Grand Designs (1999–…): Season 2, Episode 5 - The Cruciform House, Lambourn Valley, Berkshire - full transcript
Rupert and Julie Upton builds an experimental idea of a cross-shaped house made of oak and glass.
It was almost like...divine intervention,
that we must build now.
So, it's kind of a very
unusual design, isn't it?
I think most people think we're mad.
What's the contingency if it goes over?
We're slightly living on
our nerves with that one.
If you're lucky
enough to find a virgin
building plot in open
countryside like this,
then you'd be mad not to want a house
that takes full advantage of the views.
Well, this week's couple
want a house that does just that,
and to get it,
they're prepared to take their chances
on an experimental and very expensive idea,
and put everything they've got into it.
What are you going to build?
- What are we going to build?
- What is it?
We're going to build a
cruciform-shaped house
with green oak.
You said cruciform house,
not house in a cross shape, so...
House in a cross shape.
The cruciform shape
has no deep significance.
- Deep religious significance?
- None whatsoever.
But it's kind of... kind of a very,
very strong, unusual design, isn't it?
It's a very exposed position here,
and the architect very
early on said, "Wouldn't
it be nice if we
could build something
that gave us sheltered areas
at different times of the day?"
Where are you building it?
Very close to the existing bungalow.
Literally only a couple of metres away.
For pure, unadulterated landscape,
it doesn't get much better than this.
The Lambourn Valley in the Berkshire Downs,
famous for racehorse training.
Rupert and Julie have bought a plot
with a bungalow that sits on top of a hill
overlooking this valley.
The bungalow will be demolished
after the new build finishes,
but they'll be living here
with their two children
for the duration, literally
right on top of the build.
So, what drives you to pursue this dream,
this great vision of your future?
I think it's really because there's...
We've finally found
somewhere with great views,
and we can actually...hopefully
build something
that will allow us to
enjoy those views.
You're building in oak- barn material- and
most people might love to live in a barn...
- They like the idea of it, yeah.
- This is a very modern building.
We've always wanted to live in a barn,
but we know that in convening barns,
you're rarely allowed
to put much glass into them.
If they have got nice views,
it doesn't necessarily mean
you're going to be able
to see them from inside,
and that's what really
sold us on this idea.
And what Rupert and Julie are getting
is a cross-shaped house
made of oak and glass, designed to
make the most of its stunning views.
On the outside, the
look is strikingly modem.
Inside, the sheer amount of oak will give
the place a mediaeval, barn-like quality,
but one bathed with tight.
Every room in the house
leads you to the centre of the cross,
an octagonal-shaped kitchen,
quite literally, the heart of the house,
making this an interesting family home.
Upstairs, all four bedrooms are arranged
off a circular gallery
overlooking the kitchen.
The master bedroom
has a panoramic view of the valley.
The plot cost £310,000.
Rupert and Julie are hoping the build
won't be more than £250,000,
making an estimated total cost of £560,000,
which is coming from savings,
and a small mortgage.
So, on that £250,000 build...
You've bought the land,
so that's done and dusted.
What's the contingency if it goes over?
It can't go over.
Rupert has to get another job.
If it goes over, what's the contingency?
I don't know yet. I don't know.
We're slightly living on
our nerves with that one.
You have no more assets?
I'd have to dig very deep,
I'd have to dig very deep.
So, is this, as it were, the ideal?
Is this the final resting place?
- Yeah, I think so.
- I hope so.
- Our death nest.
- Your death nest? Nice term.
When do you expect to get it done by?
We would like to be in for Christmas,
wouldn't we?
Yeah.
There's a lot to do in ten months,
but Rupert and Julie
have at least some experience of building.
They've moved house three times
in the last 12 years,
and as Rupert's courier company has grown,
so have their houses.
From a two-up two down semi,
to a 16th-century cottage
which they renovated,
before moving to a four-bedroomed farmhouse
onto which they built an extension.
Two years ago,
they decided to build their own home.
While they were out looking for a plot,
they stumbled on a newly-built house,
and fell in love.
I'd never seen anywhere like it before.
It's a brand-new house that you walk in,
and it just has a lovely old feel to it.
When I went into it, it was just
more than I could have imagined, really.
It's got a kind of
frontier land feel to it.
So much wood, not just the beamed
ceiling that you see in lots of places,
and that we've had before.
It was just the huge vertical beams,
and it was just fantastic.
Just a fantastic feeling
to the whole place.
I went home and said to Rupert, "If ever
we manage to get a building plot, ever,
we must find out who
the architect is, and
see if he could do
something similar for us."
