Grand Designs (1999–…): Season 2, Episode 3 - The Wool Mill, Netherton, Yorkshire - full transcript
Chris and Jill Heleine gives a deserted textile mill a light, modern interior through military operation like organization.
It looks as though it ought to
be pulled down, let alone rebuilt.
Wahey!
What... what an amazing space, isn't it?
- Fantastic.
- I think it looks small.
- You're joking?
- Chris thinks it's small.
This is Mr and Mrs Perfect.
You know, it's rough as hell.
I mean, it's like a badger's backside.
The couple I'm meeting this week
have chosen to build their dream here,
in the sleepy Yorkshire
village of Netherton.
Now, this isn't the most obvious location
for a sharp-looking, radical house,
but you're not going to be able to see
this modernist home from the outside
because they're going to hide it... inside
the shell of another much older building.
That building is 200 years old
and was originally a textile mill.
It's also been used
as a warehouse and workshop.
It had been empty for four years
when a local couple saw ll
and decided lo make ll their dream home.
This building hasn't been used for years.
It has a palpable air of abandonment.
It's not very inviting.
But I'm armed and I'm going in.
What a dump.
It is a shell. It's nothing
much more than that.
Nobody looks as though
they've ever lived here.
It's all just been left and trashed.
My goodness.
It's quite hard to imagine
anybody having the vision to...
to turn it into a home.
But the couple I'm going to meet,
Chris and Gilt, seem to have that vision.
The vision to build a hi-tech
modern interior inside this old mill.
- Oh, hello.
- Hello.
- How are you?
- Fine.
What a dump downstairs, isn't it?
You got through it all.
It looks as though it ought to
be pulled down, let alone rebuilt.
Is this going to be your kind of...
your dream palace? Is this... you know?
- Absolutely.
- Yeah.
Dream home.
Somebody told us it was up for sale.
- Really?
- And we just passed...
Liked it. Bought it.
"Liked it, bought it."
You bought it on a whim?
- Yeah.
- We never looked inside.
You're joking.
Why go through the rigours
and heartache of convening an old building?
Because it... I think it
would have been hard to
find something that's
got this sort of character.
An old property, I think, always gives
you more character than the new build.
So, we're having the best of both worlds
cos we like old properties.
We're getting that nice old feel, and
then on the inside we've got a modern feel.
So... And I don't think we would
ever get that with a new build.
You've got a motto,
haven't you, for this build?
Yeah. Fail to prepare
is to prepare to fail.
- Fail to prepare...
- And that is...
Because we've planned it for so long
and we've tried looking at every aspect,
it's no good just saying, "Oh,
yes, we'll do this, this, this and this,"
because all you do is you just dig yourself
a massive big hole.
And the only way that
you're going to fill that
hole is to chuck money,
money, money at it.
And then that's why
all your budget runs out.
- So. Planning...
- So we've prepared it...
- Planning. Absolutely.
- ..Is everything.
Yeah.
They're bringing a 19th
century derelict shell back to life
with an interior
that reflects the best of modem design.
The inside will get completely stripped out
to leave a huge open-plan living,
dining and cooking space downstairs.
The core of the new internal structure
will be a steel frame that'll be on view.
It'll support the first floor
and cradle the new sleek steel staircase.
A rather odd and adventurous central
feature will be a curved-wail shower,
visible from nearly
everywhere in the building.
Upstairs, the bedrooms are fairly standard,
arranged around the large, central,
full-height atrium.
Above, the old roof
will be pierced with
glazed openings to
fill the space with light.
The mill and land cost...
And the budget for the build is...
Making the total cost
of their dream home...
The whole project is
being paid for from savings.
It's February and work begins on the
basic structural repairs that are needed.
This maybe a hi-tech build on the inside,
but stage one is to restore the original
shell to something of its former glory.
That means rebuilding, from scratch,
the wall facing the road.
It's been declared unsafe, so it has to be
taken down and put back up again.
Chris and Gill seem passionate
about sensitively repairing the
bits of the mitt they're going to keep.
Each stone is cleaned and reused.
The roof also needs
to be completely rebuilt,
so all the original slates are taken off
and they'll also be used again
lo ensure the entire shell of this building
is restored using the original materials.
What Chris and Gill are
doing is quite unusual.
There are hundreds of disused mills
in Huddersfield,
dating from its heyday 200 years ago as
the centre of a thriving textile industry.
They're now mostly used for offices and
storage warehouses and sometimes for flats.
But small mills that can serve as one house
are very rare.
The completely derelict state of theirs
gives them a fantastic opportunity.
They can wipe the slate clean here on
the inside and indulge their imagination.
Come on, put your back into it.
Go on, drop it.
Best bit of the job is this. Yeah.
Wahey!
Brilliant.
Let me have a go. I haven't done
any for years. Go on, let me have a go.
See, I'm doing it for you, Dave.
Chris is not a hands off employer.
He and Gill are going to be
working very closely with the builders.
They have to.
Dovetailing the modern into the old
needs a very thoughtful approach
and I just don't know
if they can carry it off.
It's first thing in the morning.
There's no-one here,
it's absolutely deserted,
and the house itself is
completely stripped out.
Chris and Gill have got that big, empty box
they wanted,
and at last they can start the real work
of building their dream.
Chris, Gill...
what... what an amazing space, isn't it?
- Fantastic.
- I think it looks small.
- You're joking?
- No, Chris thinks it's small.
So we're wondering whether now
to put some bigger...
more big extensions on to make it bigger.
No, no. It just doesn't look long enough.
You're joking. I think
it's absolutely massive.
Also, I think, you know,
because you've got these
joists, it's all open at
the moment, isn't it?
- Yeah.
- When you get the ceiling on,
that'll make this space
seem a lot wider, won't it?
- I know. And the floor goes up as well.
- Yeah, yeah.
No, I mean, it's huge.
I must admit, it does
look bigger, doesn't it?
When you think that most
peoples' sitting rooms are, what...
three metres - 10 foot
- by four metres, tops?
And yours is 30 metres by 45.
I suppose this is... Isn't this the
point at which you turn a corner?
Having sort of stripped the place out,
re-laid the screed concrete floor,
now you're kind of starting to build.
Chris and Gill's new home
will be a big change for them.
At the moment, they live in a
recently-built trad Yorkshire cottage
which they've decorated
in a simple, country style.
So I want to know how far away
from this cosy look they're planning to go.
They're taking me to the house
that inspired them.
It may not look much
from the outside, but
inside there's a surprisingly
modernist interior.
- Here it is.
- Wow.
This is the space.
It's wonderful, isn't it?
Very modern.
And this is only the hallway.
Come on. Look at this.
It's huge, isn't it?
Really open... and long.
Don't you feel as though
it's got an air about it?
It's not at all hard, is it?
It's not clinical minimalism.
It's very... very soft.
- Very user friendly.
- It is.
Really comfortable.
- Lots of sort of squidgy things in it.
- Yeah.
I said to Gill, "Come and
look at this house." And
she walked in - it went
dssh. Just unbelievable.
So we immediately thought of this space as,
"God, we could use the mill,"
cos we always said
we didn't know what to use the mill for.
- Well, this is just so fitting.
- Perfect.
So this whole place
is a very direct piece of inspiration?
- Yeah. Definitely.
- Yeah.
- Very central to it, isn't it?
- Mm.
Actually, Chris and Gilt are no strangers
to contemporary design.
They run a successful joinery company that
specialises in fitting out hotels and bars.
So they're both used to working
to high standards of perfection
and both have a keen eye for detail.
What about... Have we got...
We've got to finish the floor, haven't we?
However, the first key feature
of their new hi-tech home
is being made outside their control.
The internal steel frame
will hold up the existing walls
and create the layout
of the new interior space.
It's also a crucial, visible feature
of the new interior.
This is a job they've had to hand over
to steelwork specialists.
It's May - and four months into the build,
the steel frame is due on site.
The custom-made steel frame
has been built off site in pieces
and it's never been put together.
Steel isn't a material
that's easy to make adjustments to,
so we 're all hoping the key parts
of this frame are millimetre perfect.
It's a vital part of the build,
so the architect, Adam Clark, has
come down to site to supervise the fitting.
This has been your baby, the steelwork.
Yeah, well, yes, Gill and Chris
have been a bit apprehensive about that.
Mainly because they're not used
to seeing steel go into domestic buildings.
- Chris is a wood man, isn't he?
- That's right, yeah.
- He's all about MDF and timber etc.
- Yeah.
But what's he like as a
client? Cos he strikes me
as being obsessive
about quality, about detail.
