If you have ever built your own home then you will know you have to marshal
some really powerful human energies to do it.
Your dreams, your aspirations,
your concerns over whether or not you can afford the whole thing,
and your ambitions aren't just restricted
to what you feel and think but to also those around you,
to your loved ones, your family
because this is a journey you go on together
to create something in which you will all
hopefully thrive and flourish.
And so it is crucial you find the right site,
that you find the right place
into which you can pour all your hopes.
Is this it? Yeah, that's it.
You're joking. Really?!
Near Hackney Downs in north-east London,
lives this seemingly archetypal family,
Graeme and Mel along with their girls Isla and Indi.
Yet this family has suffered more than its fair share of tragedy.
Both girls have lost a parent,
so we are creating a brand-new family from two families.
It's an ongoing process that Graeme and I are going through
and the girls.
It's the hardest thing I've ever done
and it is totally unique to witness and to be a part of.
They are two families in one house.
Graeme's daughter, Isla, who's 15,
lost her mum within weeks
of Mel's 13-year-old daughter, Indi, losing her dad.
We try to address the past of course.
You can't just bury it and not address it.
Like all the different traditions in each family,
we're trying to keep them alive.
Mel's a graphic designer from Germany
who has lived in London since 1996.
She met Graeme, an architect, at a wedding a few years ago.
I was standing there asking my friend who this
woman was in the red dress.
I made the move
so I guess, you know, we wouldn't be here without that.
Yeah, love at first sight.
Now exciting times beckon for this blended family.
Not only are Graeme and Mel tying the knot in July 2022,
Graeme's designed an entirely new home for them all.
I mean, I guess the house is symbolic.
It represents an opportunity for us to make
a statement about who we are as a family,
that we love each other,
that we're not going anywhere
and I'm doing this to create a safe place
to land as a family
and to build a future.
A new home is just perfect,
neutral ground for everyone to buy into.
For Isla and Indi,
the draw of a new home is a tad more pragmatic.
They currently share a small bedroom in the family's rental.
Having our own rooms means that we now have privacy and it's great.
At the moment we have a curtain about this wide,
it's a little bit see-through
so we'll have a wall now which is great.
So where are the family pinning their hopes for the future?
On this very tiny twin-garage plot.
Shall we see what's inside?
Oh, my God.
With an area of just six by seven metres,
the garages are less than half
the footprint of the average UK home.
It's hugely exciting,
um, nerve-racking.
It's something that,
you know, we've put all our savings into.
It is a total adventure.
I can't envisage it totally in my head.
I know Graeme can and I trust him that he can do it.
Well, I can't wait
to find out how Graeme can magic space from almost nowhere
and build a vibrant family home from this.
Hello. Hello.
How are you? Good.
So what have you bought? Two garages?
Yeah, two garages. It doesn't look much.
How big is the land altogether?
The land is about 66 square metres.
How much was two garages?
It was 275,000.
Whiz, yeah.
A few years ago you could buy a house for that. Yeah, exactly.
So tell me what you're going to build.
It's going to be a sculptural form really.
We wanted it to look amazing from all sides.
And we're going to build a red house,
which is crazy.
It's quite a statement, I guess.
This is a very polite London street.
There's greenery and even white bunting
and you're building a red house?
Yeah. Yeah.
In terms of accommodation what are you going to get?
An easy description is it's an upside-down house.
For example, you have living space on the top floor where all
the light is and the connection to view,
so the bedrooms are in the basement.
So it's kind of upside down.
Um, but we're a modern family if you like
and it's a very modern house, a shamelessly modern house.
And it works really hard to give us
the kind of spaces that we will need as a family of four.
So why do this now?
We met five years ago,
um, through fairly tragic circumstances,
um, and from that base
we have kind of cemented our relationship
and it's been a kind of objective of ours
to try to make a physical manifestation of that,
of that love, um, together.
It will be a building for the future
and shows our commitment to invest into this family,
that new patchwork family.