The house was designed
by Roderick James Architects,
who specialise in oak-framed buildings
that combine modern design
with traditional timber craftsmanship.
They came up with the design
for Rupert and Julie's new house,
and the project is being run
from their head office in Devon
by architect Hugh McCann.
We've been lucky with this design,
because Rupert and Julie
have let us come up
with lots of ideas for them.
The idea with this is that,
from immediately entering the building,
you're in the heart of the building.
Rupert and Julie have concerns
over the privacy of the kitchen,
and whether or not they're going to
have to keep it permanently tidy.
Well, the whole idea
of this building is it's
a building for living
in, and having fun in.
It's February.
The outbuildings are
demolished, and the site
is cleared in preparation
for the foundations.
Normally,
when you dig footings out for house,
you think, "Have I designed it big enough?"
Not that I've built a whole house before,
but this looks just enormous.
I've sort of got more
worries now about whether
we're going to be able to afford
to build the damn thing.
You do think, "God, I hope this is right.
What if I don't like it?"
We cannot see this house until the day when
we've gone past the point of no return,
which we've done anyway now, really.
The builder is their friend Andy.
It's his first job as a main contractor.
They've been very brave
really, cos they came
from a lovely house -
a really lovely house -
and to live in this for two years
by the time the house is built...
It's made it a little bit difficult,
the house being where it is,
so it's going to be a bit
tight on this corner here.
With any new
build it's always an
interesting time when
the foundations go in,
because it's really
the first opportunity you
have to understand
the scale of the building.
Now, for Rupert and Julie, it's not
only the scale they have to accept.
It's also this very unusual shape.
- Are you pleased with it?
- Yeah, yeah, we are.
But it is bang next-door to your bungalow.
- It's very close, isn't it?
- I mean, astonishingly close!
Isn't it going to make demolishing that
building hard once you have the walls up?
It'll be quite worrying, yeah.
I wouldn't like to have to do it anyway.
I think they'll have to be quite careful.
Is it how you imagined it to be?
This is the first time
presumably you've seen it...
- Seen anything apart from the drawings.
- Anything off the drawings.
It's the first time I've ever seen footings
that look big.
Normally they look... look smaller.
Have you had it costed yet?
No.
Only ballpark, but...
Any compromise now is going
to be in the height of the building?
Yeah, something like that.
- No bedrooms!
- We might end up in another bungalow.
A single-storey building.
So, when's the frame coming?
Well, probably about 8 weeks from now,
I would hope.
Where are we now? May... May...
July we're hoping.
July? So, it'll go up in mid-summer.
Yeah, yeah. And then it
should go quite quickly, I hope.
I hope we'll have everything
moving quite quickly after that.
The main cost that they're waiting for
is for the oak frame,
and a week tater their
architect Hugh comes to
break the news of how
much it's going to be.
OK, well, I've finally got
all your figures put together.
- Great.
- As you know, based on our original guide,
we reckoned it was going to
be about £65,000, the frame.
The frame's come in at £92,000.
- Oh, my God!
- Goodness!
£92,000?
We can look at something quite fundamental,
and I think we actually
take out one of the wings,
and actually build
the utility wing, which
is the boot room,
utility room and toilets...
We actually build that in masonry.
We clad it in soft wood so that,
from the outside,
it looks exactly the same
as the rest of the building.
And the key is, on the inside,
from the actual main octagon space, it
will still look as if it's all oak frame.
That adds up to £78,760, which is...
A lot nicer number than...
Than the 92.
Mm. So, yes, the masonry will cost...
will have a cost attached to it,
but it won't be £13,000.
Well, I don't mind
having that as masonry.
Mm.
With one of the four wings
now to be built in block work,
a start date has been set for making the
frame, so it should arrive on site in July.
All Andy and his team can do
is put down the block and beam floor,
and then come back when the frame is up.
In the meantime,
all the action is taking place off site.
It may be expensive and time-consuming
to build a house with an oak frame,
but Rupert and Julie are getting
a handmade, highly individual house.
Unlike most timber-framed houses,
Rupert and Julie's isn't
coming out of a box.
It's not prefabricated in some factory.
Their timber frame is made out of green
oak, and that means that it's fresh sawn,
it's cut straight from
the log in the forest,
and the process of
working it is down to highly
skilled, traditionally
trained carpenters.
That process starts
right here in the forest.
Oak is the quintessential English tree.
It's strong, beautiful and durable,
which means that for centuries,
it's been used for building.
As well as its physical
attributes, there's
also something spiritual
about the mighty oak.
