If "against all odds" is one of the leitmotifs
of this programme,
then there is one episode from 2021
that perhaps is... riskier than all others.
It involves a decrepit old building that was in dire need of repair.
A young married couple whose relationship
had been forged amidst serious illness
and for whom, they felt at least,
time was short.
And a young fledgling self-builder
who wanted to build a refuge for his wife.
It is one of the most poignant
and powerful stories we've ever told.
Newlyweds Greg and Georgie had grand plans...
Oh, it's big!
..for this dilapidated barn in Georgie's parents' garden.
This is now our forever home, isn't it?
But there were some serious health challenges
for both of them to contend with.
Having a brain tumour was one of
the best kick up the arses I've ever had.
I was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour when I was ten,
and since then, I've had about 90 skin cancers.
Problems lurked at every turn...
Not even budging.
..as they wrestled the barn
into something beautiful and inspiring.
We're 50 mil out. Flippin' heck.
We've had a real, real crisis with the pitch of the roof.
And it was barely finished when they moved in.
Greg and Georgie's project was extraordinary
and I'm very keen to get back and see how life
in the barn has been treating them.
But first, here's their wonderful story.
So what are you boys doing Christmas?
Greg, from Kent, is a pub landlord.
My father and I,
we basically took over the local pub.
Um, it had been derelict for a little while and we felt
it was right to save it from developers.
He project managed the renovation of his local five years ago.
And it was a real pleasure actually restoring
and bringing the pub back to its former glory.
I mean, this place wouldn't have worked
or existed if it wasn't for the customers who come through.
And we have such a great crowd in here.
Nine years ago, Greg had a brain tumour
from which he thankfully recovered,
and it was through his illness that he also met his
partner, Georgie, on a charity sailing trip.
The couple married last year after a pretty
high adrenaline proposal 100m up.
Greg was sponsored to do a abseil
down the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth.
I was going to go along
and sort of support him and take some photos above.
I just got down on one knee and...
..asked her to marry me.
And she said to the guy,
"Harness me up, I'm going to abseil down the tower."
THEY CHUCKLE
So we did it in tandem. Complete adrenaline.
For the past year, the newlyweds
have been living with Georgie's folks,
Julie and Tom, in the Kent countryside.
When Greg and I got married, Greg moved into this annexe with me,
which is attached to my parents house.
It has been nice to be able to live near my parents
and to have support when I haven't felt well enough,
which has been amazing.
Georgie, who's an artist,
has been in treatment for most of her life.
I was diagnosed with a malignant
brain tumour when I was ten. Then when I was 20,
I had thyroid cancer as well,
and since then I've had about 90 skin cancers.
which are ongoing. So it's a quite a long,
long road of about 23 years, really.
Meeting Greg was amazing because we had this
lovely connection and we both had an understanding of
what it's like to, you know, to be really unwell.
Now Greg and Georgie are about
to begin an exciting new chapter of their lives together.
By giving this run-down barn
in Georgie's parents' garden a new and ambitious lease of life.
Now I just feel, OK, I've beaten cancer,
I can do anything. I can, really...
I can... I can build a house. That's fine.
Easy. Yeah. You know?
And actually be a little bit further away
from the in-laws, possibly.
THEY LAUGH
Hello.Hello! Georgie, Kevin, how are you?
Hello. Nice to meet you, hello.
It's a fine old timber building.
It reminds me a little bit of farms that you see
in the Alps or rural France.
My grandparents had it built
35 years ago for their dairy herd. Like these doors.
Do these stay?Yeah, we're going to keep them.
Seriously?Yeah. What, with a big glazed wall behind them?
Yep. Oh, yeah.
Oh. Oh, it's big, isn't it?
So do you keep this timber frame?
Yeah. So we're going to strip all the cladding off.
And what's the big idea? We're doing split levels.
Yep. So we've got like a big cube in the middle. Nice.
So all the bedrooms would be - got four bedrooms - all on the side.
And then in the middle is going to be a cube which is dug down.
Are you doing a lot of this yourselves?
Yeah. Yeah, Greg's going to do a lot...
Majority of it, I would say.
Anybody who self-builds discovers
how extraordinarily demanding it is. Much more so than they
ever thought it would be.
How emotionally draining it is and how physically tiring.Mm.
So I look at you guys and, you know,
you've got your regime of hospital visits
and treatments and side-effects and so on.
I'm just thinking...
..you've got to surely have some kind of way of being able
to deal with this, because otherwise it's going to get on top of you.
