houses over the years they attracted criticism for their distinct lack of character now for tony and sarah there's a new development on the horizon that will affect the schedule of their transformation oh look at that he's just on the edge i'm pregnant now and four months pregnant so that puts a bit of a new perspective on it it's just the thought that we haven't made any start and we've got six months from now we've got five months to go and we don't expect to be perfectly immaculate finished but we just want to get going on it to ensure the build's ready for the baby and keeps within the sixty thousand pound budget tony will project manage i intend to do as much as i can myself run more [Music] but i mean i won't have a go at skimming the ceilings because i'll be poor i won't have a go at doing nice carpentry i won't be connecting electrics but i'll be doing as much as i can drilling holes and chasing sockets and things you know every little helps [Music] it takes tony and his team just one day to take down the downstairs interior walls and create the new open plan living space that looks really good i really like it it's nice to get that nice feeling as you walk in that looks really cool one key element of architect greg blee's design that tony can't tackle is the unconventionally angled rear extension this one i'll gently pry this away that starts by europe i want to get it from that end really if i can but he does manage to find a local builder brave enough to take on the ambitious projects that's it it's popped it is quite a difficult build because of the angles and the complexity of it nobody else seemed interested and i like a challenge i think what makes this even more challenging is that build a nail has only got a two-month window center which means he's forced to start before the technical drawings are ready that's going to come over so that's like that isn't it yeah yeah so that one there moves to there okay and with this complex build relying on the exact positioning of five steels it proves far harder than expected hopefully this is all lined up now it's all funny angles they're not equal lengths you think you get it right then you get center point on the concrete drop the beam in and then you take actual lengths of beams in it and it isn't right it's been a slight chicken and egg situation where the builders push them into getting on site before we've had full engineers joined before we had full detailing and so it's a risk with tony and neal struggling with the complexities of the design architect greg has come to sight [Music] so two posts in they look level right there all right how are you doing good to meet you you're right all right is this all going to work out then our setting out of this ceiling coming through i hope so yeah you know this has been difficult because normally we have the drawings up front you know the calc's measurements i.e and this has been unusual for us because we haven't had that information that's the reason why i'm here if there's anything that we need to work out we work it out here and if anything needs to be drawn we draw it right once we get a skeleton yeah it will be plain sailing one two three four with greg on hand to advise generally does it the project gets moving again ready yeah i'll lift it this large horizontal steel will provide support for greg's soaring triangular roof well that was easy one well done guys hold on thank you i've got an hour get the other post in let's get the other one up really you think it's as easy as that do you no crack on it it's gonna feel a big voluminous exciting space to be in i i know that it's gonna be good an extension is where a good architect can make a massive difference to a property not only do they provide more internal space with a bit of ingenuity they can also transform the look of a traditional building even the most modest extension can revolutionize a living space but the secret is in the placing of it the issue with this house it doesn't have a very good relationship with the orientation i.e north south east west and to the landscape greg's extension has a footprint of just eight square meters but by giving it height the interior space will feel bigger and more dramatic removing the old kitchen wall will connect it to the rest of the house by positioning the extension at 45 degrees it faces the long view down the garden to the landscape beyond [Music] tony and sarah's extension has such an unconventional shape it's going to be really difficult to construct but it's so exciting to see the bones of a new building coming together i can't wait to see what it looks like morning man how's it going you all right [Music] good morning man how are you i'm george so good to see you how's it all going yeah come on in have a look oh look who's here looking very very pregnant which is great news fantastic as if you didn't have enough going on no the timing's not uh not great is it really no the space looks brilliant it really does because you're looking cleanly all the way through here you've taken out that wall so from front to back you're not going right through the house what's it like to live in at the minute be honest um it's hard because of the dirt in the shower it's just always got gravel and grit and i worry about india because she know like wants to wear shoes and socks and things but it's the dust i can actually feel it on the back of my throat maybe it's going to come out like a really deep voice [Laughter] although still a building site this space holds real promise greg's keen to show me how the new part of the build is progressing