I mean, he looks at this stuff and says,
"You just can't get decent workmanship
any more."
He's quite dismissive
of a lot of building practices.
Well, I think because his work is very fine
and because it's shop fitting
it has to be very accurate.
And a lot of the muck and bullets, as I
call it, for the rest of the building work,
is quite rough and ready.
And I think he finds it hard to accept why
can't it be down to the last millimetre.
- Nice and straight.
- Yeah.
Tell you what, it really
starts forming now.
The vertical columns
are bolted to the ground
and the plan is to tit the horizontal
first-floor steel beams to them,
without removing the existing wooden beams,
because they're
what's holding the building together.
We're just making sure,
without pulling these out,
that the steels will sit across the top
without interfering with these.
But we want to keep these in to stop any
spread, if we're going to have any spread.
To stop the building from falling apart?
Yeah. It's an old building, so if we can,
we want to sit the steels on top of here,
weld them, bolt them together...
and then chop these out.
The horizontal steels that run alongside
the old wooden beams are not a problem.
They go in without a hitch.
It's the other ones
that are causing the head scratching.
So this is the beautiful elegant design
for the steelwork for this house.
Essentially,
it's like a noughts and crosswords frame.
There's four big
pieces of steel on four
big pins - legs -
sticking out of the floor.
And that takes all of the weight of
the first floor onto these four pins.
At the same time, it gives you these great
big light wells throughout the building
and the steelwork ties
all the four walls together.
Now, the problem is
that so far they've only
been able to put in
two of the long beams,
cos the big long ones they can't put in
because at the
moment they would foul
against the five or six
big old wooden beams
that run across the building like this.
They can't get them in now
until they take these out.
And when they take
these out, the builders are
rather concerned that
the building will spread.
I thought builder's spread was
something else... but in fact it's this.
And that does not form part
of Chris's master plan.
Chris and Gill spend a nail-biting hour
double-checking the measurements.
But there's nothing
for it. They have to take
the risk and remove
the old wooden beams.
It's a tense moment.
They just have to hope that the
ZOO-year-old walls don'! fall apart.
That's it. Put it there... onto this.
Right, put yours down.
Well, of course their
mill didn't fall down,
but it might as well have
because the whole palaver of the steelwork
has really left Chris
and Gill quite shaken.
They love to be in control
of all the details on this project
and they've got incredibly high standards,
which, frankly, I don't think
they're ever going to be able to meet.
The steel frame is doing
a decent structural job
of holding this old
Huddersfield mill together,
but, remember, all this
steel is going to show.
It's a key design element
in the hi-tech modern look they want
and Mr Millimetre Perfect isn't happy.
So here we are now,
we've got the steel frame in and...
I'm not perfectly happy with it.
I'm just a bit disappointed with quality
because all these steels,
they've got to be all sprayed up
and feel like glass.
And as you can see on there...
I mean, it's like a badger's
backside, you know. It's rough as hell.
You know, so...
They've now got to
come back, they've got to
sand it off, they've got
to grind the welds off.
And really, with a bit of
due care and attention,
this could have been done in the workshop
and we wouldn't be in this situation now.
But I'm sure we'll get
there at the end of the day.
Put it this way, we won't
accept anything else.
It's late May.
The steel frame has been in a week and the
shell of the building is now watertight.
So inside, the new
build can really get going.
This is an exciting moment,
not least because the work
ls back under Chris and Gill's control.
They've brought in their own joiners
to ensure all the details are perfect.
And it's all run from command HQ,
just ten minutes away.
This is Chris and Gill's workshop,
from where they can monitor everything.
- What's that file?
- The master file.
This one is...?
This one is the
"attention to detail" file.
OK. Effectively these
files dealing with the
drawings form the
specification of the whole job.
- The whole job is on this table.
- That is the job.
- And it lives here?
- Yeah.
This is kind of the nerve centre.
- The nerve centre of the whole project...
- Yeah.
From which everything
comes, all decisions
are made and all
information is disseminated.
And Gill can go into any one of those
and look at any number, take anything out,
and she can say, "I don't like that" or
"I like that" and we can redo it again.
- And what are these lists?
- All these boxes are room by room.
So, it says here "two double sockets".
This is top room attic.
So everything in this box...
is for the top room/attic.
And just in case they can't remember,
it's a little map as well.
- Does every one have a little map?
- Yes.
Every one has a little plan.
And then I've checked
and I've had someone else check.
What do you mean "check"?
You check the contents of each box?
Make sure everything's right and I've
got someone else to double-check me.
So if somebody comes and says,
"There's a socket missing for this room,"
- I'll say, "No, there isn't."
- This is a TV aerial.
"TV Single Isolated."
- That's this one, isn't it?
- Yeah, aerial.
There's no chance of anything getting lost.
It probably still will, but if it does,
it's going off somebody else's bill.
I'm not buying any more, put it that way.
All the ironmongery's packed up.
It's not as flashy as Gill's, but
there you go. I mean, how can you...
So what does this say?
This says Bath main D11.
- So D11 - Don't tell me, it's
a job file or a room number.
- It's a location.
- Yeah.
- Which is Door 11.
- OK, D11, Door 11, Bath main.
This is a handle and some screws
and it's all bagged up, yeah?
So what do you do,
you tape this to the door?
So when they're ready
for doing the ironmongery,
I'll dump that outside the door and say to
the joiner, "There you go, it's all there."
I've done all the work for him.
This is the 16-valve GTI Ghia
turbo-charged kitchen, is this.
We've spent a hell
of a lot of time on this.
We have. A lot of
time. Let's unveil it.
- Looks great from this side.
- Well, yeah, it will do.
This is all granite,
is it? Polished granite.
Yeah.
It's one of the best
materials to build with
because it's so hard,
super hard, doesn't scratch.
- Gillian wouldn't accept anything less.
- Really?
- No. Would you?
- No.
Nothing less than granite.
How much was all this granite?
- £2,300, was it?
- What, for the lot?
Yeah. Polished, everything. Yeah.
- And this is the boat.
- Yeah.
- The canoe with the ends chopped off.
- The canoe with the ends chopped off.
- There you go. Whoa.
- That's nice.
So you push these.
This has got a little grip.
It's got a
finger-top on the top.
- And this one, too?
- That one has one on the bottom.
Ah!
And the one underneath - on the
top, presumably, cos it's lower down.
- Correct.
- Ohh.
All thought about.
Ooh, look at... Ooh, that's nice.
It's on the angle, isn't
it’? It's on the whiz.
So everything's...
It's actually faceted... even though it
gives you the impression of being curved.
And it's symmetrical to
the centre line as well.
- What's it going to look like?
- Like a space ship? I don't know.
I'm amazed because most people
would order the kitchen
and it would arrive in units all boxed up
and, you know, there would be
no real opportunity to see it laid out.
And you have this massive space.
You know, it's all here to
mess around with, you know.
It's like playing.
Both Chris and Gill visit
the site every day, but
I haven't seen it since
the first floor went in.
Now I can really gel a sense
of the internal space they've designed.
And what a huge space it is.
So, downstairs is all one open
space, isn't it? It's one... big... space.
And this is going to be this huge light
well... which looks vast from up here.
- Looks huge, doesn't it?
- It does, for some reason.
- Keep it nice and airy though.
- Yeah.
- Then there are rooms here. Bathroom here.
- Bathroom there, yeah.
- We've got the corner bedroom there.
- Yeah.
- One bedroom there.
- Right.
And upstairs here, what's this space here?
This is the upper living area now.
It looks stunning now with the...
Now you've opened up the windows,
it looks fantastic.
So what is this big projection?
This is a balcony... to
look all the way down.
- It's got to have some balustrade round.
- Well, yes, we hope so!
It's very exciting.
- And up here's another bedroom?
- This is... yeah.
A private hideaway.
And over there, does it carry on?
This is open now,
right the way up to the eaves.
And these great beams.
Are you leaving them exposed?
- We're going to clad them.
- Are you?
You're not going to leave them as...
a little... testament to what the
mill had been, was once, no?
- No.
- They're not nice enough.
I mean, they're nice and chunky,
but... it's clean-lined, isn't it?
But you're going to see
some wood in the roof,
aren't you? You're
going to see that brace.
No. Those will all be boxed in.
They'll all be boxed in?
So the whole thing's very sleek.
Yeah. Clean.
With five months to go,
the house is ready for the internal joinery
and the very first thing to go in
is their show piece shower unit -
designed, of course,
to the nearest millimetre.
It just squeezes through the door.
Thank God forth at.
