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Grand Designs - S25E02 - Lincolnshire 2024

Grand Designs - S25E03 >>> https://dai.ly/x97299w
Transcript
00:00According to research conducted by me on the internet this morning,
00:04millennials are having a really tough time of it,
00:07thanks to the rest of us.
00:09I mean, they are always on their mobile phones, aren't they?
00:12They want everything handed to them on a plate.
00:14Thank you, Nicky.
00:15They have a thing about avocado toast,
00:18and they have a really poor work ethic.
00:20Look, I think it's about time we put to rest
00:23some of those misconceptions.
00:27Taste of soap.
00:30MUSIC PLAYS
00:51Zara, Singapore-born and now 31,
00:55is a professional make-up artist and social media influencer
00:59who's lived in Reading since the age of 13.
01:02I do all the New York Fashion Weeks,
01:04London Fashion Week and Paris Fashion Week.
01:06I do content creation as well,
01:09where essentially I create make-up looks
01:12and teach people how to become their own make-up artists.
01:16Her partner is Giuliano, a 29-year-old gym fanatic
01:19who's been Reading-based for the past six years
01:22and has a whiz-bang job working for a global tech firm.
01:27I travel and work with different clients,
01:29you know, multi-global corporations,
01:31helping them on their journey to move to the cloud
01:34and ultimately digitally transform their business.
01:37In their spare time, these go-getters somehow also managed
01:40to run a healthy snacks business.
01:43Giuliano and I love to cook,
01:44so I think that was a great common thing that we both had.
01:48We work well together.
01:49We are both pretty driven.
01:51I think we always have been.
01:53As driven people often do,
01:56Giuliano and Zara have their sights set on the next challenge.
02:02170 miles from Reading...
02:05I mean, it's really cool. ..in Lincolnshire.
02:09You're walking into the living room.
02:13I always had this dream of potentially building my own home.
02:15An opportunity came up, we were able to find a bit of land.
02:19They've made the move from Reading,
02:21bought a one-acre plot with planning to build a contemporary home
02:25and, naturally, they'll be sharing their story
02:27with other self-builders on social media.
02:31Moving to the countryside in a very remote village
02:34isn't going to be for everybody.
02:35Yeah!
02:37But for us, it's absolutely perfect.
02:40This exciting new chapter kicks off in earnest in early 2023,
02:45as the foundations for their new home are dug.
02:50Hello. Hello.
02:52I do like your site. Thank you.
02:54What do your friends say when you say,
02:56we're moving to Lincolnshire?
02:57I think the first thing is always like, huh?
03:00Was this a long-term plan?
03:01When we were locked up during lockdown, no outdoor space,
03:06we sort of craved, you know, peace, quiet, outdoors, garden space,
03:11and we thought, well, what's stopping us from making that move
03:14to the next chapter of our lives now?
03:16To raise a family, to really put down roots somewhere. Yeah.
03:19And now we can actually call home.
03:21So, you bought an oven-ready site, effectively.
03:24So, just in a nutshell, what are you building?
03:26There was a historical malt house on the site in the 17th century.
03:30Yeah. Malt house? Yes. Yeah.
03:32For making malt to make beer with. Exactly. Yeah.
03:35And so, part of the approval is to reinstate
03:39that historical context that was once here.
03:42How interesting. In the form of a modern home.
03:45We're trying to do our best to very delicately create character,
03:49without it becoming pastiche. Yeah.
03:50Lots of strong, detailed brick buttressing,
03:54uniformed windows on the front,
03:56but then on the rear is when we're allowed to do more
03:58kind of modern, free-range architecture. OK.
04:01And that's the south-facing site. Exactly, yes. Yeah.
04:03It is going to look like a new building. Yeah. Of course.
04:06But at the same time, we want to pay homage and respect
04:08to the history of the site, which I think is important. Nice.
04:12Talents in the worlds of make-up and tech these two may be,
04:16but Giuliano and Zara have no experience of building anything.
04:20What's to come, like their site, is new territory for them.
04:25Maps from the 1800s show a malt house building on the site.
04:30Planning wanted the placing of Giuliano and Zara's
04:32concrete foundations to mirror that.
04:36Their project, designed by Link's design consultancy,
04:39will also smuggle in a new-built modern home,
04:42slotting it behind the camouflage of a traditional building.
04:46And it's all off the scale.
04:48Sizable pre-insulated timber panels made off-site
04:52will deliver an energy-efficient two-storey, 400-square-metre home.
04:57The malt house aesthetic will come from 25,000 handmade bricks,
05:02some distinctive brick piers, typical narrow windows and a slate roof.
05:07And then, audaciously slicing through the malt house,
05:10a glass and corten steel portal will connect the front door
05:14to an oversized statement, a giant 30-metre wooden pergola
05:18next to an equally large pond.
05:21On one side of the hall will sit a large kitchen-diner,
05:25with a wall of glazing overlooking the garden.
05:28At the far end of the house will be utility spaces and a garage.
05:32And in the middle, the sitting room, a triple-height space
05:36with an overhead walkway strung across it.