craig the extension is starting to go slabs in steel work's gone up yeah it's like a mini church obviously you've got a big bit of steel in there still across the back of there so is it a flat roof well this gives a slightly full suppression so it feels like a a little boxy triangular extension but actually that's thick it's the maximum height so when you're in this very sort of wedgie corner you've got four and then 4.3 meter high ceiling so you'll come out from the kitchen and you'll feel that sense of excitement looking up so when you're standing inside it's a big kind of triangular sloping piece of roof covered right up at the top yeah quite complicated good luck to the builder [Music] with the steel framework complete build and nail can now start to piece together the bespoke timber frame oh made a mistake neil what he first thought would be an interesting challenge is turning into a bit of a headache this goes from bad to us we're under pressure a bit because everything we do we have to make bespoke because there's nothing traditional this timber alone is six different cuts six different angles it's just evolving really isn't it you know there's no templates to store funny angles oh labor love [Music] [Music] oh i know you're going to sit there with him and i'm going to come and watch you eat breakfast baby arlo came last week so he's nearly a week old now um he's been great he's really chilled little baby and he sleeps constantly at the moment so had a nice break into having the two children at the moment look at what he is he's amazing he's sleeping through all the noise we've had carpenters above him with rip saws with the roof coming off and he's just amazing he slipped through so we've been really really blessed what's the matter what's the matter it is weird because there's two like massive events i guess going on but then also obviously a priority at the moment is a baby in india i try and help where i can with decisions but i feel a bit sorry for tony sometimes like for instance last night at about 10 o'clock he was like oh we need to choose skirting boards and i was like really i'm so not interested this time i'm about to fall asleep um so i'm probably not as helpful to him and supportive but sarah has helped tony make one significant decision to replace the concrete tiled roof with slate so that it ties in more with the brand new extension this unplanned five thousand pounds addition and other escalating costs is pushing them well over budget we would have spent our budget and the house would have looked exactly the same as it did but with a timber clad extension that didn't look like any of the rest of the house in our heart we felt like we had to but it was a big okay right so this is costing us we're over budget let's spend even more that's where it came to basically but once the headache of the money is over we're left with a great finish we might think it'll be worth it [Music] [Music] i just want to oh nice tony and sarah's new slit roof is finally complete we have blown the budget a bit but it's a big pleasing thing to have but it's the dramatic new angular extension that's attracting the attention of some of the neighbors [Music] from here we can see a triangle that's coming up off the side of the house it's quite wacky this is pretty different um kind of thing you put together with a lego lego house you know having a square and a triangle coming off the side looking at it it's like oh god this bit bunker's a bit different [Music] i didn't notice at first but there's a quite interesting roof structure around the back of the property certainly nothing around here looks like that one two three go today work begins on greg's second key design idea his relatively simple plan for the windows has already resulted in them knocking out a large opening to make room for the picture window in the living room with these windows it's really been difficult to see how it's going to look the light what the views are going to be so these windows going in very exciting the way architects harness light can totally transform a space but windows are not just there to allow light in they can also frame the view connecting the inside to the outside in tony and sarah's house greg has replaced the old upvc windows at the front with slim framed aluminium ones so the front may look very simple but then if you look at the back you want to create bigger windows which makes the connection from the inside to the outside more impressive craig is replacing the old conventionally shaped windows at the back of the house with two strikingly different versions to create uninterrupted views of the landscape all right get in it's great in it i feel like i stand here and survey my land which is this small bit of grass gently and easily yeah [Music] with the glass fitted into the extension sliding doors and the large picture window in the living room [Music] the builders begin installing the horizontal frame in the kitchen giving tony and sarah the first chance to check out their newly watertight extension wow now it's nice to be able to see the hills and stuff over there um let me see it from back here imagine you sat down at the dining table having your dinner [Music] tony and sarah have spent a quarter of their 60 000 pound budget on new glazing so i'm keen to see the difference that it's made [Music] extension's all up which is good but this looks fantastic what a great extension with a lovely sloping roof this one needs a bit of work doesn't it a tiny bit yes to say the least hello there hello so nice to see you how are you look at this little one