It was held sacred by the Greeks,
by the Romans,
and by the Druids, who were
actually the priests of the oak god.
And right into the Middle
Ages, sacrifices were
being made still at
oaks throughout Europe.
This one is probably what?
150 years old?
And it's 85 oaks like this one
that are being cut down
to make Rupert and Julie's house.
Say it takes what?
70, 80 trees sometimes
to make an oak-framed house.
That's a huge number of oaks
standing in the forest.
I mean, can you justify that kind
of sacrifice from the natural world,
considering these take
100, 150 years to grow?
But it's not a sacrifice.
It's a growing crop, and a forester grows
a product that has to be harvested.
Now, not all of these 80
will come from one area.
They will be thinnings.
Really, it's like growing carrots.
If you don't thin carrots,
you have only small ones.
So, we thin oaks long-term,
and we get some larger ones.
Same view. With the same view.
How much can you get for this tree?
This tree, 150 years old...
Probably about £150.
- That's all.
- What, for the lot?
- For the lot.
- That's a pound a year.
The logs are taken straight to a sawmill,
where they're cut roughly to size.
Rupert and Julie's frame is being made
by five carpenters in Scotland.
Because the oak has only just been felled,
it's still very soft, and that means
they can work on it more easily.
That's why they call it green oak.
The special thing
about a frame like this is
really that the... every
piece is individual,
and you're dealing with a material
which is really not square,
and it's not straight,
and it takes a lot of
skills which have...
really are traditional skills,
things which died out
in England probably
150 years ago with
the industrial Revolution.
This means that designing
and cutting a highly
complicated structure
like the cruciform
is a lot more painstaking to do in practice
than it is on paper.
We're quite used to doing
really difficult geometric things,
but in this frame, there's definitely
added layers of complexity.
Can you fax back to me...
The drawings are being constantly modified
by Hugh in Devon,
who's in daily contact
with the craftsmen in Scotland.
Then moving up the drawing...
Getting this frame right
is an intricate and lengthy process.
So, when is the frame arriving, then?
It's now mid-August, and nothing's happened
on site for over 2 months.
Rupert and Julie
were expecting their frame in July.
It feels as if most of the summer's
gone by without very much happening at all,
and suddenly autumn's
just round the corner,
and, you know,
it could start raining and never stop,
and we haven't got a house yet, so...
...it's... it's a shame.
Perhaps
I should have installed a webcam up in...
in the yard in Scotland.
Understandably, Rupert and
Julie are frustrated by the delay,
but given the complexity
of the central section of the design,
I'm not surprised it's
taking so long to make.
What we had originally was, the main posts
were orientated as shown on this drawing,
which meant at each
connection there were two
members coming in
at an angle to the post,
with a third member coming in
at right angles to the post.
Now, that actually
meant that for every joint,
there were two complicated connections,
and you have to bear in mind that the
connections appear at ground floor level,
at first floor level,
and again at roof level.
Well, that's 24 times
at 3 different levels,
so quite simply what we've done
is reorientated the post.
Two difficult connections, and
one simple one, which has now...
...quite simply...changed to two simple
connections and one complicated one,
so we've basically
taken away two-thirds of
the more complicated
junctions in the building.
It's just erm...
one very expensive patio, yes.
The kids enjoy it,
but I'd rather it was a house now.
I hope we can still be in for Christmas.
I haven't spoken to my builder about it
in the last couple of weeks.
He did say only a couple of weeks ago,
"Yeah, it won't be a problem."
We will...
Everybody will be working here
at the same time, which...
There'll be a lot of
people on site. He
would rather they
weren't all here together,
but if it means getting us in,
then they can all come together.
But getting the frame right in a workshop
is only half the battle.
The true test will come when
they see if it all fits together on site.
It's the beginning of September, and at
last Rupert and Julie's frame is going up.
This is your house, darling.
This is the sitting room for your
new house. What do you think of that?
- Hm?
- Good.
That's what?
Fine.
That's fine, is it?
Well, we know it's happening now.
Yeah, see what they've been doing now
for the last few months.
It's a really good feeling to see it here.
I can't believe how many pieces
of wood go into making one...
one room either.
Just amazing. You think you'd build
a whole village with this amount of wood.
The carpenters are doing everything
to help make up the extra four weeks
the frame was in the workshop.
It normally takes two weeks
to put up a simple frame.
They're aiming to get this very complex one
up in just seven days.
Every one of the 750 pieces of wood
in this building is individual.
That means that it has only one place
where it can fit.
Now, because all the
pieces of wood look the same,
they mark them in the workshop
before they leave.