05:39Upstairs, you'll find Giuliano and Zara's bedroom,
05:43with an en-suite, a walk-in wardrobe and a make-up studio for Zara.
05:48Across the floating walkway, Giuliano's office will overlook the sitting room.
05:52Beyond it are two spare bedrooms for Redditors to stay and the family to grow.
05:57And outside, there is more.
05:59Beyond the pergola, there'll be a garden room, a greenhouse,
06:03a fruit and veg patch and beehives.
06:06This isn't just a new home.
06:08It's a whole new world and way of life.
06:11So Giuliano and Zara had better make sure whoever builds it for them
06:15knows what they're doing.
06:21I'll be project managing the overall process.
06:24And are you... Do you bring experience of project management to...?
06:28Experience of project management, but not specifically related to construction.
06:33Running a project in IT is clearly not the same as putting a building up in the wet.
06:38We've done our best to fix price to all of the contracts.
06:41So there shouldn't be any fluctuation or surprises, hopefully.
06:45So the groundworks team, for example, take full responsibility
06:48of getting the site ready for the timber frame company,
06:52who will project manage that stage and basically get us to a watertight shelf.
06:56How much do you pay for this land, though, this beautiful acre?
06:59135.
07:02Sorry? 135.
07:03135,000? Yeah.
07:06We did our research. Yeah, I mean, we did our research
07:09and the farmer who owned it helped us out, obviously,
07:12by giving us a good deal.
07:14Even so, how much are you going to spend on the house itself, building it?
07:18700. That's all in, is it?
07:20All in, and that includes a contingency as well.
07:22That's everything? Mm-hm.
07:24700 tops, plus 135,000 for the land.
07:29That's 835 grand. Mm-hm.
07:31Where does all that come from?
07:32So most of the build cost will come from a mortgage.
07:36So the mortgage is 660,000.
07:38At current rates, that's a phenomenal amount of money,
07:41because, well, I mean, standard bank rates might be, say, 4.5 at the moment,
07:45but for self-build, I imagine it's quite a bit more. Yes.
07:50How much are they charging you? So close to 7% now.
07:53Jeez. It's around £3,000 a month.
07:57OK, so you really, really do want to finish quickly.
08:00Yeah. Because you could save yourself a stack load of cash
08:04by finishing early, terminating that self-build mortgage early
08:09and then presumably converting to a standard rate. Correct, yes.
08:12And how long is that going to take, then?
08:14From start to end with the build? Yeah.
08:16We're hoping 18 months. 18 months.
08:18So 40,000 in interest across the project.
08:2118-month project.
08:23If it goes over, you'll be really cursing, won't you?
08:27You don't want it to go over? No.
08:28You don't want it to cost more, you don't want it to run over?
08:31Ideally not, no.
08:33It all sounds so straightforward, doesn't it?
08:37Well, all this is incredibly well organised.
08:40I can't keep pace with Giuliano and Zara's organisation,
08:45the number of ventures and businesses and plans that they all have.
08:48And quite clearly, they are so well organised, they work so hard,
08:52that they've been able to create clear boundaries
08:56around all of their projects to contain them.
08:59The thing is, though, is that building does not respect boundaries.
09:04The process of putting a house up is...
09:08..it's traditional, it's fraught, it's highly complex,
09:12it's always specific to a site, it's full of problems.
09:16And as a result, it respects no man or woman's boundaries.
09:21It fills your life with chaos and worry.
09:27And that's what's going to happen here.
09:30It is mere hours before the first problem rears its head.
09:35Thanks to a row of conifers on site,
09:37building control have stipulated that the nearby foundations
09:40be dug down two metres, far deeper than anticipated.
09:45How many more cubic metres of concrete are you going to have to then buy, Geraint?
09:49Probably looking at a good ten cube, possibly more.
09:52So, your clients pay? More than likely, yeah.
09:55I love the idea of the fixed-price contract,
09:57for a fixed-price specification, but when the specification changes...
10:00Yeah, it needs to change the price, yeah.
10:03Yeah.
10:04The groundworks were supposed to cost 30 grand, but not any more.
10:10It's a fair bit more concrete, maybe close to £4,000 of extra concrete.
10:14Unfortunately, it's just one of those costs that we've had to swallow.
10:16It's never fun just pouring more unnecessarily money into the ground.
10:21Just three days later, the deeper concrete-stripped foundations
10:25– all 160 metres of them – are poured.
10:29A job so epic, it ends up going on late into the evening,
10:33while Giuliano's living in this tiny studio flat near the site,
10:38somehow holding down a full-time tech job as well as project managing.
10:44A hundred miles away in Northamptonshire,
10:47Zara's getting used to degenerating her social media content
10:50from Giuliano's mum and dad's.
10:53Long-wearing.
10:54Ah!
10:55Damn it!
10:56In the house where he grew up.
11:00The one I'm using is a moisturiser and primer in one,
11:03so this is amazing.
11:05A great pro-tip is to let your concealer set for about two minutes,
11:09if you have time, and I edit it later.
11:13But why can't she do this influencing in Lincolnshire?
11:17With my job, I have a lot of products,
11:21and I would take up the whole entire place if I brought everything with me.