Graeme's devised an ingenious design
to maximise every inch of this garage plot,
hemmed in on all four sides by a neighbouring garage,
neighbours' gardens, a private road and a pavement.
The first step will be to demolish the garages.
Then the entire plot, right up to the four boundaries
will be excavated down four metres in stages,
strengthened as they go
with steel reinforced concrete walls,
half a metre thick,
to magic 63 square metres of underground space.
Above, they'll add a two-storey,
stick-built timber and steel frame,
with two roofs.
The ground floor will wear a defensive skin of red bricks.
All the other walls and roof will be clad in red composite panels,
making an arresting statement
on this old-fashioned Victorian street.
Large, carefully sited windows
will bring light right in
and light wells will ensure the basement below is bright.
Inside, they'll find a generous hallway off which will be
Graeme and Mel's bedroom and bathroom.
She's designing some geometric floor tiles
to be handmade specially for this entire floor.
A one-off steel staircase will lead down to
the basement where the all-important bedrooms
for both girls will be,
alongside a utility room.
Up on the first floor,
under a spacious double vaulted ceiling,
Graeme's laid out a sitting room that'll lead to
a larger kitchen and dining room.
The big windows carefully organise green views
in three different directions.
There's no room for a garden
but Graeme has cleverly integrated a private,
outdoor terrace to the rear instead.
His design squeezes the absolute max
from a tiny footprint,
proper grown-up architecture on a pint-sized plot,
which will likely add to the complexity and budget.
How much is it going to cost to build?
The project cost should be roundabout four, 450.
We're hopeful that it's not going to be that much over 700
for the overall build plus land.
So your savings have bought the site basically
and have you got a mortgage for this?
Yeah, the mortgage is for 450,000.
OK, so that'll cover the project.
Any contingency?
There is contingency in that. About 30,000 of contingency.
OK. So, sounds to me like you've got to be really, really,
really focused and really tight on the spend, haven't you?
We have to because we don't have, you know,
wealthy family and friends or backgrounds,
um, and we have to bring this in on target.
Providing that there aren't any delays
and when the delays happen that's when the costs rise.
Yes. You're not building it yourselves, as it were?
No, we have a main contractor to carry
the heavy loads of building the basement.
Yes. That's the most expensive part of the build... Yeah. ..going into the ground,
and they're managing that part of the job.
How long is it going to take?
We hope 12 months.
And then moving in in the summer next year.
That's the plan, yeah.
I do totally trust him.
I have to. We all do.
He'll manage.
Well, the pressure's well and truly on.
450 grand is not a lot for a project this ambitious in London,
with a stonking great basement dig.
The one word that springs to mind about this project is excitement.
And I say that because this tiny house is going to represent
so many big ideas condensed into one small space.
So many poignant histories
of this family who have come together
in the middle of London on this miniature plot.
I mean, in order to create this perfectly-formed- beautiful house
they're going to have to set off a sort of
tiny, controlled explosion.
Come the autumn,
the main contractor sets about demolishing the garages by hand.
We want to see the site flat,
and everything gone
so we can finally see where we're building our future home.
Seeing it gone is going to give us a really,
a much better understanding of what kind of size
of house we're actually going to get.
Within a matter of hours the garages are down.
And within weeks there's yet more good news.
Whoa, its big.
Yeah, it gives it so much more space, doesn't it?
We have a garden.
Thanks to having bought a neighbouring garage for £15,000
Graeme and Mel have a little bit more space to play with.
How much more do we have now?
About 30 square metres more for the garden.
It's such a huge impact.
Just even light coming into this side of the house.
We were literally going to look against a wall.
So, lucky.
Yeah, I know.
All in all the land plus associated design changes
will cost 35 grand more,
Graeme and Mel's entire contingency and some,
so nothing can go wrong now.
I'm worried about it.
Yeah.
But it soon emerges there's a problem.