For example, a straight one for
pieces that go on the left of the building,
and a curly one for
ones that go on the right,
and that's for a conventional,
rectangular building with four walls.
Rupert and Julie's house has 12 walls,
all of which meet here
in the middle at the octagon.
Head carpenter Paul
Price has had to invent his
own system for numbering
each piece of timber
to identify its unique place in the frame.
Can I have a go?
Yeah, absolutely.
There you go, that's it.
- And that makes a circular mark.
- And then what?
- Well, then I...
- Then what?
I sort of made it up
after that. I can show you.
I suppose it doesn't really matter,
as long as what's on the wood
corresponds to what's on the drawing?
Exactly.
So, all of these beams
have these weird runic signs on them?
I can try and explain, if you like.
Do you know... Do you know, I think...
I think I need a cup of tea.
Quite right too.
It's taken just six days to get the frame
to this stage, and so far so good.
The three wings are up,
but then they are rectangles, which
is a relatively straightforward shape.
Right now, they're in
the middle of putting
together the bit that
was hardest to figure out,
and the bit that actually
caused all the delays.
It's the central section
which locks the whole design together.
- Is this an exciting moment for you?
- This really is the moment of truth.
This is where you find out
if the builders' setting out is right,
and if they've made the frame correctly,
because if this bit doesn't go on square,
we've got a problem.
It's all about lining
things up very precisely?
That's right.
Getting those alignments.
It is critical that the
guys have got it right,
but it's looking good, and looking
over there earlier as it was going on,
and this is the moment
where I pray it's right,
cos if anything's going
to go wrong, it's now.
Is this very testing for
you, Steve, this one?
- This design.
- It's quite testing.
I mean, have you put one up
like this before with an octagon shape?
Not... Not as complex as this one.
But has it gone together well?
Very well. We're really pleased.
So, this man hasn't been
too much on your back, then?
No, he's been great.
Really supportive architect, which is
just what's needed on a project like this.
The essence of a really good design is a
strong collaboration between an architect
and a professional craftsman
who really knows their craft,
because neither one has the whole picture.
You only get the whole picture
by putting those two views together,
and then you end up with
a beautiful frame like this.
- Yeah, it is though, isn't it, eh?
- The devil is in the detail.
I thought God was in the detail!
The octagon fits
together perfectly, and at
the end of day seven,
the whole frame is up.
It's probably the most
user-friendly way of building a house,
because you go from nothing,
just a footprint, to kind of a volume.
You can almost imagine
there'll be a door there, a window here.
Oh, yeah, you can.
You can even imagine
where you're going to
put your furniture now.
- Yeah.
- I know there's a sofa to go...
If it were a house going up with bricks
and mortar, it'd be dark and dingy inside.
What's the next thing you have to do?
- We hope to get a roof on next week.
- Getting the roof on?
That's pretty quick,
because autumn is coming, isn't it?
Yeah. I can't see us
being in for Christmas at the moment.
Really? That was your original
plan, wasn't it? In by Christmas.
Mm. I don't know. We'll see.
You reckon there's a chance?
My builder's still optimistic
that there's a chance, yeah.
At eight - as the fuel
crisis enters its fourth day,
more and more workers
in Berkshire and North
Hampshire are being
forced to stay at home.
The little fuel getting
through the blockades
is reserved for use by
emergency services only.
Andy the builder returns on site
just when the national fuel crisis starts.
His main priority now
is to get the roof on,
but the timber for
the rafters and floor
joists has been delayed
by the fuel shortages.
They can get on with building
the one wing out of concrete blocks,
but after that,
there's not a tot for the team to do.
It's been difficult
organising all the subcontractors,
mainly the carpenters and the roofers,
trying to give them a date
which they can book in,
and then changing it constantly.
Changing it, and you can't
expect them to be sat at home,
waiting for you to say,
"Oh, we are ready now."
So you have to let
them go and do other
contracts, and just
hope that they, you know,
they'll come back after
they've finished that one.
The carpenters he has managed to keep
are fitting the spare time
by painting the pine boards
for the interior of the roof.
Andy had hoped to make up the time lost
by the Tate arrival of the green oak frame,
but with this extra delay on the timber,
it's looking unlikely.
Well, originally I hoped
I could get them in here by Christmas,
but I don't think that's
going to happen now.
But hopefully, the timber
will be here tomorrow.
Tomorrow turns into three weeks.
It's the middle of October before the
rafters are on, and the masonry wing is up.
Now you can really see
how dangerously close
Rupert and Julie's bungalow
is to the building site.