It's one of their boldest design ideas
and, as you would
expect, it was made in
their workshop under
their close supervision.
Slide it. That's it.
- Up we go.
- That's it.
- Don't push me over.
- No.
Right. Whoa.
That's it.
Take your shoes off.
Swell.
That's it.
The restoration of the
mill is nearly finished.
But the inside is undergoing a revolution.
All the original features are going to be
boxed in and hidden behind plasterboard
to give the new, clean, sleek look
that Chris and Gill want.
In only a week, the whole place
is transformed and painted white.
It suddenly looks like a
classic modern space.
This is, of course, completely different.
Last time I was here
there were just joists.
Mm-hm.
You've painted all the
steelwork, put the floor in.
What a space though.
It's bigger than I thought it would be.
This opening is huge, isn't it?
Yeah. And just look
at all the lovely shapes.
I just love it white.
It's the first time we've
ever, ever had white
and it's taken us a bit to get used to.
But it is very pure, isn't it?
A very pure shape, a very pure colour.
- But then you've got no...
- Warmth.
- No detail.
- No, that's true. Yeah.
Those windows are so much better,
aren't they, for being full length?
Yeah, they'd have
looked horrible to there.
Yeah.
- Is that how low they came?
- I think so. About there.
Blimey, yeah.
So this is your bedroom
through here, isn't it?
Mm.
- High, isn't it?
- Yeah.
- What a great space.
- Lovely.
And the bathroom...
You're putting tiles down here?
Mm.
Blimey, you've got enough
nails in the floor, Gill.
That's Chris making
sure it's not going to lift.
- The shower.
- And this...
This is... this is a
little triumph, isn't it?
A lot of hard work has gone into this.
- This door is off another shower?
- This is off pan of a shower.
- Pan of a shower?
- Yeah. We've sort of thrown bits...
And we worked out,
this is a metre diameter,
so poor Chris has had
to try and work all this
out with different
diameters and make it fit.
So you've assembled
this shower out of bits.
How much was this,
this door, do you reckon?
This one was
about... about 900 quid.
It would have cost
double that to have it made.
I'd say and plus...
And the shower tray. So that's come from
one shower, this has come from another?
That is horrendously expensive,
that shower tray.
I ordered the bath and I didn't
ask the price of the shower tray
cos I really didn't think a shower tray
would be a lot of money.
And then I got the bill and I thought,
"Oh, bloody hell."
That was over a thousand
quid, that shower tray.
- Just for the tray?
- Yeah, because it's round.
- And what's this? This is the um...?
- That's the underfloor heating.
I don't know what you call these,
but these panels...
there's one downstairs
for the underfloor heating downstairs.
Then there's this one for this floor
and then we've another one for up there.
So this is like a
distribution panel, isn't it?
The hot water comes in here and
then each of these - there's little valves.
- So each of these is like a zone, is it?
- Yeah.
Well, if you check,
if you look at that, feel that one.
That's the en suite.
Now, we've turned that
one off because we're
having the floor laid.
And then if you feel that one...
Blimey.
So we can have them all
at different temperatures and it's all...
So you can set each one on these valves?
No, it's on here. It isn't set up yet,
but it'll be all on here. Touch...
- Hey, nice action.
- Beautiful action.
What's inside?
A nightmare.
- Is it?
Absolutely stunning boiler with
what it can do, but it's just er...
What, does it make tea?
Nearly, nearly, nearly.
- Why did you choose it?
- It does everything.
You know, you go and switch a tap on,
it's firing 22 litres a minute.
Right.
You can burst the
blackheads out of the back
of your neck when
you're having a shower.
A really nice little feature on it
is if people are round,
two o'clock in the morning
and the heating goes off,
we just come up here and press the
two little champagne glasses - party mode -
and bingo, fires back up again.
Fantastic!
- But how much was it?
- Just over two grand.
Worth it?
It's worth it for what it does and the all
singing and dancing bit and everything,
but it's the hassle that goes in between.
- Really?
- Why?
- It's German.
Instructions come in German.
Nobody really knows anything about it.
So we have on one side, the underfloor
heating company, they do all their bit,
and on the other side,
the boiler comes and
there's that great big
missing link in between
where everybody says, "It's your
fault, it's your fault. Do this, do that."
- Doesn't fit. Got to get bits made.
- That's right.
I'm not a plumber and
it really, really frustrates
me that I've got to stand
in between like a judge
and just make 'em play
on a fair playing field.
You're putting two-and-a-half grands worth
of boiler in,
you're putting seven grands worth
of underfloor heating in
and you're thinking,
"God, is this going to go right?"
And then it's telephone
calls, telephone calls
- "he's done this wrong,
he's done that wrong" -
and you just feel like going,
"Why didn't I buy a combi boiler?"
[Do you think if you'd employed a
project manager]? Could you have done that?
No confidence.
It's a personal thing, isn't it?
Is the project manager going to think
the same way that Gill and I do?
Is he as fastidious?
Does he look for the same line
that Gill and I look for?
How long do you think a project manager
would have lasted with me and Gill?
Two or three days,
and sent him on his bike.
It's only eight weeks to go before
their modernist dream is due to finish.
And suddenly they've heard their old house
has been sold.
That actually means that on top of
all the work of building a new home,
they've got to move out of their old one.
This means packing up
all those little knick-knacks.
In fact, boxing up their old lifestyle,
and pretty much getting rid of the lot.
It is extremely stressful building
your own house, being your own client.
It is doubly stressful
when you're as particular
about every detail
as Chris and Gill are.
To make matters just a little bit worse,
they've now sold their house
and they're moving in, together with
their two dogs, to live with Gill's mother.
Now, for Chris that
means eight weeks of living
under the same roof
as his mother-in-law.
It's October and the
final crucial elements
of Chris and Gill's home
are being delivered -
the staircase and the bat us trade.
The success of the overall design
rests on elements like these.
And Chris and Gill know that.
They've been working on their staircase
for six months
and like all the steel here,
it has to be millimetre perfect.
This time round, they've
been 100% in charge.
Let's hope it fits.
Is this the big moment?
- Is it touched on that back?
- Yeah, on your side, yeah.
Back a wee bit.
- Spot on. Want to go for that?
- Yeah, we'll have that.
That's just slightly, but
nothing to worry about.
Yo. It's here.
That's nice.
Er...
Oh, look, the ladder goes.
Is it too long?
That is hard up against it.
That's what you call a snug fit.
- Yes.
- Whoa, man.
- Just look at that.
- I don't think that needs any fixings.
Whoa.
- Are you pleased with it?
- Very. It looks lovely.
This is the first time I've ever got
excited about anything in this house.
- No?
- Yeah, definitely.
Cos this is the finishes
now. This is the...
- This is your department, isn't it?
- These are the nice bits now.
- The juicy bits?
- Yeah.
And when you put something in like this,
to me, it just pays off.
Chris and Gilt have come a tong way
in quite a short space of time.
They've had the vision and the courage
to marry this historic structure
with an uncompromising modern interior.
Gill and Chris have been building their
house for ten months and now it's finished.
It's on schedule, I'm
told that it's on budget,
but the real test for them
is whether it's going to measure up
to their very high exacting standards.
Take my shoes off.
Hello, you two. How are you?
Very well. Very well.
- A bit different.
- How's it looking?
- It's fantastic, isn't it?
- It's different.
It's like walking into a
television commercial.
It's kind of... It's
like a beautiful dream.
We're in awe of it, I think.
You must have worked so hard
to get it to this kind of level.
Everything's just the way that we envisaged
it would be, but a million times better.
What drove you to want to put that,
you know, kind of large canvas up there?
We knew it needed something
and we didn't want one block colour
because we thought it would be
too overpowering for the house, I think.
It developed from there. We thought, "Mm,
we could have a nice picture or something."
They're painted directly
onto the wall, are they?
Yeah.
- So, what happens when you redecorate?
- We'll just have a new painting.
Just like that.
But that dining table
is still a very long way from that kitchen.
So are you telling me you take your
breakfast from there every morning and...?
No, we sit at the coffee table.
Granite kitchen. I mean, everything here
is kind of... supremely spec'd, really,
beautifully spec'd.
Yes, but we've tried.
We really have tried.
We've put everything into it.
Yeah, well, everything and more,
haven't you?
But does it feel like,
I don't know, being in
a glamorous film or
does it yet feel like home?
It feels like home, but then
again it doesn't. I'd feel...
It's because it's so new. Everything's
so new and I want to keep it so perfect.
Gill can't wait till she
makes that first big spill.