Well, we're hoping to do it in a year. Mm-hm.
So if we can do it in a year...
That's one way of dealing with it, is to get it over and done with.
My pub, we had to do quite a lot of work there,
take the whole roof off and everything, and I coped with that.
So that's maybe the first stepping stone.
And this is now...
..our forever home, isn't it?
Yeah. It's an incredible thing.
It's a very special building, actually.
There were times when I was so ill that the goal
of the day would be to walk down here
and to sit outside the barn and sort of...
That's the only energy I had, really.
Um, so it has a lovely atmosphere in it,
and it's sort of lovely being able to look over the fields and, um...
Wow.And I'm very lucky to be invited into it.
And you also have a tremendous responsibility here.Mm-hm.
What Georgie's just described is
a very powerful, personal relationship with
a building and a corner of this place.
And what you've got to do is somehow deliver an enlarged,
kind of richer version of it, almost. Yeah?
Yeah. No pressure then. SHE LAUGHS
A local architect, Mike Kaner,
has drawn up Greg and Georgie's vision for the barn.
It's only 35 years old,
but bizarrely, planning says they can't replace it.
It's in a conservation area,
so it has to be conserved as if it were ancient.
Starting with the timber frame, which has
to remain standing right through the construction.
Their first task will be to carefully strip off the cladding,
number each piece and store it safely on site
to be refitted all over again later on.
Then the existing thin concrete floor
will need to be removed and excavations dug.
At this point, if they're really unlucky,
they may need to underpin, reinforce the concrete
supports of the existing timber posts
before they can then pour a web of foundations for a new slab.
Even then, the building won't be structurally sound
until Greg figures out how to repair
all the timber posts that are rotten at the bottom.
Next, a new steel roof
that will incorporate new roof lights will go on,
followed by thick insulation, and then the original
cladding reapplied to the barn.
There'll be an eco heating system
and on top a huge solar array for clean electricity.
On the inside, a small hall
will lead to a somewhat cavernous room,
a vaulted single story living space with bifold doors
that will offer organised views of the fields and countryside beyond.
Incorporated at one end will be the kitchen and table,
each accompanied by a specifically shaped window
to deliver a particular view from that place.
In the heart of the building,
They'll fit a semienclosed volume they're calling the cube.
A steel framed, split-level structure with a snug
sunk below floor level
in order to accommodate a mezzanine space above,
which will serve as Georgie's Craft workshop.
You'll get up there via a steel staircase,
designed and, for that matter, welded by Greg.
A U-shaped corridor will surround
the cube and give on to a variety of smaller, enclosed rooms.
Two generous bedrooms and one for Greg and Georgie.
A bathroom, a guest bedroom and a utility room.
These are two inexperienced self-builders
with health issues going it alone.
And this is a mighty big space which is going to demand huge inputs
of energy, imagination and ingenuity.
For starters, just look at the state of the timber posts.
Not much left of it. No, actually there isn't, is there?
How soft is it?
Oh, man alive!
Oh, no. It's just like blancmange.
Oh, wow. So this is X timber,
and is now just adding an amazing amount of expense
and difficulty to the project, isn't it?
It's totally bonkers.
Greg might have cut his teeth project managing a pub renovation,
but that is nothing compared to this.
What is your budget?
250,000.
It's pretty tight. It's very tight.
Where's the cash come from?
I'm financing it with some savings and a family loan.
The barn itself is actually on my parents land,
so they're very kindly... Great.
It's a wedding gift, really. Yes.
What happens if you realise, actually,
you haven't got enough to finish?
What's the backup plan?
The backup plan. Yeah. What is the backup plan?
Is there a...? Um...
There isn't actually completely a plan B yet.
Yeah.
Greg and Georgie have £250,000
to convert a building measuring roughly 250 square metres.
Now, by anybody's scale, it's not enough.
The average self builder would need twice
or three times that to do what they want to do.
So what's going to happen?
Well, either they're going to go bust...
or the building's not going to get finished...
..or both, or...
..they're going to have to be amazingly resourceful.
Of course, it would have been a lot easier to simply knock
the existing barn down and start again from scratch.
Instead, the painstaking conservation of the timber frame
starts with the removal of 1,500 sections of pine cladding
that Greg must carefully number up,
store safely on site and reapply to the building later on.
Unfortunately, it would be nice just to leave it as is,
but we have to take it all off because we've got to insulate.