11:25If I were to bring this all to Lincolnshire,
11:28I think Giuliano might have a heart attack.
11:32She'll be back in Lincolnshire at weekends,
11:34and living separately is a sacrifice Zara's determined will be short-lived.
11:39The moment that we can solidly live in there,
11:43I absolutely do not care if I have to sleep on the floor.
11:46Personally, I'm hoping October I'll be able to move in.
11:51Hold on, that's only six months away.
11:57Then again, this project's going gangbusters.
12:00Just weeks in, the block and beam floor is being installed
12:04and the timber frame is arriving in ten days' time.
12:09Trying to bring a bit of efficiency as much as I can into construction,
12:12streamline the process as best as I can.
12:15And that includes doing anything Giuliano can on site,
12:19before and after the working day, to keep things moving.
12:23When I'm arranging these bricks for the bricklayers, face side is up.
12:26That way they're not having to faff around half a second,
12:30saved, and make their lives ten times easier.
12:34But a few days later, a problem surfaces.
12:37The foundations are supposed to be complete,
12:39but a vital job's been left undone.
12:42The perimeter levelling of the foundations in block work
12:45around the whole building.
12:47The ground workers' team said it's not in their responsibility
12:50and they're not bricklayers, so they wouldn't do it.
12:52The brickies on site have said that ground workers' teams would do it.
12:55That's not going to solve the problem, though, is it?
12:58And that's something that Zara and I are both learning about
13:00as we go through this process.
13:03That fraught complexity and incipient chaos I warned of
13:08is beginning to set in.
13:11This project needs the guiding hand of experience.
13:28In Lincolnshire, Giuliano and Zara have found an unlikely ally
13:32to help them fit the concrete blocks around the perimeter of their foundations.
13:36It's dried up beautiful, hasn't it?
13:38Jim, the son of the farmer who sold them the land,
13:42just so happens to be an experienced builder.
13:44All right, I'll get a mix on them.
13:46I'm looking at you like a proud brother, that's what I'm looking at.
13:49You're the brother I never had, Jim.
13:51I know, I do have a brother.
13:53Don't tell him I said that.
13:56Jim's help is costing £3,000 that wasn't in the budget.
14:00But without his experience, this project may well have just run adrift.
14:05Jim provides the trusted ear and the technical expertise.
14:08When Jim says something, I can bet my bottoms all of that it's true.
14:12Isn't that right, Jim? Yeah. Yeah, it is.
14:16170 miles from Reading, they're already making new friends.
14:22As to what's propelled them to move here now,
14:24while still relatively young,
14:26it transpires there's a powerful personal motivator.
14:30Most people think about self-build as a project they might do one day,
14:35but most people don't do it.
14:37My mum, very out of the blue,
14:42died just from a brain haemorrhage from nowhere.
14:46Yeah. It's just a massive shock.
14:52And I don't know if that's really sunken fully in yet.
14:55I don't know if it ever will.
14:57When she passed, she hadn't even retired.
14:59It's events like that that happen in your life that...
15:03That's just when you kind of, like, think to yourself,
15:06yeah, you just have to grab life.
15:10It's just, like, anything can happen tomorrow.
15:16That's an inspiring ethos, which helps explain why just six weeks in
15:21and £40,000 spent on foundations and scaffolding,
15:26their £160,000 timber frame turns up from whole.
15:31Almost a third of the entire budget now gone.
15:35Now we actually start seeing what is essentially the beginnings of the house
15:38and within 20 days Turner Timber should be able to get us to watertight stage.
15:44Showing 19.
15:45Only it's not long before the frame installation manager, Matt,
15:48spots another potential hiccup in the height of the foundations.
15:52A little bit off.
15:53It does get a little bit worse as you go around checking it, to be honest, yeah.
15:57You'd like to think if it was a main contractor,
15:59then levels and things like that would have been checked.
16:02If somebody's doing it for the first time,
16:04you don't really know what to look out for and not, do you?
16:08It's not an ideal situation, but the discrepancy is within tolerance.
16:12The access track onto site isn't level either,
16:15so manoeuvring materials around is tricky
16:18and there's a 55-tonne crane arriving tomorrow.
16:22It's really soft. Obviously, we've had bad weather,
16:24so as we've been running the telehandler in today,
16:27you can see it's just causing ruts in the site.
16:31When we bring a crane in, it's a hell of a lot heavier than a telehandler.
16:36Jim, of course, is on hand to save the day.
16:40Driving lesson, then. Go on.
16:42And give Giuliano a crash course in driving a three-tonne roller.
16:45Renting it's added a further £200 to the budget.
16:49Push it forward to go forward, pull it back to go back.
16:52This button on here is to vibrate and you want it vibrating.
16:55Yeah, button, yeah.
16:56Yeah, and it'll start going again.
16:58It should be absolutely flat out. Compact it better.
17:00OK. Yeah.
17:02A little bit nervous, but...
17:04Just do this bit if you feel more comfortable for a start while you are.
17:07OK. That's it.
17:11Yeah, he'll be all right. He'll be spot on.
17:13He's a fast learner, isn't he?
