Grand Designs.

[Globalti]

Who else finds that Kevin McCloud smarmy?

And why are the women usually pregnant? Is that the consequence of what they give Kevin for getting on the show?

 

[Flying_Monkey]

He's a bit over-earnest and repetitive sometimes. But I think he's done a lot to expand the horizons of British house-building.

 

[postman]

I used to like that prog.But they just got dafter and dafter.And the money that was being spent just ridiculous.

Now hooked on an American prog callede Overhaulin.

All about doing up cars as a surprise.

 

[mickle]

I find the whole show vomit inducing. Twats with too much money indulging themselves whilst McClown coos and licks their arses. Let's see some social housing for an effing change. I never did understand why good architecture (and industrial design) had to be the exclusive preserve of the rich.

 

[beanzontoast]

I find the whole show vomit inducing.

Same here - can't abide it.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

I find the whole show vomit inducing. Twats with too much money indulging themselves whilst McClown coos and licks their arses. Let's see some social housing for an effing change. I never did understand why good architecture (and industrial design) had to be the exclusive preserve of the rich.

That is true - but did you not see the series he did on Castleford, where he was trying to get local people to champion social projects by architects?

 

[threebikesmcginty]

I find the whole show vomit inducing. Twats with too much money indulging themselves whilst McClown coos and licks their arses. Let's see some social housing for an effing change. I never did understand why good architecture (and industrial design) had to be the exclusive preserve of the rich.

I find that with a lot of the idiots on this prog the reverse is true - the more money they chuck at these follies the more 'good architecture' goes out of the window so to speak - they do build some rubbish.

Talking of windows, none of the houses ever have curtains!!!

 

[Globalti]

Exactly - I would hate to be in a house with huge glass and no privacy, no matter how open the aspect.

 

[beanzontoast]

Talking of windows, none of the houses ever have curtains!!!

Maybe they don't have neighbours?

 

[summerdays]

Not that I'm going to use them but I'm come across loads of techniques and products that I didn't know existed. I would love to have the money, plot and vision to produce a house similar to some of those that appear on the show. I mean this weeks definitely wasn't about look how much money I have to chuck at building me a house.

In case you didn't see it - he recycled lots of the materials and the walls were built out of tyres!!!

And yes I would love a wall of glass - love light, I'm nosey and who cares if they can see in.

 

[dellzeqq]

I find the whole show vomit inducing. Twats with too much money indulging themselves whilst McClown coos and licks their arses. Let's see some social housing for an effing change. I never did understand why good architecture (and industrial design) had to be the exclusive preserve of the rich.

(kisses Mickle on both cheeks, shakes his hand vigourously, and proclaims him to be a blood brother)

the charcoal burners house was nice. But the basic premise - that building a house out of decent stuff is sustainable, even if it is
a) 2000 square feet
on a plot the size of Berkshire
c) so far out in the sticks you have to go everywhere by Range Rover
is nonsense.

 

[ColinJ]

There was a funny moment a couple of shows back. Kevin McCloud was demonstrating how to make a house airtight by wrapping a shoe box in plastic when there was a loud rumble and bang from the house in question situated behind him. The main feature of the house was a huge parabolic arch and a big piece of it had just collapsed!

Once they repaired the arch and finished it off, I was pretty impressed by it. It was made up of about 20,000 tiles bonded together with plaster-of-paris and/or cement. They loaded the arch with 20 tons of gravel plus soil and it was entirely self-supporting. (Having seen it collapse once though, I'm not sure that I'd want to live under it... )

PS He is a bit smarmy, isn't he!

 

[dellzeqq]

There was a funny moment a couple of shows back. Kevin McCloud was demonstrating how to make a house airtight by wrapping a shoe box in plastic when there was a loud rumble and bang from the house in question situated behind him. The main feature of the house was a huge parabolic arch and a big piece of it had just collapsed!

Once they repaired the arch and finished it off, I was pretty impressed by it. It was made up of about 20,000 tiles bonded together with plaster-of-paris and/or cement. They loaded the arch with 20 tons of gravel plus soil and it was entirely self-supporting. (Having seen it collapse once though, I'm not sure that I'd want to live under it... )

PS He is a bit smarmy, isn't he!

that was, by a margin, the worst house that there has ever been on Grand Designs. Consider. It's a cold day, much like today. The birds are nesting. Your house depends on being airtight. How much birdsong will the child in the house hear? And the rooms were just boxes. Oh - and it went over budget by £100,000.

At least the one with the ply ceiling that would spoil if it got in the least bit wet (guess what the weather was like the day it was delivered, and how long it took to fix the leaks in the roof..._) had a nice room.

I watch the show out of a kind of dread fascination. Sometimes I have to leave the room.

 

[rich p]

Get a grip, you lot. Kevin is the arbiter of good taste in modern Britain.

I like GD to goggle at the twats who spend money they often haven't got, on ridiculous, bombastic, glass-sided monstrosities which are a public representation of their own self-regard. As someone pointed out, the women invariably become pregnant and have to suffer bitterly cold winters in a caravan and overspend by 50% whilst waiting for the windows, made from the whites of sturgeon roe, to fail to turn up on time.

Great telly!

 

[Flying_Monkey]

the charcoal burners house was nice.

FOAF. The program resulted in hundred of marriage proposals from loads of lonely hippy chicks looking for a man who was good with his hands!

I lost interested in GD a couple of series in once it lost its variety and just seemed to have egotistical monstrosities - I think, unfortunately, that this reflects the state of 'self-build' in Britain...