Also, we have to get a digger in between the main
uprights to excavate the new foundations.
Thankfully, there is enough in the budget to pay just one man,
Greg's mate Sam, a former
shepherd who'll be helping out for the duration of the project.
Nice to be involved with it from start to finish.
Going to be interesting.
I know I'm going to learn a lot from Greg as well.
It's really helpful having Sam to help.
You do need all hands on deck for this to work.
And I've been helping where I can. Wish I could do a bit more,
but energy wise I have to be a bit careful.
But the view is incredible now,
sort of seeing the panoramic view.
I'm getting very excited now.
Greg and Sam's next task is less straightforward.
They have to remove the barn's concrete floor
so new foundations can be dug.
Greg is a rookie digger driver, but a highly inventive one
who has devised a new concrete busting technique...
Hoo! ..rodeo digging.
Not even budging.
Maybe you're right, Sam. Maybe we need a smaller bucket.
With a smaller bucket attached and Sam at the controls...
Yeah, that's coming on.
..they can refine the art of cowboy building.
It's a very big job for just two of us,
but we seem to be doing all right. Both me and Greg work well together,
so that always makes it a bit easier as well.
Once the old concrete's cleared,
Greg can hand over to a specialist ground worker,
Paul, who has to install much deeper and reinforced foundations.
New footings on an empty plot
for a building this size might cost 20 or 30 grand.
Here, delicately working around and reinforcing the base
for this existing structure while keeping it
all up will cost a lot more.
It's coming in at about £80,000.
It's a lot of money and it's a big hit, really.
80 grand is a third of Greg's entire budget,
and the foundations could end up costing even more,
depending on the depth of the concrete pads
that support each timber column.
The worst case scenario is actually
that we have to underpin all of the main pillars,
which is where we actually have to dig under the existing pads,
which aren't big enough, and join them and put steel
and concrete in, in a very slow, tedious process.
Which is a lot of hard work and costs a lot of money.
Their structural engineer Ben Tubb,
is on site to assess the depth of the concrete
that sits beneath the timber columns.
So our best result is that Ben says,
"Look, we don't have to underpin any of the pre-existing pads."
The following day, they head off to find out
whether they'll have to spend an extra 20 grand on underpinning.
I'm quite confident that we're going
to get a good result, but you never quite know.
Hi, guys.
Um...
So the pads. Yep. Um...
..you've got to underpin those. Um...
Is that underpinning under some of them or is that all of them?
In most cases I would imagine.
Yeah. Yeah.
This is awful.
It's, uh, not good news. Uh, we've got to underpin.
It's going to make a big difference to the time and cost as well.
Greg and Georgie have hardly begun.
And yet the planning requirement to keep
the frame standing means their foundations alone
are swallowing nearly half their budget.
How on earth are they going to get out of this hole?
Greg and Georgie have only been going for six weeks,
and already their groundwork costs have escalated
to around £100,000
on a 250 grand budget.
Got any more buckets? No.
So Greg's made the unenviable and perilous decision
to part ways with the professional ground workers
and do the job himself.
Could have done without the rain today.
With his mate Sam and Georgie's help, of course.
Sam, how much would you pay for a machine that could do this.
A lot.
We're actually a couple of weeks behind.
I haven't done this kind of work before.
Yeah, it's just a lot of pressure on my shoulders, really.
I don't think anybody quite prepares you for how stressful it can be.
We're having to underpin and put lots
of these big metal 20 mil dowels in underneath the pads,
and then we're digging in from each side to meet in the middle.
And it's been a nightmare. It's just pure flint.
We've spent two days just trying to dig one of these.
Yeah, it's been frustrating,
and it feels like it's dragging a bit now.
If only planning had let them demolish
the 35-year-old structure and rebuild it from scratch,
they could have avoided all this.
But if this is what Greg needs to do
in order to craft a new home for his beloved wife, then so be it.
His remarkable drive comes from the toughest of life experiences.
Having a brain tumour was one of the best
kick up the arse as I've ever had. You know?
I just remember in that hospital bed,
I was just weighing up all the...
..things that I hadn't done...
..erm, in life, and how I wanted to cross them all off.
And one of them was to...
..build a dream home.
There's no way I'd be here doing what I'm doing now
if I hadn't got ill and hadn't met George.
And I just want to show people...
..that I'm well again, you know, and I'm able to do this.
Thanks to Greg's extraordinary
energy and drive, two months into the project...
I think I can see it coming down the road.