17:15Well, he's got to be.
17:17Giuliano's schedule doesn't allow for on-the-job training.
17:20Yet, come the afternoon, there's some good news.
17:24A solution to the not-entirely-level foundations.
17:27Now we've laid our soleplate round.
17:29This point here is five mil higher than the rest of the slab.
17:32So rather than packing the rest of the soleplate up to that level,
17:35we're going to just reduce that bit.
17:37So we're going to run a planer over it to bring a little bit of the soleplate down
17:40to then bring everything back to level.
17:44Come day two, with the help of the crane...
17:47I'll bring it in on an angle, see how we get on.
17:49..and that freshly compacted ground,
17:52the timber structure rockets up in no time.
17:54176 timber panelled in all,
17:57as well as a series of chunky steel beams
18:00that facilitate the home's open-plan layout.
18:03It's a bit awkward, innit?
18:05Yeah. That, I'm short by five mil.
18:10Yeah, that's nice.
18:12But this is the easy bit.
18:14Yeah, go for that one.
18:16When you remember that this big timber-framed structure
18:19has to end up something like this
18:21this vast industrial brick bolthouse near Birmingham,
18:24an endangered historic building that dates from the 1870s.
18:29Its telltale details include buttressing brick piers
18:33to strengthen the walls and support the load of the grain on the upper floors,
18:37and also small windows,
18:39like wasn't needed for the barley to germinate.
18:43But, of course, the most striking quality,
18:45the hardest to emulate with new brickwork,
18:48is its time-worn character,
18:50its age.
18:52Remarkable, isn't it, how we connect to decay?
18:55The idea that as buildings slowly rot away,
18:58that there is a kind of natural sort of patination,
19:02a kind of creation of interest in the surface texture.
19:05No wonder, then, that we decide we want to live in houses
19:09that look older than they are,
19:11that we want to buy distressed and patinated furniture
19:15to create a false sense of history in our lives,
19:18to connect us to place and to time,
19:20that we even decide to buy clothes which come pre-distressed.
19:27Maybe Giuliano and Sara will find a way to distress bricks
19:30to give them a similar patina of age.
19:34Well, they already have.
19:36This facility in Shropshire is distressing their bricks right now.
19:43First, the new bricks are sprayed with either a light or dark pigment.
19:47Ooh, look at that. There's a slight sooting.
19:50Yes, make it very subtle and replicate the way a brick would
19:54naturally weather over perhaps over three years.
19:56That's the idea.
19:58Next, a key ingredient is added
20:00to suggest the bricks have been reclaimed from an old wall.
20:04What he's now doing is he's dabbing the bricks by hand
20:07with a yellow sand and white cement mix.
20:10This reproduces the effect of mortar.
20:14Mortar. I mean, that's what he's applying,
20:16is mortar onto the back of the brick. Correct.
20:20Finally, they're put in an enormous tumbling machine
20:23to rough up their edges.
20:27It's great.
20:29They look like they've come out of an old building.
20:32An epic 25,000 tumbled bricks are needed
20:35to clad Giuliano and Sara's timber frame.
20:39A job Giuliano's tasked to the brothers Nathan and Ash,
20:43who he naturally discovered on social media.
20:46Good to meet you. How are you? I think it looks bigger than it is
20:50because it's wide, but it's quite thin, right?
20:52Yeah. Yeah, it's a good size. Yeah.
20:55Good size. There's 52 pallets. Nice.
20:59Because I said, what does 25,000 bricks look like?
21:02And they said, 52 pallets, and I was like, OK.
21:06And then hopefully we get good weather for the entire run of bricks.
21:09Well, they say it, sir. No, don't say anything, Ash.
21:14Ready to go? Yeah.
21:16Nathan and Ash reckon the gargantuan task will take eight weeks.
21:21All slightly different sizes, all over the shop.
21:24Each one. Look at that. That's quite extreme.
21:28Giuliano would happily have that side in as a face.
21:31This one? Yeah.
21:33He says the rougher the better, he said.
21:35That one right above his front door.
21:37Yeah, go on. Just to annoy him.
21:42Whether this ends up looking authentic or a bit of a muddle
21:46is not on Giuliano and Zara's radar,
21:49because they're too busy carrying ten grand's worth of roof slate
21:53up ladders in backpacks, nine at a time,
21:56as documented on social media, of course.
21:59So the purpose of doing this?
22:01We were told by the timber frame manufacturer
22:03before the brickwork gets too high,
22:05you need to have the roof on, or at least the weight on the roof,
22:10so that it compresses the kit down. Yeah.
22:13We had the option of telling the brickies, OK,
22:15pull back away for two weeks and come back when the roof's done,
22:19or alternatively... You do it. Yes.
22:22Wow, you've effectively mimicked the full effect of the finished roof.
22:26Exactly.
22:29In truth, I'm starting to admire these two influencers.
22:33They know how to really graft,
22:35and their labours, motivated as they are by such a desire
22:39to be living here in October, are propelling this project forwards.
22:43Heroically, Nathan and Ash complete their vast brickwork job
22:47in the anticipated eight weeks,
22:49and the first roofing slates are laid, bang on schedule.