One day I went to go out of the door,
and one of the scaffolders
just yelled to me,
"Don't open the door!
You can't open the door."
And then Andy arrived
round this side of the house,
and started knocking out a doorway there,
and has put that door in there,
which is now our access out.
Well, our only access,
really, into the bungalow.
Well, we won't be in for Christmas.
Definitely we won't be in for Christmas,
and a lot of that...
I have to say, is down
to the fact that the
roof timbers were
delayed by nearly a month.
We had to wait a month,
and that's a long time in building, really.
You can get a lot done in a month.
But it means, you know, more delays for us,
and no, we won't be in
for Christmas, so... but
we will by next Christmas,
so that's all right.
Living right on top of it, it never feels
as if it's moving as fast as you'd like,
because you notice every day what...
what's gone on.
We're not thinking along the lines of a...
of a rigid deadline.
I just don't think you
can on this kind of build.
I think you'd just end up
having too much heartache if you...
if you set yourself these deadlines, so
we just make what progress we can, really.
I'm hoping to make up the time...
...by employing more carpenters, you know.
We hope to have two or three
more carpenters next week on the job,
so...should speed things up.
But this is not a fixed-price build,
so more men means more money.
The budget situation's gone pretty...
pretty much out of hand, as I expected.
We look like being about...
...25% over budget, I would think,
as things are at the moment,
and that's only predicting wildly.
Uh...
No, not very good. I'm going to have to
borrow more money than... than I'd hoped.
Rupert and Julie now realise
they have to throw money at this job.
It's the middle of November,
and they've got to get the glass in.
It's the weatherproofing
for the building, and
they have to install it
before the winter sets in.
There's one thing
that's been puzzling me about this build.
Essentially, this design is a...
a green oak frame with lots of glass in it.
Now, the thing about green oak
is that it's flexible.
It wants to move, so how on earth do
you glaze a super-strong, flexible frame?
Well, of course, the answer is to use glass
which is also super-strong and flexible.
What they're using here is toughened glass,
which is four times stronger
than the glass in a normal domestic window.
A flexible rubber gasket tape
which will allow for movement in the oak
is used to seal the oak and glass together.
Installing these panes is a time-consuming
job, and they've got 190 to do.
- Where does this go?
- This goes on here.
And it's the same width as the oak post,
and then it's screwed through...
and compresses.
So, this... The timber that's
underneath here is soft wood.
That's just been nailed
on, just to help you
find the position,
just to help stabilize]?
That is the packer.
- The packer?
- It's what this will squeeze up to.
But because this is the same width,
it's also quite deep, isn't it?
Yeah.
When you put it up
- when you offer it up
like that, it suddenly
looks like the oak...
oak frame, that's been channelled,
that's been cut into to take the glass.
- Oh, that's a great cheat, isn't it?
- It looks good, though.
It looks very, very good.
How tough is it?
It's strong.
You can genuinely jump up and down on it.
You're joking.
- Presumably, I approach it from the edge?
- You can walk straight to the middle.
No!
You know the weird thing is,
you can feel it bending.
Or you can see...
You'll see the pane is bending.
That little piece
is a piece of ordinary float glass, is it?
No, that's a single pane of the same glass
as you're standing on.
You're standing on a double glazed unit.
That's a single pane.
Again, you can stand
right in the middle of that.
You're joking.
It's only about 4mm thick.
It is 4 mil, that one.
I can stand on this?
You can stand on that
one. Approach it carefully,
so you don't actually
slide off, is more the...
So what do I do?
Just very gently go
straight into the middle.
Oh, my God!
It's going to go, isn't it?
It's not going to go.
I've stood on some
heights, but this is
probably one of the
scariest things I've done!
- How do I get off?
- You carefully walk off.
Walk to the edge. Put
your foot on the timber...
Ooh, Mum!
50% of the wall space here will be glazed,
so how do Rupert and Julie feel
about living in a glass house?
I'm taking them to an award-winning home
in Wiltshire
belonging to the
architect Ken Shuttleworth.
Where's the glass? Now, then...
You think you're ready
to live in a glass house.
Look at this.
- Hi, hi.
- Hello.
Nice to meet you.
Wow, here's your glass.
Look at this.
Yeah, it's brilliant.
Brings the outside in, doesn't it?
Yeah.
You can't look at anything else.
Walking into the space...
Yeah, you do. Yeah.
Generally speaking,
though, Ken, what are the
advantages of using a
lot of glass in a building?
I think the fact you have this
incredible contact with nature.
The contact with the garden...
You're very aware when it's raining,
very aware when it's sunny.