..the trenches are finally ready to be filled with concrete.
And having completed so much
of the groundworks themselves, miraculously,
they've spent not a penny more than the original 80 grand they budgeted.
It's a remarkable achievement.
But Greg's already moved on to the next challenge,
getting a rotten oak tree next to the barn felled.
He'll use the timber to craft some furniture for the new house.
Wow!
Given just how much Georgie and Greg have been through,
it's comforting for them to know their new home
will be next door to Georgie's parents, Tom and Julie.
We are sort of here on hand, if ever,
God forbid, there was a hiccup on the health front.
Well, we're sort of here to, you know, to rally around.
Do you fret for their health, as it were,
for the for the stress levels of the project as you go through?
Of course, anything can happen to either of them.
We've had months and years and, you know,
heartache and tears and terrible times,
real anxiety about the future for Georgie particularly.
And it will always be like that.
Greg can be quite gung-ho,
but that's one of the joys of seeing someone who's beaten...
You know where he's come from and what he's doing now.
Um, but they've got to be very careful about what they do.
Careful, yes. And extremely resourceful.
There's £170,000 left,
yet the barn's still not structurally sound,
thanks to ten badly rotten timber posts
that need repairing, as ever, cheaply.
But wait, Greg's already come up with a solution.
I think this is great. A massive collar
in two pieces which fits around the post.
Means you don't have to cut these.
It's great. I mean, it's a huge cost saving.
It's a nice, straightforward solution, and it's all from you,
so it better work.
Yeah. I love it. It's a proper, self-build,
self-designed, self engineer. Great.
Greg never shies away from a challenge.
The next one being laying
a 250 square metre block and beam floor.
And there's some serious confusion
as to which of the 70 concrete beams goes where.
It's like Where's Wally. 18? Oh, yeah.
So that goes along that far edge of the snug.
Nothing's numbered up or labelled to how it is on the floor plan.
Um, and I've never laid a floor before.
It just seems crazy.
They all seem to be cut slightly differently as well.
God! It would have been so much easier if they just
labelled them up properly.
We're just having to scratch our head over it at the moment and...
..try and decipher the plans.
They do eventually figure out the positioning of the beams,
but Greg's inexperience is leading to more problems.
Sod's law. When we're doing the drainage,
we didn't know that this beam was going to be quite so far over here.
There's a soil pipe in the way, but Greg has an unorthodox solution...
..with the merciless swathe of the angle grinder.
A week later, the concrete subfloor is in.
That is a big achievement. Feet on solid ground now.
But some challenges just can't be overcome.
Looming large over this project is
the ongoing health of Georgie, who has some unsettling news.
I found skin cancers.
I think it's probably about seven or eight at the minute.
You sort of think you're doing...
Yeah, in a quite good phase of everything going just about OK.
And then you get another sort of hit really.
So it's quite tiring. You have to dig deep.
One day at a time and sort of just so thankful,
yeah, for every day
and my time with Greg and things and,
um, I think that just keeps...
Keeps you going, and having a really
supportive family, it really does help.
Georgie will need to go for more treatment,
which only adds to Greg's determination
to get this house built quickly.
The sooner we complete this project,
the sooner we can kind of start enjoying
the precious time that we have together.
Four months in, and Greg's steel shoes
are being fitted snugly to the rotten timber columns.
He's now ready to begin work on the central showpiece of this home.
It's the cube, a two story steel structure with
a sunken snug downstairs
below floor level and a mezzanine platform above for Georgie.
It's not central.
Sam's cousin is here to help, and Sam's dad, Cullum,
who fabricated the steel down the road for £8,000.
Slung...it's slung the wrong way round, isn't it?
Thanks to Cullum's expertise,
the steel structure springs up in no time.
Yeah, I can get an idea already of the height...
..the height of this new floor.
So, this is our legal height for building control.
It feels like our head-height clearance is very tight
on the top.
Unless there's at least two metres clearance from the first floor
to the ridge of the roof,
building control will not sign off Georgie's workshop upstairs
as a habitable space.
I don't know if I've got my two-metre headroom
from the centre point.
If it's not right, Cullum will have to remake the steelwork,
which, of course, will cost.
No-one wants that.
And there is a problem.
So, we're 50 mil out.
Flippin' heck.
What a bitch.
Four frantic and stressful months
have passed in this sleepy corner of Kent...
Which way is...up?
Err! GREG LAUGHS
..and Greg and Georgie's steel frame is annoyingly just too big
to allow the first floor to be a habitable space.