22:55And come August, contractors arrive
22:57to install £80,000 worth of glass.
23:00Goodness me, I might have to eat humble pie.
23:03This project is flying.
23:05Such a big piece of single glass.
23:07Always a bit nerve-wracking watching.
23:11The largest pane for the first floor landing
23:13weighs three-quarters of a tonne.
23:16I thought doing eyeliner was stressful.
23:18Gosh, this is much more of a steady hand.
23:21If touch wood anything happens, it's a major delay.
23:25So I think there's just so much running on this moment.
23:30Just come in with the main boom, Gary.
23:32You can slew left a bit if you like, Gary.
23:35That's Gary's left.
23:37Gary? Gary?
23:39Gary, pull us straight back into the frame.
23:42That'll do fine. That's it.
23:44Wow. Wow.
23:46Look at that. That is awesome.
23:49That is a window and a half. Wow.
23:55But there is a frustrating snag.
23:59The window fitters couldn't install the roof lights
24:02as the panel supplied didn't fit.
24:06Right now, we can't do anything in the living room
24:09because that's not properly watertight when we get heavy rain.
24:12It's not properly watertight to start doing plasterboarding.
24:15So it's pushed us back, which is a tad annoying.
24:19It's going to take time to make new panels,
24:22and that has put paid to them moving in in October.
24:26Ouch.
24:37In Lincolnshire, autumn's approaching
24:39by the time the right-size windows are fitted,
24:42allowing for full steam ahead with the interior fit-out,
24:46castering walls, screeding floors,
24:49and whatever jobs Giuliano and Zara can turn their hands to.
24:53We're trying to be as invested in the process as much as we can.
24:56Every hour that we spend on site
24:58means that we're one step closer to being moved in.
25:02And there's a new urgency to getting moved in as soon as possible.
25:06I've learned to have to live in chaos for a little while.
25:10It's all hands to the pups.
25:12Zara's even moved into the tiny studio with Giuliano near the site,
25:16something she hadn't originally anticipated.
25:19I don't think I realise how long these things take.
25:22When we first started, obviously things went up quite quick,
25:26and now it's sort of everything's a little slower
25:30because they're more intricate details.
25:33The desperation to get in is prominent.
25:36Which makes it all the more surreal.
25:40To see an entirely new structure being built in the garden.
25:45It's took us four days so far.
25:48It's very rare we install pergolas as big as it is.
25:53Oh, I'm getting heavier!
25:55The scale of it, it's very large.
25:58It's not what we're used to.
26:00The pergola's costing £20,000.
26:03That's really cool.
26:06Oh, my word! What is that?
26:09Surely that's not meant to be here, is it?
26:13That's huge!
26:15It's like they're constructing not so much a garden,
26:18but a garden centre.
26:21It begs the question, why?
26:25Hello! He shouted down the mile-long pergola.
26:28It's got an amazing acoustic.
26:30I knew you were going to build a pergola,
26:32but I didn't know it was going to be quite as impressive.
26:38I've seen structures like this in car parks and large hotels
26:41where they have 50 chairs laid out for breakfast.
26:46What's the plan here? You're not going to be doing that?
26:49No, we're not.
26:51We're just going to have decking down all the way through,
26:55hopefully a hot tub at the end, if we can afford it.
26:59So the idea of the pergola is to really create a permanent feature
27:03that ties the house to the landscape,
27:06because otherwise it would just be a garden.
27:10What's wrong with a garden?
27:12Ordinarily, people finish their houses
27:14and then they think about the landscape
27:16and turn their attentions outside.
27:18We had to do the pergola first, actually,
27:21so that we could get the measurements for the corten.
27:24So the corten steel, rusty metal,
27:26is going on the front of the building and on the back,
27:29on both portals, is that right?
27:31Yes, the corten will go on both portals
27:33and then also on the inside of the hallway and the landing as well.
27:37So it'll run through?
27:39Run through to create that visual illusion
27:41that the corten portal is punched through.
27:44Yeah, nice.
27:46Yet, having drawn down a scary £580,000 of their mortgage,
27:53they're having to work as hard as they've ever worked
27:56to finance this project.
27:59I will be very glad to not live out of a suitcase.
28:03I have been doing that for a very, very long time now.
28:06So I have a pretty heavy week this week
28:11because I'm travelling all over the UK.
28:15Drive safe.
28:17Love you. Bye.
28:24Doing this, the travelling back and forth, it's definitely hard.
28:28I think it takes a toll physically
28:33because I'm driving so much and away so much
28:36and I absolutely, like, I love my job,
28:39but I think now having the build on top of it
28:43and then the business on top of it, it's a lot of pressure.
28:47As Zara heads to a make-up gig in Greenwich...
28:51..back in Lincolnshire, Giuliano's also on an important mission...
28:56KNOCK AT DOOR
28:57..to visit the local farmer, Steve.
28:59Morning. Steve, how are we doing? Well, thanks.
29:02These two have developed an unlikely friendship over the last few months.
29:06Zara baked some cookies. Oh, that's perfect.
29:09How's Zara? Yeah, she's all right.