you are so cute so beautiful eh bit of a challenge baby bills the two b's that you should never do at the same time but i'll tell you what these windows make a massive difference look at the amount of light coming in through there i know it's a really nice little sun trap here i actually fell asleep on the floor the other day yeah with the babies because it's so sunny and nice there's any place that had any sunless footage right here you fell asleep in a little pool of light in the window and i think this picture window is lovely it's just brilliant to lift up that sail height to get it up to that level so that all your units can just be underneath and you can stand there in the kitchen with a fantastic view can't you really good you just need a kitchen handy actually there's quite a lot to still do in here you know you want to get the floor finishes done you want the walls all done obviously you've started boarding out now which is fantastic but you've got all that to do yeah and everything else to pay for that's and how's the outside looking i think it looks fantastic how you feeling about the build generally be honest i think i've got over the shock of how much it's actually gonna cost us because for a little while you realize it's not going to come in budget how much have you spent i think you're looking 64. 64 000 to get to this stage to this stage plus some money set aside for things that haven't been done yet how much money has we got left not enough pay for a kitchen even where are you gonna borrow the money from to finish it credit cards and whatnot really don't want it i mean it's terrible way borrowing isn't it but you can't not finish the project otherwise you'll just spend a lot of money and you still won't have something that you like so you're making a big financial commitment and stretching yourself yes yes to just get it done yeah because if you're happy and you spend the money that helps isn't it so far most of the bill time has been spent creating the new extension but six months in the old house is about to be transformed by greg's final big idea what we're going to do is we're going to take this very boring box and we're going to take the top section which is with pebble dash and batten it out in some really fine large cladding and the larch will be untreated so over time it will go silver gray at the base which is red at the moment and isn't very responsive if you like to landscape we're going to paint it very dark and what that will mean is that that will become recessive which will make the top section this sort of very fine clad building look like a floating element in the landscape wooden cladding is an effective way of giving an exterior an individual facade just like stripes on clothing the direction in which it's laid changes its effect thanks to laser technology fine detailing can be created on materials such as weathered steel or aluminium alloy to dramatically cloud a building on a large scale the planning is right up there in the top three of exciting things that we wanted to do for the house so it's um free transformation today are you keeping your timber flush there yeah yeah but it's quite tricky it's gonna line up with the corner and the window and evenly spaced and you want the screws to line up nice on the buttons so all the screws line up it's gonna be pre-drilled so it's just tricky but before the builders can begin to fix the new cladding the uneven wall surface is causing a problem when we're coming out and look at the walls originally they looked quite straight but they're a lot lot worse than what we've originally thought so it's going to be a long day today the horizontal battens are having to be packed out in order to create a flat surface onto which the cladding can be attached it's okay it's a challenge pain it's all good after several hours of packing out they're ready to start geth you want to jump up here with me check the bottom before you come up this is the first bit of luck i'm still a bit nervous because you never know what it's actually going to look like designing something so bold might seem an odd way of getting a building to reflect its setting but i've got something to show tony and sarah to reassure them that it can be done so guys i've brought you to see your house which it looks very grand from the outside it's a bigger place than yours slightly different here this is a 50s house rather than the 70s one but the main reason for bringing you here is when you look at this it's obviously a fairly traditional building and its style and taste the difference though between the front and the back is quite unbelievable wait until you see this extension come on now what i love about this place is that you're coming through the front door and you think yeah i get it it's kind of a straightforward semi-period house and then you walk into the kitchen and turn and see that wow i wasn't expecting that no it was a surprise isn't it come have a look at the outside see what you think of this wow that's great yeah it's radically different in materials i mean complete if you've gone from render on the main house to full-on steel glass and timber on the extension i mean as you walk around it you'll kind of you realize just how dramatic this thing is to be honest but this is all about the garden it's all about getting the house to link to the outside more yeah when it's landscaped it really does bring it all in as part of it doesn't it and you've got to think about that with yours is there anything in particular that you would take from this under yours for me it's the difference between the