And it's better that it's me.
That first cigarette
mark, that first coffee stain.
- Or a cigarette mark in the... in the rug.
- Yeah.
What I noticed is that, as we're talking,
the clouds are going in front of the sun
and the light's changing.
And the feel, the quality of the interior,
changes with it - in an instant, you know.
That's why we never... we never ever put
anything in that outshone anything else.
We tried to keep it like that with
everything, so we weren't bland.
We wanted not one piece
to stand out more than the other,
so you walked in
and you looked at the whole house
and then you sat down
and started looking at things.
It's nice that people sit down then...
There's lots of things my eye keeps getting
drawn to that I hadn't noticed before.
As Chris and Gill
have found, this classic
modern look demands
that every detail is right.
This was the focus of a lot of heartache,
wasn't it, this staircase?
This was the biggest problem of the house.
Deciding what materials,
what style, just...
And safety. You see,
it had to be practical,
it had to be safe,
but it had to look right.
- Cos you can't bury it, can you?
- You can't.
It's fully exposed in this
space, from all angles.
It had to be gradual and it had to be
the downstairs leading upstairs.
Evolving into the upstairs.
We've got the black
that marries the black
granite tops, that
marries the black settee.
We've got the stainless
steel that runs through.
That pops up a lot.
And this wood is what?
Maple. Which represents the table,
the kitchen and everything, so...
So you've actually kept the
materials you've used to a minimum.
You used each material
the maximum number of times.
You've repeated materials throughout
and repeated colours throughout?
- And that's worked?
- Well, we think it has, yeah.
- It's solid, isn't it?
- Mm.
Really, you know, really solid.
But it does feel like walking onto a ship.
Onto the galley. On the galley.
This is extraordinary.
Now this does feel like being on a boat.
You can see the steel
doing its job, the steel
frame, and it's hung off
the wall. It's very good.
- It's like free floating.
- Very exciting, isn't it?
- And this is the bedroom.
- It's changed.
You weren't going to
have the bed round this
way. You were going to
have it against that wall.
So why's that?
Because when you laid this way
and you look up there,
it just felt as though it was coming
in at you and so I couldn't sleep.
Because the bed would have been orientated
across the narrow part of the room.
And it's funny,
cos if you go down like that and look up...
And lying this way
you can get a view out the window.
Yeah. Be nosy.
And this is your sitting area, isn't it?
This is your little sitting room?
This is the dogs' bedroom.
- This is the shower.
- I know.
At a total cost of £5,000, £6,000?
Some incredible sum.
Absolutely mega.
- But is it worth it?
- Yeah, look at this.
Oh, my God!
That's fantastic. That's great.
You put that shower
on and it definitely works.
But is any shower, any
bathroom, worth £6,000?
I mean, can you justify
spending that kind of money?
Look at the grin on his face, look.
We didn't realise it was going to
cost that much when we started.
Gill got the shower, I got the stereo.
- Is it worth it?
- It is because it acts as two things.
We get that really nice
lighting slot downstairs
with the glass bricks,
so it serves two purposes.
One as an expensive light
and one as an expensive shower.
No!
But it's done now, what can you do?
- Can't all be perfect.
- Enjoy it.
Oh, we do. The only trouble is I have
to clean it out when I have a shower.
So it takes me 10 minutes to have a shower
and 20 minutes to clean it out.
So how much of this whole project
is indulgence, do you think? Seriously.
- Every bit of it.
- Yeah.
Got to be.
It's what we've wanted. We've done it.
- We've never ever gone ten out often.
- No, but we have done this time.
- We've gone for the full monty this time.
- We have.
So your budget to buy the place and do the
structural work, building work, was what?
- 200, something like that?
- Yeah.
Originally. You've spent some, presumably,
on fixtures and fittings?
I haven't broken it up
yet cos I've been so busy,
but I've sort of kept a
rough total of how much
we've spent in total
- everything, sort of.
- That's absolutely everything.
- Cos that's what I need...
So what's that come to?
Over £300,000.
Cos you've always held quite a firm grip
on the purse strings, haven't you?
- I mean, you write the cheques.
- Yeah, I know.
Makes a change for Gill to sign them
and me spend it.
Yes! For a change.
- But have you had it valued?
- Yeah.
- And what's it valued at?
- They valued it between 425 and 475.
But your friends - do they admire it?
Yeah.
Presumably not all of them
live in houses like this?
No.
It's a chin-dropping experience.
When people come in, they sort of go...
And they don't really
know what to say at first.
And then as they relax and settle down,
then different details start coming out
at them and they start taking it all in.
This sleek 20th century took
is brought bang up to date with gadgetry.
What is this groovy thing? Gill?
It's the lighting. This...
A little picture of a sofa... and a house.
That's the living area.
- Really?
- Yes.
Oh, look. Hang on, what do all these things
mean? Moon. What's the cup of coffee mean?
- What's that mean?
- It's just having a cup of coffee.
So the lights...
What, you've got a lighting state
for drinking coffee?
I love that. What about lighting state...
What's that one? It's a moon.
This is at night-time when we come down for
a drink and it's just a little lighting.
That's party.
- Party mode.
- That's what I love.
Oh, and more. What's the little heart?
- That's romantic.
- That's the love zone.
Fantastic. This is all
at the touch of a switch?
Yeah.
And what's this?
These are the flat panels
for the cinema surround.
- What, what, what, what?
- It's like being at a cinema.
- What do you mean "flat panels"?
- Speakers.
- Speakers! You're joking!
- No.
- This is a speaker?
- Yeah.
We haven't got pictures yet.
You can put pictures in.
- Where are the wires?
- Hidden behind.
- Oh, all buried. All planned.
- All planned.
All planned. All buried. All... channelled.
- And this is...
- This is my shower.
- What do you mean?
- My stereo.
This is your equivalent
of Gill's £6,000 shower.
I'd hate to think how
much this cost. It's fantastic.
- You've made all this specially?
- Yeah.
- To suit it, to fit it. You've made...
- CDs.
This has all been made up specially
to house this stereo
and all the wires are not here.
- Hidden. Gone.
- All hidden.
The whole thing's like some kind of
space console, isn't it?
All planned before plastering.
Incredible. And how much?
- About as much as the shower.
- £6,000.
On the other side of the room, there is
the most conspicuous statement of wealth...
- Yeah, but...
- ..which is a four-foot-high speaker.
- They're statues.
- Statues!
They're pieces of an.
And the TV... ditto.
This is a plasma, isn't it?
Yeah.
- But you haven't suspended it on the wall.
- No, we've put it in the wall.
- In the wall.
- This opening was planned ten months ago.
Yeah. It's our fireplace, this.
- This was our fireplace.
- Focal point.
- What, it was going to be a fireplace?
- No, no.
- This is the equivalent of a fireplace?
- That's it.
And this is... what? This is your
DVD and VCR recorder, blah, blah.
We've designed this ourselves.
- You designed this stainless unit?
- And had it made.
We even got the brushes.
Look at the brushed corners.
Beautiful thing. Look.
What's your favourite
bit in the building?
I adore it all.
I can't specifically pick one piece out
that I really like.
But can you specifically pick one piece
that you're not happy with, that bugs you?
The steelwork, which always has done.
I hate it when I sit down
and look at the reflections off the lights
and see the little bits of...
niggly little bits that I want to get a...
just scrape them all
off and I know I can't.
What about you, Gill? What's the bit that
you come back to and enjoy again and again?
The space. It's got to be
the space more than anything.
I love having this open space.
It really does give me energy.
Is there something in
the house that narks you?
You shouldn't ask me something like that
because I do the cleaning
and, you see, when I'm
doing the cleaning, I see
all the little faults
and little niggly bits.
- But I've got to let it go, haven't I?
- Mm.
You said right at
the beginning that to
fail to prepare is to
prepare to fail, yeah?
Has that held?
Well, we think so. What do you think?
The way that we look at it is we've turned
this building round from being a wreck
and we've finished it in ten months.
And we've got what we wanted.
So surely in that
statement, the saying "fail
to prepare is to prepare
to fail" has worked.
My personal feeling is, I think, if you
go for perfection and you can get 95%,
it's better than not going for perfection
and getting 75%.
So you've got to push and push and push and
push to try and achieve your perfection.
I don't know that if I were given this old
mill that I would rebuild it so radically,
but I do know that
what Chris and Gill have achieved is great.
And all this space has
such an incredible energy
and, surprisingly, warmth.
And their obsession with detail and design
means that everything here has been really
properly thought out and properly laid out.
