Email to:Grand Designs: risible television: KJ
‘As interesting as watching paint dry.’
But now, compliments of Grand Designs, we have much, much more to play around with.
How about? – As interesting as watching Swedish telflon plated LOW carbon RECYCLED kitchen towel bricks FINALLY coming off the truck….
Or What About? – As interesting as watching a distraught IT executive frantically trying to affix environmentally UNFRIENDLY big blue sheets of plastic on a roof just before the rigors of a harsh British winter THREATEN to bring his dream to a tragic end.
Now, not so long ago, Grand Designs was used as a ‘filler’ in a dead spot on the ABC Television’s schedule. Then….it went off!
Here’s how it goes every week:
Presenter Kevin McCloud, an ever so urbane pain in the arse with a hard hat, has a great passion for new builds.
Not just any builds, mind you.
These are builds (usually the size of Westfield Shopping Centres) ‘imagined’ by obnoxious, uber professional couples called Sean and Joanna, Susan and Richard or Miranda and Malcolm.
For them, the build is so important that if it doesn’t happen, they WILL kill themselves, they surely will…
So, Kevin returns to the sites of (surprise, surprise) behind-schedule builds over and over – despite blinding rain, tornados, mudslides and tardy glaziers.
And there’s no getting away from the the appalling fact that, for example, the brave, brave Sean and Joanna have been forced to take out yet another lease on a cramped six-bedroom, two-bathroom cottage because their dream, their build is in danger of becoming UNSTUCK.
It is here that Kevin gets very, very tough.
Even though Sean and Joanna are stretched to beyond breaking point just trying to exist with two obnoxious kiddies in the six-bedroom cottage, brutal questions must be asked…
Would not if have been a good idea to make sure that the Finnish recycled toothbrush tiles arrived BEFORE the Belgian window frames?
You bugeted for a build of 67-thousand-pounds. So far (and still, no waterproofing) you’ve spent 456-thousand-pounds. Do the words: PROJECT MANAGER mean anything to you?
Did you ever, ever consider that a 89-room Californian bungalow with Gothic and Moroccan influences, was always going to be a big ask for a small block with a history of drainage problems AND a 239-metre National Trust protected Medieval Torture Rack slapbang in the middle of it?
This is incredibly hard stuff: this is awful to watch but Sean and Joanna will NOT be defeated because they are made of incredibly stern stuff .
They tell Kevin that yes, the mudslide nearly finished them off but with the onset of Spring and the resumption of their sexual relations, they will push on.
And damn it, they do…
On Kevin’s last visit to see Sean and Joanna, the build has, against all odds, become a home.
Joanna and Sean love it and despite the 456-thousand-quid budget blowout, appear to have gone out and bought a whole heap of leopard skin lounges, massive seven-metre high terracotta urns, aerodynamic beds and contemporary art pieces from up-and-coming nobodies.
Kevin is impressed.
He thought Sean and Joanna ‘crazy’ – and while their dream is NOT his – they have risked all and achieved a home which similtaneously speaks of intimacy and freedom, restraint and plenty…..and love.
*KJ is currently contacting all of the Grand Designs couples and will reportly back shortly on what is looking like a way beyond average divorce rate.
Prawn Cutlet Award
September 7th, 2008 at 1:44 am
Thank you Kerrie Jean – I love that show too!
I missed the ep with the toothbrush tiles. They sound fantastic and would be just right for my gazebo [still in the planning stage!]
So where can you get them – are they a Leeton thing???
September 7th, 2008 at 2:14 am
No Dick they are NOT a Leeton thing – as I’ve said, they’re a FINNISH thing.
The next big thing in Leeton is apparently SALINITY bricks. As you may know, we have a salt problem caused by over-irrigation, climate change, the West Australian resources boom, the shocking food chain rort operated by the BIG two and the damage left by the last of the Great Paddle Steamers which plyed the Murrumbigee.
Now, a very small company is harvesting the salt, compressing it into beautiful terracotta domestic bricks and firing them at great temperatures in one of Leeton’s once abandoned historic kilns.
Interested in the recycled SAL bricks is said to be enormous, both here and internationally.
They apparently have a very Greek Islands ’stonewash’ effect.
Good luck with the gazebo – KJ
September 7th, 2008 at 3:42 am
There are a few questions that Grand Designs always leaves me with.
Where the hell are the kiddies kept during all those on-site inspections. They never seem to make an appearance, throw a tantrum, or demand to be fed. I suspect they are just decor, hired in, to make the whole thing look family oriented – when in fact what’s really happening is that you have two too well-fed, pretentious, energy consuming, overpaid, spoilt brats building the equivalent of the Taj Mahal every week. And they usually have such rotten taste. “oh Nigel I like everything clean and white”.
Given the nature of the British climate how can anything ever be finished on time anyway?
How do they earn so much money and how can I get my hands on even a small percentage of it?
Is there no such thing as council regulations?
How do they manage to stay one big happy family when a small build on my back shed almost caused divorce?
How come the neighbours are so bloody understanding?:
September 7th, 2008 at 4:00 am
Gee Trudi- I’m sorry to hear that your ‘build’ nearly caused a marital bustup.