The main contractor has pulled the plug on building the basement
for the 150 grand Graeme and Mel budgeted.
We've had a main contractor who doesn't want to do the basement now
because of fluctuating costs globally
and we've got a finite amount of money that we need to spend
and that's what it needs to cost.
The delay is nerve-racking for sure.
It's just worrying
because we are already paying the mortgage.
The nervousness in the house is increasing the tension.
Come spring they have their new contractor for the basement.
Shall we get the breaker on these bits of concrete first?
Only now it's costing 170,000,
20 grand more than budgeted,
which will have to be funded by borrowing even more from the bank.
And to avoid costs spiralling further,
Graeme and Mel are going to have to project manage
the build instead of using a main contractor.
Now we're on site
and we've got a team that we're really pleased with.
They've got a 12-week programme
and it's going to fly by, which is really super exciting.
The important thing is we don't find anything grisly under there... Yeah.
..like pipework.
But it seems they're cracking through it.
Graeme really shouldn't have said that.
Hmm.
Well, that's not on the drawings.
Drain which isn't supposed to be there.
It's coming from that property.
If this is a live sewage pipe,
it could take months of red tape and delays to move it.
Oh, shit.
In Hackney,
the basement excavation has stopped
thanks to that unexpected soil pipe that's been unearthed.
What we do,
we cut just a little bit here.
The mighty angle grinder
will determine whether it's still in use.
Oh, it's full of concrete.
Look at that.
Mercifully, it's not
so it's back to work.
Two weeks into the 12-week basement dig,
right on schedule,
sheets of plywood bulwark are installed in anticipation
of the first concrete pour.
Hey, Kevin, how are you?
Very good, how are you? Yeah, yeah, very well, thank you.
So it's a big square hole with a big square lump in it.
Yes, it is.
With the intention, presumably to excavate this eventually.
Yeah.
Nine months ago, when we met,
you were expecting to spend how much?
Between 400 and 450.
OK, and in your darkest moments now?
If we can get it in under 500,
we would probably be succeeding.
It's a bit of a jump.
Yeah, and if it were north of that?
We'd have to really think about how to complete the project.
So it doesn't leave us much variability
in the second phase of the project, if any.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Focuses the mind. Mm.
But come the first week in July,
by which time all the basement should have been formed,
only about half has been excavated.
My expectations were that we would be
further along than what we are.
I'm somewhat disappointed.
Supply chain issues,
most of all conditions of the site.
We've used up every piece of space we have up there.
We don't have a facility for a skip.
We have muck away from this excavation.
This is a major challenge for us
because we just can't get rid of it quick enough.
Yes, so, there's just no space whatsoever.
Yeah, I do sympathise with the guys
because it's not a nice environment to work in.
And they're going to cost us.
They're eight months into this 12-month project
and the basement should be done by now.
Instead, Graeme and Mel
face the stresses of delay while they also gear up for a huge
and usually joyful life event.
The flowers I'll get from the local people.
Keep it simple.
Their wedding in France in a few weeks' time.
We've got the celebrant sorted.
She's finished.
We have to write our vows. Our vows and everything.
They're going to be doing ground floor slab right when we're away.
The basement box will be done.
And on reflection that's not great planning.
But we put our wedding off for two years
because of Covid and we just thought, "Let's just do it,"
and that creates its own heightened stress environment in the house.
It's just a bit mad
and we're kind of regretting it a little bit.
The worry of course is that
the fun time will be infringed by the build worries
and the stresses that we just simply can't stop.
But within days,
the strains and stresses of home feel far away.
The unification of this patchwork family
celebrated through Graeme and Mel's union.
When they get back, they discover
the basement is still nowhere near complete,
It's now five months since excavations began.
The repercussions for us are huge.
We're paying rent on our property.
We're also paying the mortgage on
the amount we've drawn down to pay for the build.
The interest rates on that are going up,
it's not a fixed rate,
and that's causing us a lot of worry.