Within the larger space,
there are smaller successful spaces,
and everywhere there
are little elegant details.
I think I'd be happy living here.
I know I could certainly enjoy myself.
be pulled down, let alone rebuilt.
Wahey!
What... what an amazing space, isn't it?
- Fantastic.
- I think it looks small.
- You're joking?
- Chris thinks it's small.
This is Mr and Mrs Perfect.
You know, it's rough as hell.
I mean, it's like a badger's backside.
The couple I'm meeting this week
have chosen to build their dream here,
in the sleepy Yorkshire
village of Netherton.
Now, this isn't the most obvious location
for a sharp-looking, radical house,
but you're not going to be able to see
this modernist home from the outside
because they're going to hide it... inside
the shell of another much older building.
That building is 200 years old
and was originally a textile mill.
It's also been used
as a warehouse and workshop.
It had been empty for four years
when a local couple saw ll
and decided lo make ll their dream home.
This building hasn't been used for years.
It has a palpable air of abandonment.
It's not very inviting.
But I'm armed and I'm going in.
What a dump.
It is a shell. It's nothing
much more than that.
Nobody looks as though
they've ever lived here.
It's all just been left and trashed.
My goodness.
It's quite hard to imagine
anybody having the vision to...
to turn it into a home.
But the couple I'm going to meet,
Chris and Gilt, seem to have that vision.
The vision to build a hi-tech
modern interior inside this old mill.
- Oh, hello.
- Hello.
- How are you?
- Fine.
What a dump downstairs, isn't it?
You got through it all.
It looks as though it ought to
be pulled down, let alone rebuilt.
Is this going to be your kind of...
your dream palace? Is this... you know?
- Absolutely.
- Yeah.
Dream home.
Somebody told us it was up for sale.
- Really?
- And we just passed...
Liked it. Bought it.
"Liked it, bought it."
You bought it on a whim?
- Yeah.
- We never looked inside.
You're joking.
Why go through the rigours
and heartache of convening an old building?
Because it... I think it
would have been hard to
find something that's
got this sort of character.
An old property, I think, always gives
you more character than the new build.
So, we're having the best of both worlds
cos we like old properties.
We're getting that nice old feel, and
then on the inside we've got a modern feel.
So... And I don't think we would
ever get that with a new build.
You've got a motto,
haven't you, for this build?
Yeah. Fail to prepare
is to prepare to fail.
- Fail to prepare...
- And that is...
Because we've planned it for so long
and we've tried looking at every aspect,
it's no good just saying, "Oh,
yes, we'll do this, this, this and this,"
because all you do is you just dig yourself
a massive big hole.
And the only way that
you're going to fill that
hole is to chuck money,
money, money at it.
And then that's why
all your budget runs out.
- So. Planning...
- So we've prepared it...
- Planning. Absolutely.
- ..Is everything.
Yeah.
They're bringing a 19th
century derelict shell back to life
with an interior
that reflects the best of modem design.
The inside will get completely stripped out
to leave a huge open-plan living,
dining and cooking space downstairs.
The core of the new internal structure
will be a steel frame that'll be on view.
It'll support the first floor
and cradle the new sleek steel staircase.
A rather odd and adventurous central
feature will be a curved-wail shower,
visible from nearly
everywhere in the building.
Upstairs, the bedrooms are fairly standard,
arranged around the large, central,
full-height atrium.
Above, the old roof
will be pierced with
glazed openings to
fill the space with light.
The mill and land cost...
And the budget for the build is...
Making the total cost
of their dream home...
The whole project is
being paid for from savings.
It's February and work begins on the
basic structural repairs that are needed.
This maybe a hi-tech build on the inside,
but stage one is to restore the original
shell to something of its former glory.
That means rebuilding, from scratch,
the wall facing the road.
It's been declared unsafe, so it has to be
taken down and put back up again.
Chris and Gill seem passionate
about sensitively repairing the
bits of the mitt they're going to keep.
Each stone is cleaned and reused.
The roof also needs
to be completely rebuilt,
so all the original slates are taken off
and they'll also be used again
lo ensure the entire shell of this building
is restored using the original materials.
What Chris and Gill are
doing is quite unusual.
There are hundreds of disused mills
in Huddersfield,
dating from its heyday 200 years ago as
the centre of a thriving textile industry.
They're now mostly used for offices and
storage warehouses and sometimes for flats.
But small mills that can serve as one house
are very rare.
The completely derelict state of theirs
gives them a fantastic opportunity.
They can wipe the slate clean here on
the inside and indulge their imagination.
Come on, put your back into it.
Go on, drop it.
Best bit of the job is this. Yeah.
Wahey!
Brilliant.
Let me have a go. I haven't done
any for years. Go on, let me have a go.
See, I'm doing it for you, Dave.
Chris is not a hands off employer.
He and Gill are going to be
working very closely with the builders.
They have to.
Dovetailing the modern into the old
needs a very thoughtful approach
and I just don't know
if they can carry it off.
It's first thing in the morning.
There's no-one here,
it's absolutely deserted,
and the house itself is
completely stripped out.
Chris and Gill have got that big, empty box
they wanted,
and at last they can start the real work
of building their dream.
Chris, Gill...
what... what an amazing space, isn't it?
- Fantastic.
- I think it looks small.
- You're joking?
- No, Chris thinks it's small.
So we're wondering whether now
to put some bigger...
more big extensions on to make it bigger.
No, no. It just doesn't look long enough.
You're joking. I think
it's absolutely massive.
Also, I think, you know,
because you've got these
joists, it's all open at
the moment, isn't it?
- Yeah.
- When you get the ceiling on,
that'll make this space
seem a lot wider, won't it?
- I know. And the floor goes up as well.
- Yeah, yeah.
No, I mean, it's huge.
I must admit, it does
look bigger, doesn't it?
When you think that most
peoples' sitting rooms are, what...
three metres - 10 foot
- by four metres, tops?
And yours is 30 metres by 45.
I suppose this is... Isn't this the
point at which you turn a corner?
Having sort of stripped the place out,
re-laid the screed concrete floor,
now you're kind of starting to build.
Chris and Gill's new home
will be a big change for them.
At the moment, they live in a
recently-built trad Yorkshire cottage
which they've decorated
in a simple, country style.
So I want to know how far away
from this cosy look they're planning to go.
They're taking me to the house
that inspired them.
It may not look much
from the outside, but
inside there's a surprisingly
modernist interior.
- Here it is.
- Wow.
This is the space.
It's wonderful, isn't it?
Very modern.
And this is only the hallway.
Come on. Look at this.
It's huge, isn't it?
Really open... and long.
Don't you feel as though
it's got an air about it?
It's not at all hard, is it?
It's not clinical minimalism.
It's very... very soft.
- Very user friendly.
- It is.
Really comfortable.
- Lots of sort of squidgy things in it.
- Yeah.
I said to Gill, "Come and
look at this house." And
she walked in - it went
dssh. Just unbelievable.
So we immediately thought of this space as,
"God, we could use the mill,"
cos we always said
we didn't know what to use the mill for.
- Well, this is just so fitting.
- Perfect.
So this whole place
is a very direct piece of inspiration?
- Yeah. Definitely.
- Yeah.
- Very central to it, isn't it?
- Mm.
Actually, Chris and Gilt are no strangers
to contemporary design.
They run a successful joinery company that
specialises in fitting out hotels and bars.
So they're both used to working
to high standards of perfection
and both have a keen eye for detail.
What about... Have we got...
We've got to finish the floor, haven't we?
However, the first key feature
of their new hi-tech home
is being made outside their control.
The internal steel frame
will hold up the existing walls
and create the layout
of the new interior space.
It's also a crucial, visible feature
of the new interior.
This is a job they've had to hand over
to steelwork specialists.
It's May - and four months into the build,
the steel frame is due on site.
The custom-made steel frame
has been built off site in pieces
and it's never been put together.
Steel isn't a material
that's easy to make adjustments to,
so we 're all hoping the key parts
of this frame are millimetre perfect.
It's a vital part of the build,
so the architect, Adam Clark, has
come down to site to supervise the fitting.
This has been your baby, the steelwork.
Yeah, well, yes, Gill and Chris
have been a bit apprehensive about that.
Mainly because they're not used
to seeing steel go into domestic buildings.
- Chris is a wood man, isn't he?
- That's right, yeah.
- He's all about MDF and timber etc.
- Yeah.
But what's he like as a
client? Cos he strikes me
as being obsessive
about quality, about detail.
I mean, he looks at this stuff and says,
"You just can't get decent workmanship
any more."