29:11She had a bit of an early start this morning.
29:13How did she? Where's she gone?
29:15Gone to London, but she had to wake up at two.
29:19Ooh. I wondered if your time whilst you're here,
29:22just have a look at the emails or the Wi-Fi, if that's OK?
29:26Yeah, absolutely.
29:28Steve lends Giuliano the odd telehandler, or digger, on site
29:32and in exchange, tech wizard Giuliano helps out with Steve's IT problems.
29:37Sometimes he'll say,
29:39oh, I haven't got any emails in the past four days or something.
29:43It's been quite handy having Giuliano on the doorstep.
29:46Nice to see a bit of youth and vitality entering the area, I think.
29:52You know, they're modest and understated
29:54and I think they're a welcome addition to the community, I think.
30:04Come November, some of the interior finishes begin.
30:08So nice.
30:11Starting with a refined micro-concrete floor.
30:15Only it transpires this is the second attempt at the floor.
30:19So the whole kitchen diner and the entrance hall,
30:22that was all done to top coat.
30:24We came in the next morning and, yeah, Giuliano wasn't 100% happy.
30:27It's taken longer, I'm over, by a week, maybe two,
30:30but I'm glad we got there eventually.
30:32Another major tweak is afoot at this late stage in the garage.
30:37Oh, you can get a good car in here, a wide car, or two tiny ones.
30:41What's the plan?
30:43No cars. No cars. Not to get a car in here any more.
30:46This is going to be our home gym.
30:48We can't put the dumbbells in the living room, though, can we?
30:51Yeah, like hundreds of thousands of other people in this country,
30:54you're putting the gym in the garage.
30:58But one element that won't change
31:00is the rusty Corten steel portal frame,
31:03a slice of where fashion meets architecture.
31:07Once the Corten's on, it's just going to really pull it together.
31:10I'm so excited!
31:13But money is so tight and the Corten's so expensive,
31:17up to 50 grand to supply and fit,
31:20Giuliano and Zara have decided to take a big gamble
31:23on measuring and fitting it themselves.
31:26We wouldn't have ideally liked to have done the measurements ourselves,
31:30because there's always a risk of,
31:32whenever you do measurements yourself, it not fits in correctly.
31:35102.4.
31:37This bit here? This bit?
31:39Yeah, that rounded bit.
31:41But the Corten company that we're working with,
31:43we asked how much the site measure would be
31:45and they said, oh, that'll be thousands and thousands.
31:47Yeah, I'm not paying thousands and thousands of pounds
31:49for a site measurement.
31:51No, I think it's up.
31:53Look, we've measured it as accurately as we can.
31:56We've done our best. We'll just see.
31:59The Corten is being fabricated at this workshop in Bedfordshire
32:03for £15,000.
32:05We've got a 4-kilowatt fibre laser
32:07which will cut up to 1-inch thick mild steel
32:11within a 0.1 of a millimetre tolerance.
32:14The risk of taking those aspects on yourself
32:17and not relying on someone else and paying for someone else to do it
32:20is if something goes wrong.
32:22It could end up costing you some more money at the end of it.
32:24It's a lot of metal.
32:26In the region of four or five tonnes in total or something of metal.
32:29So it's quite a job to install it.
32:31So I admire them both fantastically for doing it,
32:33but it's not like wood.
32:35You can't just shave a little bit off.
32:37So fingers crossed it will all go to plan.
32:41Four weeks later,
32:43installation has begun, sort of.
32:46Our measurements have perhaps...
32:48could have been a bit more accurate.
32:51Could this be a challenge too far, even for dependable Jim?
32:55Say the brickwork's out 3mm, the timber frame's out 3mm the other way,
32:58combined it's 6mm, so all of a sudden you've got a 6mm gap.
33:01Doesn't fit.
33:03Doesn't fit.
33:05Why's it not going?
33:07None of us have done anything like this before.
33:09Oh, bugger.
33:11I'm not going to lie, it is tricky.
33:13Yeah, but that looks rough like that does.
33:15Rough, properly rough.
33:17Has all this been a brilliant strategy or a false economy,
33:20jeopardising the appearance of the entire house?
33:22Only time and the rusting of the steel will tell.
33:25We're not going to get any better than that. No.
33:42Giuliano and Zara took a step into the unknown
33:46when they upped sticks from the comfortable home counties
33:49of Lincolnshire Wells,
33:51and set about building a new home 16 months ago.
33:55I'm very much looking forward to seeing this project finished, you know?
33:59I mean, partly because of the building.
34:01It's touched an unusual shape, long and thin,
34:03on the footprint of that old malt house.
34:05And that's going to set up all kinds of unusual, I don't know,
34:08engagement through the building with the landscape behind it.
34:11I want it to be theatrical.
34:14I want it to be not just the usual, modest Lincolnshire house
34:21on a long road.
34:23I want it to have presence.
34:27To be fair to Giuliano and Zara, they did say it would take 18 months,
34:32but I'm here two months early, so is it even finished?
34:39HE CHUCKLES
34:42Nice.
34:44Of course it is.
34:49So sharp.