It's such a small area, but it's just...
..where we won't hit regulation head height on the top.
But Greg is unfazed.
To meet building regs, he's going to try a cheap and cheerful alternative
to remaking the steel frame - by remaking the foundations instead.
To take it all apart now,
just so that we can peel back this plastic, get to the pads,
which it's going to go into,
and we're going to have to take 50 mil off them.
Still, we're not professionals. We don't do this, and...
Wha...? Oh! THEY LAUGH
It's your job, mate.
What am I doing? Er...
Sometimes, I think Greg's a little bit out of his depth.
Er, but he's the customer.
You can advise, can't you?
After just three hours of grinding the pads down,
and another two hours of reassembling the structure...
Oh, you little bastard.
..the building control moment of truth.
Woohoo! Four millimetres.
He got away with it by four mil.
You've gotta hand it to Greg.
He is entirely out of his depth,
but he is so energetic and so resourceful.
So, you've just made the pads shorter?
We just made the pad shorter, yeah.
Given that you're a novice builder,
I think you've gotta let you have that one.Yeah.
So, what happens next, then? The whole roof is coming off.
It's all coming off?Yeah. Yeah.
I'm hoping you'll say you're going to take it off in sections
and work across it, rather than strip the whole thing...
HE INHALES SHARPLY HE LAUGHS
..and leave it all exposed.
Well, it probably will be going in one go.
I-I want to keep the building as dry as possible for as long as possible.
Well, I know what you mean, but...
Yeah, we'll be fine. OK.
It'll be a quick transition.
I look forward to seeing that.
But they don't start to peel off the enormous roof
until mid-September.
Exposing a timber structure
like this in the wetter, colder months isn't ideal.
Just as well, Greg's brought on board two mates,
both carpenters, to help with the installation of the new roof.
You're my human forklift.
Of course, he can only afford to keep Olly and Jez on
for a few days each -
the idea being, they teach Greg the ropes,
and then, he and Sam complete it by themselves.
Yeah, when Greg first told me about this project, I thought,
"OK, you're biting off more than you can chew," or, you know,
"How are you going to go about it?"
And then, I saw the plans and things,
and it was exciting to see.
Greg's very into doing challenges,
and testing himself as much as he can.
Erm, even if he doesn't have a clue what he's doing,
which is great fun to see.
Oh, there goes a pencil.
I think Greg was a little bit optimistic.
I don't know if he thought 3-4 weeks to get the roof on.
It's just a big area, a lot of material to be bumped around.
So, that's just going to take time.
Ah, what a dream. Like a glove.
But three weeks later, as autumn sets in,
Greg and Sam hit a problem.
The roof isn't steep enough to accommodate the skylights.
Er, as you can see, we're only halfway there, really.
We've had a real, real crisis,
with the pitch of the roof.
The windows needed a 15-degree pitch to be installed.
It turns out we've only got 11 degrees,
so we're four degrees off.
Being able to install these windows being the most stressful part of
the project so far, thinking that we're going to have
to take apart the roof, really.
Dismantling the entire roof and rebuilding it at a steeper pitch
will take months and cost maybe £20,000 -
terrible news on a project where every penny counts.
I'd just like to kind of hand this roof problem over to
a professional roofer.
But then, I look at the budget, and I just realise, I can't...
I can't even start contemplating 10,000,
20,000 over to someone else.
Greg has no choice but to doggedly work through every problem.
His determination is matched by Georgie's dignity.
She stoically suffers the treatment for her skin cancers.
For her, delays on site are just part of a bigger picture.
Originally we hoped we'd be in by about March,
but it's probably going to be sort of summertime now.
You know, we don't want to push ourselves to the extreme,
and not sort of completely going to burn out.
And that's, you know, we both have to look after our health.
And some of the treatment I'm having at the minute is quite painful,
as well, so, there are days when it's quite a struggle, really,
with all the health things that we're both dealing with.
And Greg's juggling a lot with the pub, as well,
so, he's doing two jobs, really, at once, at the minute.
And he's working really hard.
And I'm very, very proud of him.
Four weeks on - and Greg, the master improviser,
has at last figured out a way of not rebuilding the entire roof.
He's only going to rebuild the top third of it,
where the roof lights sit.
So, I spent almost a day ripping down bits of six-inch timber
into firring strips to give us the extra four degrees
on the pitch of the roof.
So, we've now got our windows in at 15 degrees.