We are just really quite stunned
about the lack of progress, totally.
It's just so grinding us down.
I'm worried about Graeme.
I'm worried about his wellbeing.
He's working way too hard.
We are definitely running out of steam.
And this whole thing could just...
..collapse really.
Mel's nervousness is understandable.
Cautionary tales of domestic digging are common.
Yet few are more dramatic
than the story of this Hackney home,
a stone's throw from Graeme and Mel's.
Over a 40-year span, it's then owner,
William Lyttle, an engineer,
inexplicably dug a warren
of enormous tunnels underneath it.
He became known simply as the Mole Man.
By the early 2000s, it was at risk of collapse,
so Hackney Council pumped industrial quantities of aerated concrete
into the tunnels, to try and keep the house standing.
These days, however,
it is blessed with a remarkable new life
thanks to architects Adjaye Associates and its current owner,
Sue Webster, the renowned artist.
Here's the house. Here's the living room.
It's very beautiful.
It was in a state of probate when I found it. Right.
Nobody knew how to take it on.
My builders said it was cheaper to demolish it and build it again.
And I was like, "No, you're missing the point."
Sue's inspired approach was to preserve
and celebrate the Mole Man's extraordinary story.
But by far the most ambitious challenge was turning
the warren of the Mole Man's tunnels into a basement
to house Sue's studio.
We had to remove 2,000 tonnes of aerated concrete,
which took up between 250 and 300 skip loads.
So, if you think about how much money one of them giant skips is
and we were just replacing one every day.
We went through about, yeah, 300 skips.
Constructing the basement alone took around a year.
But, by golly, was it worth it.
Ooh!
Yeah, wow!
At the time, how often did you find yourself staring into the hole
in the ground thinking how you were going to. That pit of despair.
I was lucky in the sense that I didn't really worry about money.
I just didn't.
And it's the thing of also possibly being born without fear
because I just go, "Yeah,
just throw yourself towards danger and see what happens."
Yeah, weigh up the odds and then do it anyway. That's living.
Going down with a building
offers such exciting opportunities, doesn't it?
You know, the potential to rewrite the language,
to mix architecture and archaeology,
to create a brand-new, private space.
It's exactly what Mel and Graeme want to do.
You just need deep pockets to dig a deep hole.
You need cojones,
you need to be born without fear.
I'm not sure Graeme and Mel feel fearless right now.
The concrete shell of the basement may finally be complete.
Let's have a look.
But what are Isla and Indi going to make of their basement bedrooms?
Agh. Do you feel it's really deep? Yeah.
Yeah. It is very deep.
It looks like a hole in the ground basically.
Yeah, it's a hole in the ground where we will be living
and that's about it.
GRAEME: Who wants to go first? Come down into the hole.
It's taking a while.
About four or five months to dig a hole in the ground.
We will never see daylight again.
Come on, guys.
So, it looks bigger or smaller when you're down here?
It looks smaller when you're down here.
Making daylight work really well down here is going to be the biggest challenge.
We're thinking of having windows above
to get the daylight into your rooms.
So, you can look down from above.
What, so, like, windows out on the street?
No, no, no, no.
We've waited so long for this.
I mean we always joked about how, like, once we move in,
I'll be moving out.
But, like, I don't think it's a joke any more.
It's been pushed back so many times that we have, like, literally no idea when it will be finished,
but, yeah.
I think we're finished.
Three weeks later,
the pouring of the ground floor slab marks the end
to the groundworks phase.
Today's pretty momentous.
We started work on the basement
on 21st March this year.
It's now 24th November.
That's a huge amount of time
to be messing around in the ground.
But, yeah, I'm so,
so happy that this stage has reached.
And now we know its going to all happen really fast.
As indeed it does.
At the start of December,
the team who'll assemble the timber frame arrive on site.
The timber, along with a steel structure that'll help brace
the house's open-plan layout,
will cost £30,000.