He's quite dismissive
of a lot of building practices.
Well, I think because his work is very fine
and because it's shop fitting
it has to be very accurate.
And a lot of the muck and bullets, as I
call it, for the rest of the building work,
is quite rough and ready.
And I think he finds it hard to accept why
can't it be down to the last millimetre.
- Nice and straight.
- Yeah.
Tell you what, it really
starts forming now.
The vertical columns
are bolted to the ground
and the plan is to tit the horizontal
first-floor steel beams to them,
without removing the existing wooden beams,
because they're
what's holding the building together.
We're just making sure,
without pulling these out,
that the steels will sit across the top
without interfering with these.
But we want to keep these in to stop any
spread, if we're going to have any spread.
To stop the building from falling apart?
Yeah. It's an old building, so if we can,
we want to sit the steels on top of here,
weld them, bolt them together...
and then chop these out.
The horizontal steels that run alongside
the old wooden beams are not a problem.
They go in without a hitch.
It's the other ones
that are causing the head scratching.
So this is the beautiful elegant design
for the steelwork for this house.
Essentially,
it's like a noughts and crosswords frame.
There's four big
pieces of steel on four
big pins - legs -
sticking out of the floor.
And that takes all of the weight of
the first floor onto these four pins.
At the same time, it gives you these great
big light wells throughout the building
and the steelwork ties
all the four walls together.
Now, the problem is
that so far they've only
been able to put in
two of the long beams,
cos the big long ones they can't put in
because at the
moment they would foul
against the five or six
big old wooden beams
that run across the building like this.
They can't get them in now
until they take these out.
And when they take
these out, the builders are
rather concerned that
the building will spread.
I thought builder's spread was
something else... but in fact it's this.
And that does not form part
of Chris's master plan.
Chris and Gill spend a nail-biting hour
double-checking the measurements.
But there's nothing
for it. They have to take
the risk and remove
the old wooden beams.
It's a tense moment.
They just have to hope that the
ZOO-year-old walls don'! fall apart.
That's it. Put it there... onto this.
Right, put yours down.
Well, of course their
mill didn't fall down,
but it might as well have
because the whole palaver of the steelwork
has really left Chris
and Gill quite shaken.
They love to be in control
of all the details on this project
and they've got incredibly high standards,
which, frankly, I don't think
they're ever going to be able to meet.
The steel frame is doing
a decent structural job
of holding this old
Huddersfield mill together,
but, remember, all this
steel is going to show.
It's a key design element
in the hi-tech modern look they want
and Mr Millimetre Perfect isn't happy.
So here we are now,
we've got the steel frame in and...
I'm not perfectly happy with it.
I'm just a bit disappointed with quality
because all these steels,
they've got to be all sprayed up
and feel like glass.
And as you can see on there...
I mean, it's like a badger's
backside, you know. It's rough as hell.
You know, so...
They've now got to
come back, they've got to
sand it off, they've got
to grind the welds off.
And really, with a bit of
due care and attention,
this could have been done in the workshop
and we wouldn't be in this situation now.
But I'm sure we'll get
there at the end of the day.
Put it this way, we won't
accept anything else.
It's late May.
The steel frame has been in a week and the
shell of the building is now watertight.
So inside, the new
build can really get going.
This is an exciting moment,
not least because the work
ls back under Chris and Gill's control.
They've brought in their own joiners
to ensure all the details are perfect.
And it's all run from command HQ,
just ten minutes away.
This is Chris and Gill's workshop,
from where they can monitor everything.
- What's that file?
- The master file.
This one is...?
This one is the
"attention to detail" file.
OK. Effectively these
files dealing with the
drawings form the
specification of the whole job.
- The whole job is on this table.
- That is the job.
- And it lives here?
- Yeah.
This is kind of the nerve centre.
- The nerve centre of the whole project...
- Yeah.
From which everything
comes, all decisions
are made and all
information is disseminated.
And Gill can go into any one of those
and look at any number, take anything out,
and she can say, "I don't like that" or
"I like that" and we can redo it again.
- And what are these lists?
- All these boxes are room by room.
So, it says here "two double sockets".
This is top room attic.
So everything in this box...
is for the top room/attic.
And just in case they can't remember,
it's a little map as well.
- Does every one have a little map?
- Yes.
Every one has a little plan.
And then I've checked
and I've had someone else check.
What do you mean "check"?
You check the contents of each box?
Make sure everything's right and I've
got someone else to double-check me.
So if somebody comes and says,
"There's a socket missing for this room,"
- I'll say, "No, there isn't."
- This is a TV aerial.
"TV Single Isolated."
- That's this one, isn't it?
- Yeah, aerial.
There's no chance of anything getting lost.
It probably still will, but if it does,
it's going off somebody else's bill.
I'm not buying any more, put it that way.
All the ironmongery's packed up.
It's not as flashy as Gill's, but
there you go. I mean, how can you...
So what does this say?
This says Bath main D11.
- So D11 - Don't tell me, it's
a job file or a room number.
- It's a location.
- Yeah.
- Which is Door 11.
- OK, D11, Door 11, Bath main.
This is a handle and some screws
and it's all bagged up, yeah?
So what do you do,
you tape this to the door?
So when they're ready
for doing the ironmongery,
I'll dump that outside the door and say to
the joiner, "There you go, it's all there."
I've done all the work for him.
This is the 16-valve GTI Ghia
turbo-charged kitchen, is this.
We've spent a hell
of a lot of time on this.
We have. A lot of
time. Let's unveil it.
- Looks great from this side.
- Well, yeah, it will do.
This is all granite,
is it? Polished granite.
Yeah.
It's one of the best
materials to build with
because it's so hard,
super hard, doesn't scratch.
- Gillian wouldn't accept anything less.
- Really?
- No. Would you?
- No.
Nothing less than granite.
How much was all this granite?
- £2,300, was it?
- What, for the lot?
Yeah. Polished, everything. Yeah.
- And this is the boat.
- Yeah.
- The canoe with the ends chopped off.
- The canoe with the ends chopped off.
- There you go. Whoa.
- That's nice.
So you push these.
This has got a little grip.
It's got a
finger-top on the top.
- And this one, too?
- That one has one on the bottom.
Ah!
And the one underneath - on the
top, presumably, cos it's lower down.
- Correct.
- Ohh.
All thought about.
Ooh, look at... Ooh, that's nice.
It's on the angle, isn't
it’? It's on the whiz.
So everything's...
It's actually faceted... even though it
gives you the impression of being curved.
And it's symmetrical to
the centre line as well.
- What's it going to look like?
- Like a space ship? I don't know.
I'm amazed because most people
would order the kitchen
and it would arrive in units all boxed up
and, you know, there would be
no real opportunity to see it laid out.
And you have this massive space.
You know, it's all here to
mess around with, you know.
It's like playing.
Both Chris and Gill visit
the site every day, but
I haven't seen it since
the first floor went in.
Now I can really gel a sense
of the internal space they've designed.
And what a huge space it is.
So, downstairs is all one open
space, isn't it? It's one... big... space.
And this is going to be this huge light
well... which looks vast from up here.
- Looks huge, doesn't it?
- It does, for some reason.
- Keep it nice and airy though.
- Yeah.
- Then there are rooms here. Bathroom here.
- Bathroom there, yeah.
- We've got the corner bedroom there.
- Yeah.
- One bedroom there.
- Right.
And upstairs here, what's this space here?
This is the upper living area now.
It looks stunning now with the...
Now you've opened up the windows,
it looks fantastic.
So what is this big projection?
This is a balcony... to
look all the way down.
- It's got to have some balustrade round.
- Well, yes, we hope so!
It's very exciting.
- And up here's another bedroom?
- This is... yeah.
A private hideaway.
And over there, does it carry on?
This is open now,
right the way up to the eaves.
And these great beams.
Are you leaving them exposed?
- We're going to clad them.
- Are you?
You're not going to leave them as...
a little... testament to what the
mill had been, was once, no?
- No.
- They're not nice enough.
I mean, they're nice and chunky,
but... it's clean-lined, isn't it?
But you're going to see
some wood in the roof,
aren't you? You're
going to see that brace.
No. Those will all be boxed in.
They'll all be boxed in?
So the whole thing's very sleek.
Yeah. Clean.
With five months to go,
the house is ready for the internal joinery
and the very first thing to go in
is their show piece shower unit -
designed, of course,
to the nearest millimetre.
It just squeezes through the door.
Thank God forth at.
It's one of their boldest design ideas
and, as you would
expect, it was made in
their workshop under
their close supervision.
Slide it. That's it.