Just quite a bit more work.
Oh, it's a nice piece.
Amazing, you just take off a few layers,
and it's just beautiful.
Come the new year, the big picture windows have been installed,
and Greg and Georgie are ready to start refitting the original
pine cladding on the barn.
It's painstaking - each of the 1,500 planks has to be
scraped and sanded and, after being fitted,
stained, and oiled several times.
Already, you can just see... how beautiful this wood is. Gosh.
Stunning, beautiful grain coming through.
It's actually quite an important job, because this will be here
for the next however many years we are going to be here for.
For the rest of our lives.
Never in my wildest dreams believed
the timber was going to be as nice as it is.
It's looking better than I remember, actually.
Really, really happy. It's beautiful.
OK, and then...
Yet, miraculously, given all they've been through,
they've been able to still clutch onto £80,000 to transform
this basic shell into their new home.
Or so they thought.
Just as the project appeared to be turning a corner,
Greg and Georgie learned some shocking news about the company
supplying their eco-heating systems.
I got a phone call saying that...
..our renewable energy company has actually gone under.
Erm...
..and it's very alarming,
because we've got huge deposits, actually, with them.
So, it's just over about... over £5,000 that we've lost.
I think we're going to have to claw back a bit, because of this.
It is a lot, a lot of money with our small budget,
you know, with this, so... yeah, a really big blow.
Their new home isn't going to have the air-source heating they wanted.
They'll have to find a more modest solution.
Regardless, Greg starts boarding out
the vast interior with timber
a year since they set out on this project -
a point at which they were supposed to be moving in.
But then, as the coronavirus crisis threatens further delays,
what Greg's most anxious about, it turns out, is Georgie.
I'm really, really worried for our safety,
but mainly Georgie's,
due to the fact, her past medical history,
the weak immune system and respiratory problems she's had.
I'm really...
Yeah, terrified.
It was a nerve-racking time,
especially for Greg and Georgie.
So, it was an enormous relief a few months later
to see where they'd got to with the transformation of
the former dairy barn.
Oh! That is wonderful.
Greg and Georgie had, thank goodness...
Hello.Hi! This is extraordinary!
..moved into their safe haven.
We've actually accomplished it.
And I'm amazed that we've managed to do it, really.
The once-tired pine cladding
had been lovingly oiled and finessed.
The new steel roof that caused Greg so much stress
also seemed so slick.
And inside, the double-height living space was something of a revelation.
This is very beautiful.
Exquisite set of spaces.
There may have been bedrooms still to complete,
an all-important utility room to install,
as well as a load of landscaping to figure out in the garden...
..but at least they were in.
We've both been given a second chance in life,
and what we've both been through.
This building will hopefully improve our new life,
and we start the next chapter, really.
It was all so promising.
But how did that next chapter turn out?
I had to come back to find out.
Greg and Georgie just about got over the finishing line five years ago,
so it's going to be very exciting to go back
and to see the building matured
and settled into that corner of the field there.
But there was some bigger questions, too.
I mean, has that building nurtured them?
Has it provided everything they'd hoped for,
particularly for their health?
And of course, has the excitement of living next to the in-laws
rubbed off yet?
In this idyllic corner of the Kent countryside, near Sevenoaks,
It's five years since Greg and Georgie moved into their new home.
So, how's that formerly-dilapidated dairy barn in Georgie's
parents' garden looking now, I wonder?
This is all reassuringly familiar.
There's the red brick house of Georgie's parents, Tom and Julie.
The grey annexe - which actually, that's a new colour,
that's been rebuilt and added to, heavens!
There's change there.
That's where Greg and Georgie used to live.
And then, there it is!
That is really good.
Thanks to some clever planting,
the barn's properly tucked into the landscape now.
The maturing trees and lawn suggest a cleared woodland glade.
The building itself is, of course, still the star of the show...
..with the welcome addition of a solar panel array.
It doesn't really look like an agricultural barn any more,
more like a really well-considered single-storey house.
It's really grown into something quite special.
But what I really want to know is how Greg and Georgie are doing.
Oh, hi!Hi, Kevin! Hello! How are you doing?
How are you doing? I'm really good. Good to see you, mate.
And you, Greg, how are you? Oh, very well. Hey, Georgie.
Good to see you! Nice to see you. How are you doing?
You look amazing. Thank you very much!
I've been given this lovely new hair,
which is from a wonderful charity. No!
Yes, so my hair all fell out.