And after just two days,
the entire ground floor timber structure's installed,
followed shortly after
by the six steels supporting the first floor.
Where I really hope to be by Christmas
is full timber frame in,
membrane on the outside, so it's a watertight shell.
But come the New Year,
work grinds to a halt.
There's a problem with the welding on the installed steel beams.
The absolute worst-case scenario is that one or two of the steels
need to be replaced which, given where we are
and where everything's loaded up to,
is difficult.
But it turns out more than two need to be removed
and replaced, by a team who weren't responsible for the problem.
We are changing this.
One, two, three, four.
I mean, as you can see,
the job is quite hard and difficult.
Big job.
But it's hard for us to try to lift these heavy steels, as you can see.
This project should have been finished two months ago.
This really is the last thing Graeme and Mel need.
You can get so stressed about delay.
And you can get so stressed about the impact, you know.
We've got a scaffolder we're paying by the week,
we've got a site facilities hut we're paying by the week,
we've got a rental property we're paying by the month.
Everything that pushes the end date back costs us money.
And that's, if you think about that every day,
you just would never do this kind of thing.
I do not envy Graeme and Mel right now.
In Hackney,
they've replaced the ground-floor steel beams
and the timber installers can crack on
and get the two-storey structure and the roof
of Graeme and Mel's home built,
two months after they started.
In the grand scheme of things, we planned seven days.
I was hoping we'd be finished a long time ago.
So, I just want to get it done.
We're near the end now.
Positivity at last,
even if they are three months over schedule.
The tying it around of course. And time for a topping-out ceremony,
or as the Germans call it, a Richtfest.
Vielen dank und frohes Richtfest.
Cheers. Cheers.
Cheers, guys.
To the carpenters. Thank you.
Not a bad drop.
Lovely, delicious.
There is an actual structure to enter now...
Come in through the window.
..which has led Graeme and Mel to completely rethink
the layout of their living space.
Of course it has.
So, the original plan was to have
the living room here as you come up from the stairs
and you have this beautiful view out
and we realised this can't be the living room, this has to be the kitchen.
So you're swapping? Yeah. Just like that?
Just like that.
Any other changes?
Well, yes.
The kids have been lobbying for a mezzanine space.
The fact that they're in the basement
has raised a few eyebrows from their perspective.
I think the trade-off is that they're going to have
a little deck that they can hang in
and maybe a roof light on top.
Nice. We have them always in our minds when we make those changes.
The design would be totally different if we weren't a blended family, I think.
Yeah. Yeah.
Every detail of this house is being scrutinised by Graeme and Mel,
to ensure it works for the whole family.
Including the size and shape of all the windows,
which arrive within days.
Graeme can't quite believe the sudden progress.
I just had this like frisson of excitement
just go through me which is really nice.
By mid-morning the slim-framed windows,
all £32,000 worth,
are ready to be installed.
It's the first one and it's in.
I can't believe it.
It really makes such a difference to have glass there.
It feels so good.
Graeme's considered the exact size
and position of every window.
And by the end of the day,
their planning and focus has clearly paid off.
We really deserve now that things are going well for a change.
There's a good energy behind the project now.
It's long overdue that we've got some good luck.
But their luck seems short-lived.
Because their overall schedule has snowballed
from 12 to 18 months,
their neighbours have given Graeme and Mel a four-week deadline
to remove their scaffolding from the surrounding gardens.
They have a month to fit all their cladding.
We're being put under a bit of pressure through
the use of license agreements.
And we're feeling the need
and the urgency to get our project accelerating.
If they miss the deadline, it'll cost them £1,000 a week,
so they reluctantly abandon the planned brick facade
on the ground floor in favour of a plaster-coloured render.
Which will help with our budget which we're also having to watch.
But it's a difficult decision and it is pressure
because money is involved.
But the rest of the walls and the roof
have to be clad in red-tinted,
exterior grade, cement particle boards,
sustainable but painstaking to machine and fit.