- Up we go.
- That's it.
- Don't push me over.
- No.
Right. Whoa.
That's it.
Take your shoes off.
Swell.
That's it.
The restoration of the
mill is nearly finished.
But the inside is undergoing a revolution.
All the original features are going to be
boxed in and hidden behind plasterboard
to give the new, clean, sleek look
that Chris and Gill want.
In only a week, the whole place
is transformed and painted white.
It suddenly looks like a
classic modern space.
This is, of course, completely different.
Last time I was here
there were just joists.
Mm-hm.
You've painted all the
steelwork, put the floor in.
What a space though.
It's bigger than I thought it would be.
This opening is huge, isn't it?
Yeah. And just look
at all the lovely shapes.
I just love it white.
It's the first time we've
ever, ever had white
and it's taken us a bit to get used to.
But it is very pure, isn't it?
A very pure shape, a very pure colour.
- But then you've got no...
- Warmth.
- No detail.
- No, that's true. Yeah.
Those windows are so much better,
aren't they, for being full length?
Yeah, they'd have
looked horrible to there.
Yeah.
- Is that how low they came?
- I think so. About there.
Blimey, yeah.
So this is your bedroom
through here, isn't it?
Mm.
- High, isn't it?
- Yeah.
- What a great space.
- Lovely.
And the bathroom...
You're putting tiles down here?
Mm.
Blimey, you've got enough
nails in the floor, Gill.
That's Chris making
sure it's not going to lift.
- The shower.
- And this...
This is... this is a
little triumph, isn't it?
A lot of hard work has gone into this.
- This door is off another shower?
- This is off pan of a shower.
- Pan of a shower?
- Yeah. We've sort of thrown bits...
And we worked out,
this is a metre diameter,
so poor Chris has had
to try and work all this
out with different
diameters and make it fit.
So you've assembled
this shower out of bits.
How much was this,
this door, do you reckon?
This one was
about... about 900 quid.
It would have cost
double that to have it made.
I'd say and plus...
And the shower tray. So that's come from
one shower, this has come from another?
That is horrendously expensive,
that shower tray.
I ordered the bath and I didn't
ask the price of the shower tray
cos I really didn't think a shower tray
would be a lot of money.
And then I got the bill and I thought,
"Oh, bloody hell."
That was over a thousand
quid, that shower tray.
- Just for the tray?
- Yeah, because it's round.
- And what's this? This is the um...?
- That's the underfloor heating.
I don't know what you call these,
but these panels...
there's one downstairs
for the underfloor heating downstairs.
Then there's this one for this floor
and then we've another one for up there.
So this is like a
distribution panel, isn't it?
The hot water comes in here and
then each of these - there's little valves.
- So each of these is like a zone, is it?
- Yeah.
Well, if you check,
if you look at that, feel that one.
That's the en suite.
Now, we've turned that
one off because we're
having the floor laid.
And then if you feel that one...
Blimey.
So we can have them all
at different temperatures and it's all...
So you can set each one on these valves?
No, it's on here. It isn't set up yet,
but it'll be all on here. Touch...
- Hey, nice action.
- Beautiful action.
What's inside?
A nightmare.
- Is it?
Absolutely stunning boiler with
what it can do, but it's just er...
What, does it make tea?
Nearly, nearly, nearly.
- Why did you choose it?
- It does everything.
You know, you go and switch a tap on,
it's firing 22 litres a minute.
Right.
You can burst the
blackheads out of the back
of your neck when
you're having a shower.
A really nice little feature on it
is if people are round,
two o'clock in the morning
and the heating goes off,
we just come up here and press the
two little champagne glasses - party mode -
and bingo, fires back up again.
Fantastic!
- But how much was it?
- Just over two grand.
Worth it?
It's worth it for what it does and the all
singing and dancing bit and everything,
but it's the hassle that goes in between.
- Really?
- Why?
- It's German.
Instructions come in German.
Nobody really knows anything about it.
So we have on one side, the underfloor
heating company, they do all their bit,
and on the other side,
the boiler comes and
there's that great big
missing link in between
where everybody says, "It's your
fault, it's your fault. Do this, do that."
- Doesn't fit. Got to get bits made.
- That's right.
I'm not a plumber and
it really, really frustrates
me that I've got to stand
in between like a judge
and just make 'em play
on a fair playing field.
You're putting two-and-a-half grands worth
of boiler in,
you're putting seven grands worth
of underfloor heating in
and you're thinking,
"God, is this going to go right?"
And then it's telephone
calls, telephone calls
- "he's done this wrong,
he's done that wrong" -
and you just feel like going,
"Why didn't I buy a combi boiler?"
[Do you think if you'd employed a
project manager]? Could you have done that?
No confidence.
It's a personal thing, isn't it?
Is the project manager going to think
the same way that Gill and I do?
Is he as fastidious?
Does he look for the same line
that Gill and I look for?
How long do you think a project manager
would have lasted with me and Gill?
Two or three days,
and sent him on his bike.
It's only eight weeks to go before
their modernist dream is due to finish.
And suddenly they've heard their old house
has been sold.
That actually means that on top of
all the work of building a new home,
they've got to move out of their old one.
This means packing up
all those little knick-knacks.
In fact, boxing up their old lifestyle,
and pretty much getting rid of the lot.
It is extremely stressful building
your own house, being your own client.
It is doubly stressful
when you're as particular
about every detail
as Chris and Gill are.
To make matters just a little bit worse,
they've now sold their house
and they're moving in, together with
their two dogs, to live with Gill's mother.
Now, for Chris that
means eight weeks of living
under the same roof
as his mother-in-law.
It's October and the
final crucial elements
of Chris and Gill's home
are being delivered -
the staircase and the bat us trade.
The success of the overall design
rests on elements like these.
And Chris and Gill know that.
They've been working on their staircase
for six months
and like all the steel here,
it has to be millimetre perfect.
This time round, they've
been 100% in charge.
Let's hope it fits.
Is this the big moment?
- Is it touched on that back?
- Yeah, on your side, yeah.
Back a wee bit.
- Spot on. Want to go for that?
- Yeah, we'll have that.
That's just slightly, but
nothing to worry about.
Yo. It's here.
That's nice.
Er...
Oh, look, the ladder goes.
Is it too long?
That is hard up against it.
That's what you call a snug fit.
- Yes.
- Whoa, man.
- Just look at that.
- I don't think that needs any fixings.
Whoa.
- Are you pleased with it?
- Very. It looks lovely.
This is the first time I've ever got
excited about anything in this house.
- No?
- Yeah, definitely.
Cos this is the finishes
now. This is the...
- This is your department, isn't it?
- These are the nice bits now.
- The juicy bits?
- Yeah.
And when you put something in like this,
to me, it just pays off.
Chris and Gilt have come a tong way
in quite a short space of time.
They've had the vision and the courage
to marry this historic structure
with an uncompromising modern interior.
Gill and Chris have been building their
house for ten months and now it's finished.
It's on schedule, I'm
told that it's on budget,
but the real test for them
is whether it's going to measure up
to their very high exacting standards.
Take my shoes off.
Hello, you two. How are you?
Very well. Very well.
- A bit different.
- How's it looking?
- It's fantastic, isn't it?
- It's different.
It's like walking into a
television commercial.
It's kind of... It's
like a beautiful dream.
We're in awe of it, I think.
You must have worked so hard
to get it to this kind of level.
Everything's just the way that we envisaged
it would be, but a million times better.
What drove you to want to put that,
you know, kind of large canvas up there?
We knew it needed something
and we didn't want one block colour
because we thought it would be
too overpowering for the house, I think.
It developed from there. We thought, "Mm,
we could have a nice picture or something."
They're painted directly
onto the wall, are they?
Yeah.
- So, what happens when you redecorate?
- We'll just have a new painting.
Just like that.
But that dining table
is still a very long way from that kitchen.
So are you telling me you take your
breakfast from there every morning and...?
No, we sit at the coffee table.
Granite kitchen. I mean, everything here
is kind of... supremely spec'd, really,
beautifully spec'd.
Yes, but we've tried.
We really have tried.
We've put everything into it.
Yeah, well, everything and more,
haven't you?
But does it feel like,
I don't know, being in
a glamorous film or
does it yet feel like home?
It feels like home, but then
again it doesn't. I'd feel...
It's because it's so new. Everything's
so new and I want to keep it so perfect.
Gill can't wait till she
makes that first big spill.
And it's better that it's me.
That first cigarette
mark, that first coffee stain.
- Or a cigarette mark in the... in the rug.