You feel all the time
you're pan of the garden.
Does it ever get you down
if it's raining and howling across here?
No, because the house backs into the wind.
It's curved.
If you're warm and cosy inside, somehow
that can be a lovely feeling as well.
Like being in a caravan
hearing the rain on the roof.
- If you're warm and cosy...
- You've got a woodpecker.
And at night, of course...
At night, it's pitch-black.
Yes, this goes... At night this
goes like a big, black piano...
Big, curved, black
piano, which is fantastic.
You don't feel the need
to sort of cosy up, and just...
just sort of soften it?
I think you actually almost
forget it's glass for a while.
It's almost like a solid
wall, which is nice.
Ken, there must be some disadvantages to
using glass as a wall material like this?
You have to insulate the rest of the house
really well to comply with building regs,
because the whole house
is treated as a whole,
so there's this much
insulation on the roof,
and there's this much insulation
on the rest of the walls.
And you...
You coming here, do you feel...
do you feel a little intimidated
by the idea of the glass?
- No it's great.
- I think it's exciting.
Yeah...
I mean,
I think where we're perhaps even luckier,
is that we've got fantastic views
from our glass as well.
To comply with building regulations, Rupert
and Julie have to over-insulate some areas
to compensate for any toss of heat
through the glass.
The good thing about a
timber-framed building like
this is that you can
literally stuff insulation
into every cavity between the oak frame
and the soft wood studding.
They've doubled the insulation in the roof,
and even put it in the floor
as part of an underfloor heating system.
We've steered clear of radiators.
There isn't a radiator
in the house, actually,
because we haven't got much wall space
in this house,
because most of it's glass,
and so we... we decided quite early on
that we would go the underfloor heating
route, and not have any radiators at all.
So, we're looking at it
that we'll spend the money now,
and hopefully keep the...
the energy costs down in the future.
Building an energy-efficient house
is an expensive process.
Rupert always knew
he was going to have to
borrow more money
at this stage of the build,
but he'd imagined the amount
would be well under £100,000.
I'm just having to
ask for rather more than I wanted to.
One could lie awake every night
worrying about how much it's all costing,
because the numbers
are fairly colossal now.
I'm just having to ask for
rather more than I wanted to.
It's a case of really not knowing how much
more is required for the rest of the build,
because it just depends
to what standard we finish it off.
I don't talk about furnishings to Rupert
very much,
because they're not
on his list of priorities.
We've got all that
beautiful wood everywhere.
You don't want to detract from that,
and as long as
you keep things plain and simple...
...it doesn't need to
have ostentatious sort of fittings
to make it really special, and that's good,
because we can't afford them anyway.
So, I suppose this
round is on me, isn't it?
I think so, yeah.
Dear me. How much...
How much have you gone over the budget?
The original.
Well, the original budget...
it's dead in the water, really.
We're about...£75,000 over it.
- Which brings you to what?
- £325,000.
And that's forecasting
what we're going to need to spend.
Forecasting into the end?
Into the end, yeah.
And that's happened why?
I think...
...the amount of carpentry
that needs doing, the
amount of chippie work
that needs doing is...
is way more than you
expect in a build like this.
Once the oak frame has gone up,
you've then got a load more extra to do?
A heck of a lot, yeah.
We've had six chippies
on site a lot of the time.
We've got three now.
The whole thing's
made out of wood, isn't it?
Yeah, I know. Yeah, yeah.
But what happens
if between now and the completion,
you go over again,
and you need another £10,000, £20,000?
We can't. We'll have to stop.
We will have to stop.
So, you may end up living in the bungalow,
and with a house next door that's]?
It's possible, yeah. It's possible.
What's the worst situation? You
know, supposing it all went appallingly.
If it all went appallingly, we'd have to
sell it, yeah. But that really would be...
That would be a wrench, wouldn't it?
It would be very, very depressing, yeah.
I don't want to have to do that.
We've put too much into it,
not in terms of just money.
We've just put too much effort into it,
and gone through two years of not
living very pleasantly in the bungalow.
We don't want to...
We could sell it.
I'm sure we could sell it, make money,
and buy somewhere else cheaper,
and live on... on the proceeds
for some time, but...no.
I haven't gone this far into it to do that.
One thing I find very
appealing about this
house is that on the
outside it's very strong,
modern even, and yet on the inside,
so much of it looks like a barn.
It's a real collision between 15th-century
building technologies and styles,
and 21st-century technology and style.
If there's a lesson to be learnt here,
it's that you can? commission
an unusually shaped building
without also commissioning
everything that goes in it.