First, Graeme and Mel have to sand
and then seal every panel to enrich the colour.
Then the installation team have to trim each piece
down to size,
drill holes for the mounting,
paint each aluminium mounting rail so it won't be seen,
space each panel exactly ten millimetres
from the adjacent ones... Yep.
..and secure.
They need over 500 individually-prepared panels
to clad this building.
Inevitably, with only three days until the scaffolding
needs to come down,
there are still large areas left to clad.
On the roof.
And the all-important street-facing elevation.
You have to be precise, you have to look at the gaps,
you have to look at the lines, at the levels,
you have to check all the alignments and everything,
make sure everything lines up and looks pretty.
Yeah?
The pressure is getting to Mel.
They need to be done too, there's three there.
It's back-breaking work, actually,
I always have a bad back now.
We really had never considered being this hands-on.
Going up. Now going up.
Every weekend we've been here now for three weeks
and every day after work.
It just feels like...
..still, like you open a box
and ten more boxes are there.
So that doesn't stop.
Yet miraculously, come the deadline at the end of May,
they're finished.
The scaffolding is gone,
and the result is quite a statement.
By mid-summer the interior fit-out is properly under way.
Mineral wool insulation and plasterboard are going in.
Electrical cables are being routed.
And at a metal workshop four miles away,
steel stairs designed by Graeme
are being fabricated.
But Graeme and Mel
are 2,000 miles away
in Marrakech.
We got engaged here in January 2020.
So that's what binds us forever to Marrakech.
And the feeling comes back. We're feeling really happy.
Their engagement in Morocco inspired Mel
to design a series of tiles for the ground floor,
which are now being fabricated here.
So they're starting
and we're hoping to see the whole process.
Melanie's interest in pattern and colour
was really something we wanted to introduce
or infuse into the design of the house.
I think we'll walk across the tiles all the time
thinking of Marrakech, which is nice.
Here it is.
Hello. Nice to see you. Nice to see you.
Ahmed's family have been producing cement tiles
here for 35 years.
This is our factory. Yeah. Our workshop.
Nice and cool here.
Bonjour.
This is incredible.
It's like magic. Magique.
Mel's geometric designs
have been replicated in these metal tile moulds,
which are filled with mixtures of ground marble,
cement and coloured pigment...
..covered and then pressed.
They are left to dry for several days.
This is it. I mean, the colour is just absolutely gorgeous.
With four separate designs to play with,
the tiles can be arranged to form different patterns.
It is like a jigsaw.
It's perfect.
I know we are now in Morocco... Yeah.
..but it will be working in Hackney.
I'm totally positive.
Their cost, including shipping,
is comparable to buying off-the-shelf tiles in the UK.
Not that getting them from here to Hackney
will be straightforward, not by any means.
They get shipped to Casablanca by road,
and then in Casablanca they have to wait until there's
a container load full to ship to Felixstowe
and that can take up to four to six weeks.
The lengths Graeme and Mel will go to create a special,
autobiographical home are astonishing
But, in London,
tests on the basement have revealed issues about
the quantity of cement
in the concrete that could affect its longevity.
I'm just trying not to be too down about it,
but I'm really distraught over this.
Melanie and I are really distraught.
The ceiling obviously didn't plan out to be so pretty
so we cannot leave the concrete exposed.
No, we'd originally thought we were going to expose the concrete.
I am hugely disappointed.
I am worried
and also quite annoyed
that this is happening to us.
When Graeme, Mel and the girls will move into their new home
I have no idea.
There is a deal of uncertainty about the basement of Graeme
and Mel's new home near Hackney Downs,
so I don't quite know what to expect.
It's been over two years since I first met them.
And yet...
Well. You see, in a street which is so polite,
full of white painted brick houses,
classically arranged here,
and decorated with Norman, early English details, you know?
There is a building...