34:53It puts on quite a show.
34:56Well, it's all beautifully done and very tightly finished,
34:59and that long shape of the malt house on this footprint,
35:03that's really good.
35:05There are the brick piers and the small windows piercing it rhythmically,
35:09and in the middle of it is this great piece of theatre.
35:12This steel box, very, very well done,
35:15but it's thrust right through the middle of all this softness.
35:19It's quite an aggressive, energetic statement, that.
35:22Think of it what you will.
35:24Ah! Hello. Hello.
35:26Both of you, how are you, Zara? Good. Good to see you.
35:29You're looking really well. Thank you very much.
35:31Fair of you. And you, Giuliano, how are you? Yeah, good.
35:33How long have you been living here? It's May.
35:35We moved in in May. Yeah. Over two months ago, yeah.
35:37It's great. The whole building is so crisp.
35:39I was unsure about the bricks,
35:41but in a way they've been upstaged by the quartet,
35:44so they're quite, you know, they're quite subtle.
35:47Yeah, they are. They push back.
35:49How tough has it been?
35:51It's been tough. It's tough. Yeah.
35:54We've spent so much time and effort
35:56getting involved in every stage of the process.
35:59There's a hand-made feel to it.
36:02Very hand-made feel.
36:04We like to say, come and have a look, but don't look too close.
36:07Come in. Thank you.
36:09Nice.
36:11Well-proportioned, small front door.
36:14So solid, though, cos it's sealed like the quartet.
36:17Oh, blimey, and that just carries on all the way through.
36:20Oh, that's brilliant.
36:22It's really strong.
36:24That's quite something.
36:26And the ceiling here is running to join with the pergola,
36:30which is the most fantastically majestic exercise in perspective.
36:35And it's ready and waiting for the aircraft to land, yeah?
36:38It's just... What's that?
36:40Oh, my word, it's a living chandelier.
36:42Yeah.
36:44I really wanted to bring the feel of Singapore,
36:47cos there's an amazing place there called Gardens by the Bay,
36:50and that just reminds me of it.
36:52What a lovely thing to bring that here.
36:56This almost civic-scale entrance hall...
36:59Oh, yeah.
37:01..leads directly to the restaurant-sized kitchen diner.
37:05It's very strong.
37:07Nice big spaces.
37:09I could never bring myself to paint a ceiling that colour.
37:12I paint all my ceilings white, you know, how dull.
37:15But this is amazing.
37:17The table's fabulous.
37:19It's like just a big slice through a tree.
37:21Yeah, that is exactly what it is.
37:23Where's it from? Vietnam.
37:25We work with a company who salvage trees that have been left to rot,
37:30so it's quite a sustainable way of making something quite beautiful
37:33from something that would have been lost.
37:35The table was very important
37:38because my mum always talked about having a round table.
37:41When you're on a circle, you speak to everyone,
37:43everybody's involved in the conversation.
37:45It's a good thing.
37:46And you've got a really interesting heritage
37:48between the two of you, haven't you?
37:50Yeah.
37:51And it's kind of... It's intercontinental.
37:53It is.
37:54It's a bit of everything, really, isn't it?
37:56Almost, yeah. South American...
37:58We're from Asia, half Asian, half Indian Kenyan.
38:01All of the spaces are quite open to allow family to connect with one another
38:05and that's such an important thing in both of our cultures.
38:08Yeah, so having family to stay...
38:11Exactly. ..is important here.
38:13Absolutely.
38:14So, kitchen over there.
38:15Have you designed it for the food business?
38:17We have. When you run a food business,
38:19you have to have all of those things to make sure that, you know,
38:22you're separating everything.
38:24And what's that beam, surely? That's not a piece of wood.
38:27No, it's a false beam, which has been sculpted and made on site.
38:32In what?
38:33Just plaster.
38:34It's hugely persuasive.
38:36I mean, the colouring is brilliant and also the detailing.
38:40It's naughty, really.
38:41I mean, it's straight out of Pinewood Studios, 1956, that.
38:45Yeah.
38:46Amazing.
38:47To the other side of the hall sits the impossibly high sitting room,
38:50open right up to the building's ridge.
38:53Wow.
38:54Lovely room.
38:56Lovely view of the pod.
38:59And then you get this extra layer above there through that glazing.
39:05You've got all this contact with the sky.
39:07The space comes into its own.
39:10And everything that's on there is all my mum.
39:15And that's her?
39:16Yes, that's my mum.
39:19Yeah, yeah, lovely. What a lovely scene.
39:22Also down here are a bathroom, utility room,
39:25and that all-important former garage gym.
39:28While upstairs, the usually more humdrum spaces...
39:32Oh, wow!
39:34..are here anything but.
39:37It's quite hard to describe this experience, isn't it?
39:40Yeah.
39:41It's like you're outside.
39:44These must be some of the largest sheets of glass you can get.
39:49They are commercial-scale units.
39:51Yeah. Works brilliantly.
39:53And it's all the more strongly framed by the steel.
39:57Oh, and then this.
39:59Yes, there's yet more drama,
40:02thanks to the suspended walkway above the sitting room.