From windows to doors,
everything has to be tailor-made.
As for the kitchen,
I've always been curious to know how
it would work at the centre of the house.
And now that the building is up around it,
I wonder if Julie is worried.
From this one vantage position,
you could command the whole building?
Exactly. Well, I do anyway.
So...
Is that why you put
the kitchen in the middle?
Definitely.
So, what about things
like cooking smells,
and your Aga flue?
Where's that going to go?
That goes straight up here.
Straight up, and through the...
What, all the way up?
Through the void,
and straight out the roof?
Yeah, yeah.
Through that panel?
I think it's such a big
space that I don't think..
It's not sort of a small space
for the kitchen smells to hang around.
I think it's big enough.
- As you boil the cabbage...
- I don't boil the cabbage very often.
Does it gradually permeate
all of the bedrooms?
No, I don't think it will.
The kitchen is being made by a carpenter
in a nearby village.
You might think a handmade kitchen
is prohibitively expensive,
but even this complicated octagonal one
is costing £8,000,
which I think isn't bad.
Outside, the final phase
of carpentry is cracking on,
but with 16 watts to clad and protect,
it's taking more time
and costing more money than they'd hoped.
We're having to budget
for every penny that we're spending,
and hope that there aren't
any more big surprises, really.
Um... We have gone a lot over budget.
Decorating this house
with its nooks and crannies
is also proving to be
very labour-intensive.
Rupert and Julie have
made a decision to go
the extra distance that
this building demands,
but that means sacrifices elsewhere.
The thing I'd love to do
I haven't got the money to do is say,
"Let's have some landscapers in
to landscape the garden."
That's what I can't do.
After two weeks in the workshop,
the kitchen arrives.
I walk round it every night,
and I can't wait to get in there.
I can't wait to move in.
The place seems to
have a soul to it already.
It's still hard to
imagine we're actually
going to leave the
bungalow, and move in here,
but at the same time I
know we're weeks away.
We're not months away, which is brilliant.
We are also very tired.
You know, mentally very tired from...
from all the effort,
and I suppose that sounds
a bit sort of spoilt to say that, but...
...it has been two years of...
two years of grief, really.
Few people would be prepared to live
in a dilapidated bungalow for two years
while they realised their dream home
just next door,
with no clear idea of what they're getting.
Even fewer people would embark on such
an adventure with no real idea of the cost.
And yet that's exactly
what Rupert and Julie have done.
And a year later, they've got there.
Outside, the house has a modern
and appealingly New England look.
Those big eaves, all that cladding,
the covered balconies,
and I think that really works here.
Rupert and Julie could have built
a sleek piece of modern architecture
with vast glass waits
to capture their view,
but what they've got instead
is a subtler and more varied design
which looks different from every angle.
I like this side of the building,
this big sheet of glass.
I don't think it's the
best aspect of the house.
No?
No. I don't like looking up at it because
it... it's too sort of imposing, really.
It's got a very strong,
modern feel, hasn't it?
Yeah, I think so.
I do like it. I like this side.
Yeah. It's not from the
outside obviously cross-shaped.
You can't get to a point
where you can see the overall plan.
No, unless you're up...
up in the sky somewhere.
- Only God can see...
- Flying over.
If you come right back, you can
see it sitting down into the ground.
- Rather beautiful.
- Snuggles in.
So, bar a few extra nuts and bolts,
it looks absolutely finished.
- It's nearly there, yes. Yeah.
- So, have you moved in yet?
We're in the process of it.
We're between houses at the moment.
- Really?
- Between residences.
- And the bungalow? I mean, you know...
- Its days are numbered.
- It's living under a death sentence?
- Yes, it is, yeah.
When's it due to come down?
Well, as soon as we're out of it,
they'll knock it down.
A couple of weeks.
Is this your front door?
I'll show you when we go in.
Good Lord! This is...
...radically different, isn't it?
Yeah, it certainly is.
Julie, it's fantastic!
It looks so different.
- It's come on a lot, hasn't it?
- Very beautiful.
Yeah, it's nearly a home now, isn't it?
We're delighted. It's marvellous.
And this kitchen...
has worked very well.
It's larger than I thought it would be.
Yeah. Well, it's larger than
I thought it would be as well.
Yeah?
For so long I was looking
at this tiny little circle
in the middle of the room,
and thinking, "This is it."
Yeah.
But I mean, there's so much...
there's so much work surface area, and...
And as you look upstairs,
all this light comes
flooding in from the
roof, and you can see out.
Wherever you look, there are little
glimpses of views through glass.