..which is actually medieval in inspiration
and yet classically organised.
It is...exquisite.
Just great. Such energy.
Well, they said right at the beginning they wanted to make a
statement in this street and they've made one. A big pink one.
It's a good pink though, isn't it?
It is beautifully finished.
So, all these gaps have been spaced,
all the rivets have been match-painted in to
the colour of the boards.
Why do anything that's easy when you can make it hard for yourself?
Definition of craftmanship.
Hey. Hey. How are you?
I'm admiring a building.
Very good to see you. Hello!
How are you after all this time?
How are you? Yeah, good to see you, Graeme. How's it going?
Congratulations. The house looks terrific.
Thanks very much. It does, thank you.
You know you see some houses which are squeezed into gaps,
particularly in London, you know, and you think,
"Oh, that looks so painful."
You know? it looks like it's really been squashed in.
But this, this breathes.
It feels far more generous than the garages looked.
I know we stood in the garages and thought,
"What the hell have we just done?"
"How can we build a house?" For sure.
But we maxed it out completely.
The cladding above, it sort of carries the character of
a slightly distressed ancient structure.
It's like looking at a palazzo wall from, you know,
from an Italian city that's been sliced up and brought here
and kind of rearranged. Yeah.
You could have been much simpler about this,
you could have just made a box.
Might have been a bit quicker but there were challenges
and, you know, I think what we've come out with is quite
an experimental form. It's recognisable,
it's definitely domestic in its... The language it uses.
Yeah. I'd love to see inside.
Come and have a look. Let's go and see it.
What an exquisite, romantic building this is.
Goodness me!
It's ready to receive furniture, almost.
But inside it's not quite ready to move into yet.
The interior is not as advanced as the outside.
However, the elephant in the house is hidden beneath
a temporary lid. It is the basement.
The plywood floor covering the void below.
The void! Do we talk about the void?
You can talk about the void. What's the deal?
Well, we're hopeful there's a solution.
It does create a slightly smaller footprint down there
because we're having to add an additional layer on
the inside of the concrete walls. OK.
Effectively to form a tanking system.
Yeah. Yeah. A tanking system.
So we've essentially got a two storey house now, ostensibly,
and we will expand into the third floor
as and when that space becomes available.
But can you live in this building and work on that?
We can live in this building and work on that.
We've a bedroom down here.
We've created a mezzanine platform
on the first floor that allows one of our daughters
to sleep there, and the other one will probably camp
in the living room for the time being. OK.
Not ideal living arrangements for now,
but what a breathtaking home this is going to be.
Even without the balustrade - the steel stairs.
The staircase looks like it's floating. That's just so elegant.
And some of Mel's tiles have already been laid in the bedroom.
Oh, here it is, on the floor! Love that.
Do you like it?
I mean, I really like that. That's, that's...
It's like Sonia Delaunay. Yes.
You know, it's beautiful.
I just cannot get over the fact,
however, that you've had these made in Morocco,
you've gone there, you've designed it,
because there aren't enough tiles in the UK?
I mean, what's that about?
There are eight million different patterns available
and you've had to go and do your own.
We realised we really wanted to link it
to our family history, which is Morocco.
It was a gamble, but we pulled it off and it's just magic.
Of course, there are weeks and months of graft ahead to complete
the autobiography of this blended family home and its garden.
So what are the living quarters upstairs like?
Up the steel hill. It's good.
Up we go. It's just wide enough, isn't it? It's perfect.
Beautiful. Oh, this is good.
Beautiful.
The kitchen.
Really good. The stainless is lovely.
And there's red! Of course there's red! Yeah.
It's all very, very sleek.
Yeah, I think so.
I think the addition of the mezzanine as well,
because the space is so voluminous up here,
having this lowered area over the kitchen brings
a certain cosiness to it.
Oh, nice, yeah.
Wow. Exquisite.
By contrast, the adjoining dining
and living space stretches right up to the vaulted ceiling.