house and extension they're not trying to tie it in too much you're not trying to tighten too much because you could easily make it look all one color and it is a bit different in its shape is that enough i don't know i'm really pleased with that when i left this morning there were five pieces up come back and there's like 50 up i'm far happy about the way it looks now i can see more it looks nice it looks nice and clean and sharp like the detail with the tiles at the top i can't wait to sit on the extension as well it's gonna look really striking it'll cost seven thousand pounds to clad the entire building but even with just the side elevation complete it's already possible to see how greg's simple idea will help this home sit more comfortably in its surroundings i just like a house that blends in to its environment a bit more blended in hidden away you know you spend all this money and no one sees it over the next two weeks the builders cut the extension and entire upper half of the house to address the lag of symmetry on the front facade greg has creatively designed the cladding to partially cover the middle window right i think it just doesn't look quite right i mean it looks better inside than that sorry but i think it looks as if we just stuck some wood on but it's not really been planned then it's just a shame it obscures the view we're just something that kind of worms i think changing that it's not simply oh just move this bit of wood i think it looks a little bit like a bars like a prison in the window although they decide to remove greg's bars from the window tony and sarah do go with his idea to paint the lower half of the house grey to help highlight the wooden cladding before it was painted it was just stated wasn't it yeah it was like a real it's like an easy modern update isn't it painting the bricks yeah it's easy when someone else does it as well it's nice it's even easier are you ready [Music] as the house nears completion on the outside tony raises to finish the inside i've had six or seven months off and i can't sustain that i have enjoyed it a lot but i think about the work to pay for it really but it's hard to let it go especially near the end now it's these final details which uh make the difference isn't it really the um the bits you see after all for you oh thank you at the moment we're pretty much confined to living in uh two rooms upstairs which is quite hard work especially the baby's sleeping so it's gonna be a massive relief really uh when it's finished to last and we can get back to being a family and actually doing things together and talking about something other than the house would be nice [Music] tony and sarah removed here because they had a dream of living in the countryside but they ended up in an ugly suburban box that seemed completely out of place to the surrounding landscape it was as if their house was in the 1970s time warp covered in ugly pebble dash with bland upvc windows and a scruffy carport for just sixty 000 pounds architect greg blee promised to transform their 1970s house into something beautiful and unique that would celebrate the surrounding landscape i can't wait to see if he's pulled it off now that is pretty incredible in fact it's beyond incredible i can't actually believe they've done it it looks fantastic architect greg blee has truly made his mark on this building with a combination of darkly painted brickwork and large cladding the house now fits seamlessly into its surroundings [Music] good morning so good morning how are you so how are you well thank you this looks fantastic it is so good so good you've done it you've absolutely done it you must be thrilled yeah it looks amazing i think compared to what it was like before i hope you don't mind me saying it was a fairly ugly box go for it yeah yeah but look at it though water transformation it looks contemporary modern slick so it must be a slightly different approach coming home yeah you appreciate the drive up and it peeps out from behind the trees and sometimes i've got the time i even sit there looking at it i feel really proud of it should you go inside and have a look yeah the interior of the property proved just as challenging to transform as the exterior the layout of the living room and kitchen left a lot to be desired the garden was inaccessible except through the garage and the rear windows made little use of the stunning views from the back of the house [Music] well this looks very very smart oh look at that it's fantastic by reconfiguring the dysfunctional ground floor greg's created a beautiful open-plan living area and kitchen that just invites the wonderful outside in unrecognizable as a space it's crazy i actually feel like i'm in a completely different house it's a little bit of light look at it these windows dramatically changes the space i think things south facing they get all the light coming through last purposefully we didn't put a solid wall in there wanted it to be a little bit of divide they were separate spaces but so we can get all the light all the way through the housing and all the finishes are really small i love this evening and you've built it yeah yeah yeah this is just really cool i mean it's like it's kind of you just sit here the cup of tea and look at that picture window all you can see is great but the breathtaking views are not unique to just the living area the bespoke picture window in the kitchen is clever and stylish this kitchen i'm staggered by with your budget to have done something at this level that looks this good is unbelievable when it comes to the interior especially