It's amazing, the piece, isn't it? Thank you! It's actually been a...
Yeah, a bit of a tough time, hasn't it, really? It has.
Cos I've had quite a major operation since I last saw you five years ago,
and back on a lot of chemotherapy treatment, so...
What, right now? Yes, I'm on it in a minute.
Quite a strong dose of it, so... So, that's a heavy load.
It's a heavy load. Well, that's something, coming from you,
because the one thing that this entire project has exuded
is this amazing kind of energy and positivity.
So, for you to say that it's been tough is...
That's...that means it's been tough. Mm. It has, yeah.
But there's something incredibly restful and peaceful
about this building. Mm. I don't know what it is, but...
..you can just shut the world away,
and just enjoy the building for what it is. Yeah.
Can we go around the front?Yeah!
Given how tough things have been,
thank goodness Georgie and Greg have had this safe haven
for rest and comfort.
Oh! It is as I remember.
It's just as sharp.
It's actually beautiful. At every turn...
..there's you guys. It's really nicely done.
The double-height living space still packs quite a punch.
The kitchen is spacious.
Openings connect to landscape.
The board-marked concrete fireplace is terrific,
as is the furniture crafted from the felled oak outside -
all by Greg,
who's never stopped working on the project.
So, this room here is...
..accessible toilet?Yep. Wheelchair-friendly.
And we've got a utility room.
Oh.
It's nicely done.
It's a proper utility. Really, really good.
He's now also fabricated a new steel handrail
up to Georgie's craft space.
I think it's wonderful that you pick up the tools, you have a go.
And that's the only way you improve, isn't it?
I mean, you know, when you did that fireplace,
that was the first time you'd cast concrete, wasn't it?It was, yeah.
First time a board-marked...
Just amazing, to be able to then stretch it and push it, and learn.
And then, before you know it, you've become an expert.Mm. Hmm.
And that's what this whole building speaks of, you know?
Using the oak from the garden,
I've now built a nice little bench down there, and,
yeah, we've truly made it our own. Yeah.
That...that painting wasn't here last time.
No, that's actually me. I had an exhibition a month ago.
Lots of acrylic and colours.
This is beautiful!Oh!
It's like looking into a dream.
You can tell my favourite colour is blue, you know?
Love working with blues and golds, and whites.
Amazing!Thank you. So, this is something you've taken up...
It's very different to the craft work you were doing.
Yeah, so I was doing like needle felting before,
and all sorts of other crafty things.
But then, I just got really into canvases and acrylics.
That's a development I hadn't seen coming -
that, through illness and treatment, and everything else,
the barn has nurtured in Georgie a passion for painting.
But nurturing is what this home's all about.
It turns out one of the previously unfinished en suite bedrooms...
I love the bathroom!
That's all wheelchair-accessible, yeah?
..Greg has transformed into a retreat for their friends
going through serious illness.
Just having a space where people can call their own for a weekend,
and just come and do whatever they want - or do nothing at all.
And actually, the opportunity to come away and simply be
is a really important one.Mm.
If you're going through treatment or therapy,
and you just need some quiet time, that's magical.
We know what it's like when you're recovering,
and we like to look after people,
cos we know how awful it can be, and how rough times are.
So, that was always a thought, to sort of be able to,
you know, help host for people,
and look after other people like we've been looked after.
Staying here proved a lifeline for Jodie and Satch a few years ago,
when Jodie was seriously ill.
It was quite a scary time.
So, coming here was a real escape for us. Yeah.
It provided the respite that we needed.
I think, just mentally and physically, we were exhausted.
Just, there's this calmness that speaks "Greg and Georgie"
all over it when you walk into the house,
and when we stayed in the room in particular.
It's an amazing thing, that you could sort of palpably sense that.
Absolutely. And I think it's even more extraordinary that Georgie's
still undergoing treatment.
She's still doing all of these things -
yet they've still opened up this space to others who need it. Mm.
Other big changes have happened since I was last here.
After completing the barn,
Greg's next project was up at the main house -
separating off the annexe and extending it for Georgie's parents,
who were downsizing.
So, you probably don't even recognise it, Kevin,
but this is our old flat.
It was all one space, wasn't it? It was, yeah.
And then, a bedroom at the back.
You didn't have any bifold doors then?No, no.
And this wall, you've taken out, then?Yep, that's all, erm, new.
And then, infill and blockwork.
There's actually a lot of masonry and knock-throughs,
and supporting stuff, which I never had to do on mine.
