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GRAND DESIGNS - Hackney Heath - The Red House

(13 Posts)
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Sparklefizz Tue 31-Oct-23 11:30:15

Anyone watched this? I've just caught up with it and would love to hear what others think of it.

I rarely like the finished houses on this programme, but honestly! The suffering and angst they went through to get this built and it looks like a red shed/warehouse. In my opinion it's an eyesore in a lovely street.

I feel so sorry for the neighbours because I know what it's like to have someone close by having a lot of building work done - the noise, the mud, the lorries everywhere - with me my neighbours were just having a massive extension which took 6 months. This house took 4 times that. In the programme the inconvenience must have been awful.

What I can't understand is that this is a blended family - father and daughter, and mother and daughter. They kept talking about wanting to blend them together, yet the programme ended with those teenage girls not even having a bedroom each. They had lived in a shared room with a curtain down the middle in a rented house while the Red House was being built. That must have been very hard for those girls who were not related. I could sense problems when they spoke to the camera.

In order to "blend" that family, wouldn't it have been better to buy an ordinary house and just have a nice time together, getting to know each other, instead of all the stress and worry?

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Lyndylou Tue 31-Oct-23 13:53:16

Yes all that money spent excavating that horrible basement. I wondered what those girls thought about the idea of sleeping down there with no windows.

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Boz Tue 31-Oct-23 14:00:22

A vanity project they will probably have to sell. I didn't like it as a bit of a carbuncle, but that it probably my age. There was a thriller I read once called "The Red House" and this would fit the bill, especially the disastrous basement. There are some commercial storage units near me that this house resembles.

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seadragon Tue 31-Oct-23 14:09:17

Didn't see the programme but did see this: - architecturetoday.co.uk/the-red-house-2022-riba-house-of-the-year/ !

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Fairislecable Tue 31-Oct-23 14:19:42

I found that programme very sad.

I enjoy watching the process and developing designs but it seems Kevin McCloud revels in things going wrong and money worries.

Even with the massive mezzanine floor areas the two girls could easily have shared just subdividing with wardrobes etc.

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Ilovecheese Tue 31-Oct-23 14:52:54

At least the two girls have avoided that awful basement.

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Sparklefizz Tue 31-Oct-23 14:58:59

That’s a completely different red house seadragon

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biglouis Tue 31-Oct-23 15:10:47

I used to love this program and the quirkier houses and community projects that were illustrated. Alas, most of the latter projects seem to have resulted in sterile concrete boxes which look like a cross between a supermarket and an airport. Who wants to live in a branch of Tesco? Not I.

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Norah Tue 31-Oct-23 15:11:59

seadragon

Didn't see the programme but did see this: - architecturetoday.co.uk/the-red-house-2022-riba-house-of-the-year/ !

Lovely. Spacious, fits into the countryside! Well done!!

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Germanshepherdsmum Tue 31-Oct-23 15:27:22

That looks lovely.

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Sparklefizz Tue 31-Oct-23 16:33:14

This is the one I'm talking about on the Grand Designs programme.

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-12675521/Grand-Designs-viewers-compare-fugly-red-house-Monopoly-hotel-slam-couple-ran-money-finish-project-travelled-MOROCCO-buy-floor-tiles.html

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Germanshepherdsmum Tue 31-Oct-23 16:40:18

Revolting.

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Sparklefizz Tue 31-Oct-23 16:51:29

It makes my flesh crawl to think of 2 teenage girls having their bedrooms underground in that cellar - like some sort of torture dungeon.

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