the kitchen i'd like to everything so i feel really proud of this bit i love this window as well i'm so glad greg pushed us to have that i love the way it frames the view and more than anything the kitchen is absolutely the heart of the home now the fact that you've got the extension yeah basically means this really is it really is in the middle bang in the middle i'd love as well that you can look all the way down especially if you're sitting in that area there it's got a lovely view all through the kitchen into here so the last time i was here the extension was looking fairly unfinished but triangular but very triangular i'll give you that can i go and have a look it's a bit more exciting yeah yeah [Music] the new extension to the back of the house is undoubtedly the most striking element of greg's design this triangular room is a triumph and effortlessly opens up the house to the garden that is fabulous what a space that's ceiling lifting up like that to be right up at that point which is three and a half meters high it's like being in a little chapel yeah it's like uh it's not just an extension it's it's just a space that stands alone i think you know if this was a flat level ceiling running through here yes it would still be an interesting shape but it would be nowhere near as dramatic as this i'll tell you what this is here on a morning another cup of tea but that view is pretty special i knew inside that this would look dramatic and smart but i was slightly worried about the timber-clad pyramid luck from outside that looks really great yeah lead the way [Music] from the garden the soaring extension is a genuinely dramatic addition to the box-shaped property the angles just all work don't they it really does i mean the extension makes your garden space much more intimate the way it reaches out and wraps around all of those internal spaces are becoming part of the surrounding landscape aren't they yeah because i think when we bought it how it was it was very much out of context and really it could have been plonked anywhere and now it just really fits in the landscape yeah the interesting shapes just makes you really distinctive but still kind of blend i think you're right not a little extension just transforms everything to do with the house it turns it from something ordinary ugly into something beautiful but actually building it wasn't was not a beautiful experience i know it wasn't easy to do it but all that hard work and effort makes this look effortless you dream about having a place like this you know most people want a nice house and there's nice and then there's this i feel very lucky yeah it feels very lucky yeah she'll enjoy it so you should i have to say greg's design is truly remarkable evening mr gray it's looking amazing he's created a modern home that the whole family can enjoy as well as given the house a real sense of place what was it like working with an architect for the first time well it gives us an opportunity to have something that we just couldn't kind of imagine ourselves i think we always trusted greg that we would get something really good but until you actually see it at the end and you think oh yes it is amazing craig that's quite powerful isn't it yeah i i if you know it feels very mixed emotion because i know how tough these type projects are especially if you're doing most of it yourself you look around and you see the love and care and attention and i think that's to do with the energy that these guys have put in but also it's just to do the alchemy of the client architect so tony tell me about self bills come on what was it like every day there was something that's stressful but when it's finished it's worth it really so i would do it again but not immediately what was the hardest part for you julie just having no family life probably i hated hearing myself saying not now i'm busy i think that's been the hardest part it's all consuming is it yeah i think it has to be otherwise it wouldn't be as good as it was can we talk about money the original budget was how much again 60. yeah 60 000 pounds and what did you spend in the end 85. still 85 000 pounds i know it's a lot of money but when you look what you've got it's mind-boggling i'm like during the builders it's stressful and everything we were kind of like oh should we do that should we not but i'm really glad now that we pushed ourselves to spend that extra bit you wouldn't have fulfilled the potential of it we have had another extra step only you could have done anything more with this house you can't make it i don't you can make it any better than it is i think that's it happy with that at the start of this project tony and sarah were living in any warehouse that had no real connection to the place and i suppose because of that they felt that they didn't belong either but because of greg's imagination and brilliant design and also because of tony and sarah's bravery and their tenacity they've transformed an ugly house into the most unique and distinctive home this house doesn't just sit in the landscape it adorns it [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: Only Human

Views: 261,380

Keywords: Only Human, Only Human channel, amazing humans stories, life journeys, extraordinary human documentary, full documentary 2022, full documentary 2021, documentary movies - topic, tv shows - topic, architecture, ugly house to lovely house, George Clarke, house renovation series, house makeover, home renovation, house hunting, channel 4

Id: XYfpLK4l9zc

Length: 47min 39sec (2859 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 05 2023