Not uncommon though. Did you have a site manager? I suspect that your dream and that of your partner re THE build were very different. Perhaps it’s time to honestly review the COMPLETE relationship to see whether your hopes, your very beings, remain in alignment. Still, it’s always good to have done a ‘value-add’ before a potentially bitter divorce because there WILL be greater financial resources to split on sale. I really hope things go well for you.
Good point about ‘where are the kiddies when Kev does all of those on-site inspections?’
Simple: Because the kiddies are SO gifted, they are at the British Maths Olympics honing up their skills to be site managers!
Thanks Trudi
September 7th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Leave Kevin alone!!!
He’s the Mr Darcy of home renovations: his brooding, cranky, haughty ways are a beacon on the small screen where the rough trade Jamie Durie and his fellow bogans on Better Homes and Gardens rule supreme. And better than that awful Brendan Moar bore and his boring ‘water saving’ gardens. Now the best episode on his show was when he revisited a garden he had made over and the resident dogs had made over his work and it looked worse than Goulburn Oval. He almost cried. Gold.
Better to have Finnish toothbrush tiles than the appalling vomitous makeovers the overly ambitious vacuous try hards on Australian tv who add a new dimention to bad taste. With their purple living rooms and homemade plastic egg cup chandeliers. Barf.
September 7th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Dear KJ,
I particularly loved the episode where the analogy to the Somme was drawn by the hapless renovator clearly comparing the thousands that died in the mudhell to her inconveniently muddy yard.
So what of the Australian Grand Design. Surely that is on the planning whiteboard. Perhaps the first episode could cover the Leeton style built in an old sheep paddock and going for $ 1 on Today Tonight to encourage regional growth. A grand building with an enormous Celair centrepiece on the roof.
September 7th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Great observation re the Somme Dion. I had a party a couple of years ago and on the morning after my backyard resembled Lone Pine. I would not have been surprised to see Simpson and his donkey lugging a big soggy platter of pide – walk by.
To be frank Dion, I am disturbed ( grow up!)by your snide comments about encouraging regional growth. There are many families happily living and loving in quaint towns, compliments of cheap relocation deals offered by enterprising local government authorities. Many of those children are the netball and pistol-shooting champions of the future.
* Note for readers who don’t know about Celair air conditioners. Years ago, Leeton resident, Mr Celi, had a dream and that was to develop air conditioners for local conditions. The result? Massive units which sit on just about every house in town.
How about that for almost total market SATURATION?
September 7th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Gee Cath, I suspect that you’re not having such a good day!
Thing is, KJ has always been a supporter of ‘home grown’ products whether they be Mental As Anything, chilli-choc macadamia surprises or devon……
Another thing: if you think Kevin McCloud is ‘the Mr Darcy of home renovations’ you are clearly in need of help.
Kevin McCloud is about as exciting as Mr Chips in a hardhat!
September 9th, 2008 at 6:56 am
If Kev McCloud is the Mr. Darcy of home renovations, I’m the Heathcliff of the blogosphere. Actually, I am. I think it’s the classical profile. Speaking of, my fav eps of Grand Designs are those where the hapless improvers bedizen their dream homes in Greek Revival or other echt-antique details, invoking, I suppose, Thomas Harrison’s propylaeum at Chester Castle. There appears to be an endless market in the UK for volutes, anthemions, dentis, key-pattern flooring, egg-and-dart moulding and doric anything. Great at Chester, but Bognor? My fear is that Kev’s architectural allure, courtesy of our national broadcaster, will cross continents, serving to resuscitate Australia’s McMansion-builders from the graveyard of taste where they lay, Just think, in two or three years the overweening homesteads of our flashier exburbs will be ready for their first makeovers. Goodbye Campbelltown, hello acanthus leaf capitals.
September 17th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Get a Life:
Grand Designs leaves those light weight home reno shows (Drurie Better Homes & Gardens, Backyard Blitz etc etc ) that the commercials screen, for dead. Grand Designs incorporates a lot of current design, innovation and environmentally sound and sustainable products that can reduce our so called carbon footprint. There is a diversity of materials, experimentation and concept design that is not seen in Australias boring architectural style.
At least when its finished it will stand the test of time unlike those cheap and nasty jobs done on the commercial shows.
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:13 pm
I think Adrian is right. What we need is for KJ to put up or shut up.
Forthwith, KJ should be sent to produce an ABC TV program called “Renovating the Renovators”. In Ep 1, KJ contacts Better Homes and Backyard Blitz telling them of their good fortune…. they are going to get a free renovation from a non-commercial broadcaster – and here’s the kicker – we will even televise it (free publicity for 7 and 9 to the hard-to-get-Loadsofmoney ABC audience from North Shore, Toorak etc – they’ll love it as this means Rolex, Mercedes,Bang Olufson etc, will come in as advertisers for the original programs)!
Ep 2, KJ tells 7 and 9 that due to low ratings, we have canned the ABC show.
EP 3, confused executives from 7 and 9 cancel their actual shows mistaking the poor audience figures of Ep 1 with their true audience figures.
Ep 4, Accountants at the ABC redefine the “Renovating the Renovators” program as an Australian Drama mini-series, thereby ensuring that the ABC’s Drama quota is filled for the year.
Happy days.