40:05What I love about this is the fact that it's always set off the wall.
40:09Mm-hm.
40:10It's a flying bridge.
40:12So there's a sort of element of suspense.
40:15I mean, literally.
40:17Yeah, drama in that.
40:19Of course, Giuliano and Zara's bedroom is up here too.
40:23Arguably, what is most important
40:25is Zara's permanent make-up studio next door.
40:28So, north-facing window?
40:30North-facing.
40:31North-facing creates a steady light,
40:34natural light all through the day.
40:36Is that a tripod? That is a small tripod.
40:38That is my tripod.
40:39Before, when I was filming,
40:41I would have to do essentially a balancing act.
40:44I'd have to pile up books.
40:46Now, filming is just easy.
40:49One of my most favourite views, and you'll love,
40:52is looking down this extremely long corridor,
40:55because it's an extremely long building,
40:57at a toilet pad.
40:59The internal doors haven't arrived yet.
41:02Maybe they shouldn't.
41:06Also on the far side of the walkway is Giuliano's office
41:10and two guest or future family bedrooms,
41:14which to some extent explains the staggering size of this place.
41:20It's a miracle that they built it in under 18 months.
41:24But they did have the help of countless others too,
41:27especially Jim.
41:29When they met you, things fell into place?
41:31It's surprising how things happen, yeah.
41:33Or somebody to hold his hand through the process, guide it, build it.
41:36I distinctly remember a Sunday evening,
41:38the poor lad was nearly in tears, and then from then,
41:41yeah, here we are, this is it.
41:43To be fair, we've worked well as a team.
41:45He got stuck in, credit where credit's due, in the core ten.
41:48Me and Giuliano tackled that, we did that.
41:51I have to say, I've been looking for the faults in the core ten,
41:54and I can't find them. Please look harder, Kevin.
41:56Are they there?
41:58Yeah, if you can't find fault, I'm happy.
42:00No, it's worked well, it has, it's worked well.
42:03Constructing any building, especially one on this scale,
42:06comes at a cost, and not just financial.
42:10It's probably been the toughest thing that I've done and we've done.
42:15Yeah, I think I probably went into construction
42:18maybe with a bit of delusion, I don't know,
42:20thinking that each stage of the project would align nicely,
42:25but that certainly wasn't the case.
42:28But it really does suck up every single moment of free time that you have.
42:33We've had to give up every single weekend for the past 14 months.
42:38Zara, for example, I have no idea how she functions on three hours of sleep.
42:42I don't know how many couples could do this.
42:45Tell me about money. You wanted to be in for 700,000.
42:49623.
42:51No, no, no. You've come in under.
42:54Yeah.
42:56How?
42:57Our hand's been forced by the state of the economy and interest rates,
43:00and it basically doubled in interest.
43:02We started to get to thinking, OK, can we even afford the monthly payments?
43:07And so we made the decision to not take down the last stage of the mortgage
43:14and try and finish it as much as we could on our own.
43:21I've always been told nothing is given, you have to earn it,
43:24and so we've had to sacrifice big time for this.
43:28We have.
43:29Tell me, your mum, what would she think of it?
43:32Oh, my gosh.
43:34My mum, I think she'd just love it so much.
43:40I think she'd be extremely proud.
43:44It's come in ahead of programme and it's come in under budget.
43:48Credit where credit is due.
43:50Very, very well done.
43:53Giuliano and Zara's tenacity, resilience and sacrifice
43:58have more than left a mark on this home.
44:04There's a commonly held belief that if you want to self-build,
44:07you've got to be of mature years, have wisdom and experience,
44:11be in your 40s or even your 60s.
44:14I don't think that's the case at all.
44:16I think you need to be in your 30s or even your 20s,
44:19because, yes, it does help if you've got project management experience.
44:23Giuliano does.
44:24It does help if you've got a bit of a pioneering spirit.
44:27Well, both Zara and he have that.
44:30But what's really needed is energy, and vast amounts of it,
44:35and fitness and stamina.
44:37And, goodness me, have these two demonstrated
44:41all of those qualities in droves.
44:43They've brought such resource to this project.
44:47And not only that, in collaborating so tightly,
44:51in sharing all the physical jobs,
44:54like lifting slates onto the roof and blocks into the ground,
44:58they've actually multiplied the energy, as it were, of the project.
45:04They've actually shared that spirit with the local community here,
45:09brought people along with them to help them out.
45:12So it's paid dividends in the end.
45:15And it's also reshaped my view of millennials.
45:19I mean, goodness me.
45:21I'm not sure if I could do what they've done here.
45:26Could you?
45:28No.
45:30I'd take my hard hat off to them.
45:40This has had to happen because of my disability.
45:43I just don't want to get it wrong.
45:45I don't want it to look it's made for a wheelchair.
45:47At the minute, it does feel a bit never-ending.
45:50The fiberglass are completely dry.
45:52If there's any water on there, the resin will not cure.
45:54Everything is very wet.
45:56You suffered a baptism of fiberglass.
45:59That's going to take a lot more work and money.
46:01We're going to be skinny.
46:03It's just a bit difficult sometimes.