It's spacious.
I mean, it's generous but, of course, hugely tall as well.
Like being in a little chapel.
Yeah, I think the size of the plot meant that we needed
to go a little bit higher in the space,
because it just gives us...
It's a bit more forgiving to a tighter room size. Mm.
I really like it when buildings have
windows that don't tell you what's happening behind it.
Well, presumably very few people can even see that window
because it's facing down the gardens.
No-one can see in through it, which is amazing.
This on other hand, this is a completely candid window.
This looks right down the street so that you can wave
to everybody walking by. Yeah. In your pyjamas.
And this one, again,
I mean, essentially what you see is sky. Yeah.
Must be very satisfying.
It must be lovely to kind of, you know, get this far and...
Yeah, it's beautiful. It's really overwhelming,
We've come a long way. A long, long way.
But how are the girls going to be living here for
the time being without bedrooms in the basement ready to move into?
Indi's going to be sleeping up here.
Well, I was going to say who's bagged it? You've bagged it?
Indi's pretty much bagged it.
On what grounds? How come?
No grounds. No grounds.
No seniority, no kind of... No.
That's OK. So, what's the plan for you, then?
Are you going to be allowed to live here, as well?
I go where the wind takes me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know?
I think I'm going to be sleeping in the living room.
I actually don't know, like, we'll see what happens.
Graeme and Mel between them have kind of fixated,
it's fair to say, on this house. Is all this worth it?
Yeah. Definitely. For sure.
I love this house.
I didn't think it would look like this. It's very cosy.
Tell me, has it put you off, would you ever do such a thing?
Would you ever?
No, you wouldn't.
It's just so draining, even just watching it happen.
Like, so many conversations.
Like, I don't think we've ever talked about anything
that wasn't the house.
Yeah, it is actually going to be one weird thing about it is
the fact that there's not this thing going on anymore.
But there remains the basement to sort out.
Graeme believes he has a solution but negotiations with
the basement contractor are still ongoing.
At the moment, we can afford to finish our project,
but not to pay for the remedial costs of the basement.
It's a question mark as to how we fund that right now.
We don't honestly have the answer to that.
And what is the worst case?
I mean, the worst case for us is going to be...
..not being able to afford to fund the remediation
and the net affect of that will be we'll have to sell it.
So there's a question mark hanging over you.
Starting out, you thought you'd spend 450 grand, say.
So, where did you land, do you think?
I think we're going to land realistically around 550
in terms of our borrowing,
um, and we've had to ask family
and friends for contributions, as well. But it's so close.
And your relationship with the building as a result is?
Weaker, stronger, more tetchy, more complex?
I'm totally in love with this building
and we are one with this building now.
What happens if you have to sell, will you be heartbroken?
Yes. Absolutely. Yeah.
I really want to see this space inhabited by us as a family.
Leaving our marks in here and making history in here together, for sure.
For the project to be complete.
Graeme wanted this house to be a manifestation of love,
and it is all heart so let us hope
this family overcome this next hurdle.
Well, no pain, no gain,
is the motto of this project.
But then, you see, if you're thinking that they've had
a difficult time building it, well,
goodness me, it is as nothing compared to
the pain that this entire household have suffered
on the way getting here through bereavement and loss.
Somewhat puts the difficulties of
building a house in proportion, doesn't it?
Oh, and if you're also wondering whether or not this building
delivers against the objectives they set for it,
whether or not it's helping this family thrive and flourish,
whether it can make them happier,
then let me tell you -
yes, it can.
It's already started.
What a delightful little woodland world.
I'm trying to build something modest but also exquisite.
Yeah, a jewel.
Oh, shit. It might all explode while you're down there. It's going.
Oh, yes.
I declare the South Herefordshire railway open.
They're going to snap, Rob.
Timescale has slipped by a year or two, I'd say.
That's quite significant, isn't it? Yes.
Subtitles by Red Bee Media