- Yeah.
What I noticed is that, as we're talking,
the clouds are going in front of the sun
and the light's changing.
And the feel, the quality of the interior,
changes with it - in an instant, you know.
That's why we never... we never ever put
anything in that outshone anything else.
We tried to keep it like that with
everything, so we weren't bland.
We wanted not one piece
to stand out more than the other,
so you walked in
and you looked at the whole house
and then you sat down
and started looking at things.
It's nice that people sit down then...
There's lots of things my eye keeps getting
drawn to that I hadn't noticed before.
As Chris and Gill
have found, this classic
modern look demands
that every detail is right.
This was the focus of a lot of heartache,
wasn't it, this staircase?
This was the biggest problem of the house.
Deciding what materials,
what style, just...
And safety. You see,
it had to be practical,
it had to be safe,
but it had to look right.
- Cos you can't bury it, can you?
- You can't.
It's fully exposed in this
space, from all angles.
It had to be gradual and it had to be
the downstairs leading upstairs.
Evolving into the upstairs.
We've got the black
that marries the black
granite tops, that
marries the black settee.
We've got the stainless
steel that runs through.
That pops up a lot.
And this wood is what?
Maple. Which represents the table,
the kitchen and everything, so...
So you've actually kept the
materials you've used to a minimum.
You used each material
the maximum number of times.
You've repeated materials throughout
and repeated colours throughout?
- And that's worked?
- Well, we think it has, yeah.
- It's solid, isn't it?
- Mm.
Really, you know, really solid.
But it does feel like walking onto a ship.
Onto the galley. On the galley.
This is extraordinary.
Now this does feel like being on a boat.
You can see the steel
doing its job, the steel
frame, and it's hung off
the wall. It's very good.
- It's like free floating.
- Very exciting, isn't it?
- And this is the bedroom.
- It's changed.
You weren't going to
have the bed round this
way. You were going to
have it against that wall.
So why's that?
Because when you laid this way
and you look up there,
it just felt as though it was coming
in at you and so I couldn't sleep.
Because the bed would have been orientated
across the narrow part of the room.
And it's funny,
cos if you go down like that and look up...
And lying this way
you can get a view out the window.
Yeah. Be nosy.
And this is your sitting area, isn't it?
This is your little sitting room?
This is the dogs' bedroom.
- This is the shower.
- I know.
At a total cost of £5,000, £6,000?
Some incredible sum.
Absolutely mega.
- But is it worth it?
- Yeah, look at this.
Oh, my God!
That's fantastic. That's great.
You put that shower
on and it definitely works.
But is any shower, any
bathroom, worth £6,000?
I mean, can you justify
spending that kind of money?
Look at the grin on his face, look.
We didn't realise it was going to
cost that much when we started.
Gill got the shower, I got the stereo.
- Is it worth it?
- It is because it acts as two things.
We get that really nice
lighting slot downstairs
with the glass bricks,
so it serves two purposes.
One as an expensive light
and one as an expensive shower.
No!
But it's done now, what can you do?
- Can't all be perfect.
- Enjoy it.
Oh, we do. The only trouble is I have
to clean it out when I have a shower.
So it takes me 10 minutes to have a shower
and 20 minutes to clean it out.
So how much of this whole project
is indulgence, do you think? Seriously.
- Every bit of it.
- Yeah.
Got to be.
It's what we've wanted. We've done it.
- We've never ever gone ten out often.
- No, but we have done this time.
- We've gone for the full monty this time.
- We have.
So your budget to buy the place and do the
structural work, building work, was what?
- 200, something like that?
- Yeah.
Originally. You've spent some, presumably,
on fixtures and fittings?
I haven't broken it up
yet cos I've been so busy,
but I've sort of kept a
rough total of how much
we've spent in total
- everything, sort of.
- That's absolutely everything.
- Cos that's what I need...
So what's that come to?
Over £300,000.
Cos you've always held quite a firm grip
on the purse strings, haven't you?
- I mean, you write the cheques.
- Yeah, I know.
Makes a change for Gill to sign them
and me spend it.
Yes! For a change.
- But have you had it valued?
- Yeah.
- And what's it valued at?
- They valued it between 425 and 475.
But your friends - do they admire it?
Yeah.
Presumably not all of them
live in houses like this?
No.
It's a chin-dropping experience.
When people come in, they sort of go...
And they don't really
know what to say at first.
And then as they relax and settle down,
then different details start coming out
at them and they start taking it all in.
This sleek 20th century took
is brought bang up to date with gadgetry.
What is this groovy thing? Gill?
It's the lighting. This...
A little picture of a sofa... and a house.
That's the living area.
- Really?
- Yes.
Oh, look. Hang on, what do all these things
mean? Moon. What's the cup of coffee mean?
- What's that mean?
- It's just having a cup of coffee.
So the lights...
What, you've got a lighting state
for drinking coffee?
I love that. What about lighting state...
What's that one? It's a moon.
This is at night-time when we come down for
a drink and it's just a little lighting.
That's party.
- Party mode.
- That's what I love.
Oh, and more. What's the little heart?
- That's romantic.
- That's the love zone.
Fantastic. This is all
at the touch of a switch?
Yeah.
And what's this?
These are the flat panels
for the cinema surround.
- What, what, what, what?
- It's like being at a cinema.
- What do you mean "flat panels"?
- Speakers.
- Speakers! You're joking!
- No.
- This is a speaker?
- Yeah.
We haven't got pictures yet.
You can put pictures in.
- Where are the wires?
- Hidden behind.
- Oh, all buried. All planned.
- All planned.
All planned. All buried. All... channelled.
- And this is...
- This is my shower.
- What do you mean?
- My stereo.
This is your equivalent
of Gill's £6,000 shower.
I'd hate to think how
much this cost. It's fantastic.
- You've made all this specially?
- Yeah.
- To suit it, to fit it. You've made...
- CDs.
This has all been made up specially
to house this stereo
and all the wires are not here.
- Hidden. Gone.
- All hidden.
The whole thing's like some kind of
space console, isn't it?
All planned before plastering.
Incredible. And how much?
- About as much as the shower.
- £6,000.
On the other side of the room, there is
the most conspicuous statement of wealth...
- Yeah, but...
- ..which is a four-foot-high speaker.
- They're statues.
- Statues!
They're pieces of an.
And the TV... ditto.
This is a plasma, isn't it?
Yeah.
- But you haven't suspended it on the wall.
- No, we've put it in the wall.
- In the wall.
- This opening was planned ten months ago.
Yeah. It's our fireplace, this.
- This was our fireplace.
- Focal point.
- What, it was going to be a fireplace?
- No, no.
- This is the equivalent of a fireplace?
- That's it.
And this is... what? This is your
DVD and VCR recorder, blah, blah.
We've designed this ourselves.
- You designed this stainless unit?
- And had it made.
We even got the brushes.
Look at the brushed corners.
Beautiful thing. Look.
What's your favourite
bit in the building?
I adore it all.
I can't specifically pick one piece out
that I really like.
But can you specifically pick one piece
that you're not happy with, that bugs you?
The steelwork, which always has done.
I hate it when I sit down
and look at the reflections off the lights
and see the little bits of...
niggly little bits that I want to get a...
just scrape them all
off and I know I can't.
What about you, Gill? What's the bit that
you come back to and enjoy again and again?
The space. It's got to be
the space more than anything.
I love having this open space.
It really does give me energy.
Is there something in
the house that narks you?
You shouldn't ask me something like that
because I do the cleaning
and, you see, when I'm
doing the cleaning, I see
all the little faults
and little niggly bits.
- But I've got to let it go, haven't I?
- Mm.
You said right at
the beginning that to
fail to prepare is to
prepare to fail, yeah?
Has that held?
Well, we think so. What do you think?
The way that we look at it is we've turned
this building round from being a wreck
and we've finished it in ten months.
And we've got what we wanted.
So surely in that
statement, the saying "fail
to prepare is to prepare
to fail" has worked.
My personal feeling is, I think, if you
go for perfection and you can get 95%,
it's better than not going for perfection
and getting 75%.
So you've got to push and push and push and
push to try and achieve your perfection.
I don't know that if I were given this old
mill that I would rebuild it so radically,
but I do know that
what Chris and Gill have achieved is great.
And all this space has
such an incredible energy
and, surprisingly, warmth.
And their obsession with detail and design
means that everything here has been really
properly thought out and properly laid out.
Within the larger space,
there are smaller successful spaces,
and everywhere there
are little elegant details.
I think I'd be happy living here.
I know I could certainly enjoy myself.