Given that you've divided the house that was here into two...Yeah.
..properly now...Yeah.
..have you had to move services over?
Yeah, services had to be split.
And we've had to do four separate block-ups to the main house
in order to rejig it.
And I think we're on about six different levels,
if you go through the building.
It's good quality. This is lovely! How long did it take?
Erm, this project took about a year, actually.
There's a lot of work here, though. A lot of puzzling.Yeah.
A lot of head-scratching to get it right.Yeah.
So, you've done that. You've done this. What next?
Well, I actually start my brother's extension on Monday,
so, you know, I keep it in the family, friends and family.
Erm, but, yeah, I enjoy building.
I find it quite kind of therapeutic and creative in the same way.
So, yeah.
Naturally, the in-laws, Tom and Julie,
are delighted with the results.
Greg, we had absolute faith in, and has delivered, you know,
better than we thought, to be honest.
We've loved having them next door.
We've got our other daughter and son-in-law living outside,
so we're sandwiched in between the two of them.
Every single day, I look out and I think,
"This couldn't get better, really," you know, to have them all so near.
And I suppose it's a reassurance, too, if Georgie is there alone,
you know, she can see our lights on,
and it just means that we're connected in a way
that's sort of natural, but comforting, as well.
Familial bliss clearly is attainable.
You just have to build your in-laws a new home.
So, you're super busy, you've got the pub to run, you're building.
You're having a treatment plan, you're painting,
you're doing your craft.
I don't understand where you find the energy,
the physical energy to do all this.
Because it's been so many years for me.
It's been nearly 30 years of treatment and operations.
You know, when you're right down in the hole, and you just don't think
you can scramble out again, you sort of...
You make the most of all the opportunities.
And, you know, every day is special.
You just have to just carry on, really. Yeah.
And I think we're both just very driven, as well. Mm.
So... Yeah. ..doing a lot of things works well for us. Yeah.
Yeah. I suppose many of us take a lot of things for granted -
health, wellbeing, time, energy.
You don't take it for granted, because you know that it's precious.
Make a small difference, maybe, in what you do,
and spread your time kind of generously,
and just offer something to other people -
that gives great joy. Mm.
Having a home where we can be inclusive and just invite people,
and to enjoy the space, as well.
So, it's not just for us, it's for other people, as well.
Yeah. What are the functions that it has served
other than as a house?
So, we've hosted village drinks parties here.
We've had big barbecue parties.
I had an exhibition with 130 people that came to see my artwork.
Anything else? Oh, I run my art courses up there.
So, you run them upstairs here? Yes, yeah.
Respite centre?Yes. Respite centre.
We're talking about hundreds and hundreds of people who've been
through this building for one reason or another,
whether for health or social reasons,
or educational reasons. Mm. Mm-hm.
It's a very, very generous, adaptable building, then, you know?
Mm. Mm-hm. That's remarkable.
Because what you're doing is slightly unusual,
and because your circumstances are slightly unusual,
how do you figure out where you're going next?
We definitely don't have it mapped out.
Erm, I think it's probably a bit like our building technique,
where we just try and do it week by week, and month by month,
but we definitely haven't got any long-term plans as such.
I think the only thing we are certain on is that
this is a home for life... Mm.
..and we will be here for evermore.
Yeah, we will. Yeah. SHE CHUCKLES
I don't think I've ever met a more inspirational couple than these two,
who've built an inspiring safe haven for the future here,
against the greatest of odds.
I think there are two qualities that we all want
for ourselves and for those we love.
One is health, one is happiness.
And if you've ever had to deal with a serious illness
or a prolonged programme of medical treatment,
you'll know how fragile health is.
If you've ever pinned all your hopes
and desires on some kind of future event,
then you'll know also how fleeting and fragile happiness is.
So, how do we find these two qualities in the world?
Well, I think Georgie and Greg, I think they've cracked it.
They've demonstrated that, by creating and doing,
and making, and then, sharing what they make with their friends
and their families, and their loved ones,
by being generous in spirit
that that's where health and certainly happiness lie.
And this building, if it's anything, goodness me,
it's an amplifier for those qualities,
for the positivity of two extraordinary people.
Next week - Grand Designs' House of the Year returns.
Oh, heavens. Fantastic view!
That could be the Mediterranean.
It was like building a ship in a bottle.
What is that?
It's like one of those kind of things at the dentist.
We've come to lunar space module.
It was a giant step for Suffolk. THEY LAUGH
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