One thing that strikes me though
about this space
that I've never ever clocked before
is how much light there is.
It's an odd thing to say, because
it was always going to be a glass house,
but it's always been covered up, so the
garden kind of draws you towards this end.
I think it will
when it is a proper garden.
- When it is a garden.
- That's right, yeah.
There should be a bit of decking
out in front of the house here as well.
That'll soften the boundary
between inside and out?
Yeah.
Makes you want to come down here
and sit in it, but it's not a formal room.
It's just a nice, family...
Cos it's sort of an extension
of the kitchen, isn't it?
It's the same single space,
and you've got then a dining table.
Somewhere you can sit down,
but if somebody's cooking a meal,
or preparing food, they're
in the room with you.
Yeah, and if you want to watch television
with the kids, you can do that here.
On the other hand,
you've also got your much more formal...
kind of your bonus space, you know.
Yeah.
What are you going to do here?
How's it going to work?
This is a room that you can just come
into, light the fire, and be on your own.
- Play your music.
- Find privacy from the kids?
Yeah, and I imagine this room at Christmas
time as well, sort of all decorated,
and all the beams, and sort of
all lit around the veranda as well.
With all this glass...
are you putting curtains up?
- How are you dealing with it?
- We've got curtains.
Just very plain cream curtains
that will just hang off sort of narrow
poles, wrought iron poles, or something.
Uh huh. So, that'll just reflect the light
back into the room at night?
Yeah, just to soften everything, really.
This room is quite different
to the other space through there,
cos that's in a way quite contemporary.
Low ceiling, flat...
This has got a pitched roof,
and... all these kind of great joints.
It's more like a traditional
barn. An old barn.
Exactly. It's quite
mediaeval in flavour, isn't it?
You have the view there. It's almost like
a gallery across the end of the room.
Yeah, that's lovely. We love that.
I love the way the powerful oak struts
in the windows
frame the views of the landscape,
surrounding each room
with a series of fantastic pictures.
And the oak columns inside
make the internal layout really successful.
It feels like one connected space,
but at the same time
it has rooms
that have their own separate identities.
God, this has also changed so much
since I saw it last.
All those panels have been filled in.
- Oh, yeah, we have a proper...
- It's fantastic!
...proper landing.
Haven't you just.
It's great to be able to look
down, isn't it, on that open space?
- It's a complicated space, but it...
- It works brilliantly, doesn't it?
It works brilliantly, yeah. It really does.
- And these great big solid timbers.
- I know. So lovely and chunky, isn't it?
And this is Ella's room?
Yeah, this is Ella's room.
Pink. Her pink bedroom that she wanted.
- Have all her dolls?
- Yeah.
- And what a huge bed, isn't it?
- Yeah, yeah.
- One of our carpenters made that for us.
- Really?
And it still has to have a ladder fixed,
cos she can't get in it.
- You had it specially made for her?
- Yes.
And then Felix's
bedroom is this one, is it?
Yeah.
It's a mirror image. Great. What a colour!
Intense, isn't it? A real boy's room.
Wherever you go in this house
there's a view, and there's oak throughout.
- Your room has the best view, though.
- It does. That's why we've got it.
Wow!
What...
- What a sight.
- Not a bad source of inspiration.
Absolutely.
You see all the way round,
and you see so much sky.
You're pan of it, almost.
You're pan of all the seasons as well.
Yeah.
I mean, how do you sleep?
I mean, do you both need absolute blackout?
Yes.
Well, I do.
- No, I don't, no.
- Yeah, I hate morning.
I hate being woken up.
We'll have curtains up,
but whether they'll be closed every night
I don't know.
In the morning, when you wake up...
I know.
Isn't it going to be, I mean... Every
day's going to be different, isn't it?
Like a sort of holiday place
that you come on holiday to, isn't it?
- That's how it feels to me.
- Yeah.
Have you built your dream home?
Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think I have.
I mean, obviously, you know,
we've got to live in it and...
...but from what we've got so far,
and what we can see,
I think we both think we have, don't we?
Mm, mm.
- Ask us in 10 years.
- Yeah, we...
- It has been very expensive to build.
- It has been very expensive.
Our budget was £250,000,
and we've ended up spending
about £100,000 on top of that.
So, where's that money come from?
- The bank.
- You just borrowed more?
We've just borrowed more, yeah.
We've just remortgaged.
So, does that make your
repayments excessive?
It makes our repayments fairly painful.
I'm going to have to work rather hard.
Would you ever, ever sell it?
- No.
- Yes.
No. No.
Why "yes", after all the heartache?
I don't think this is our last house.
I don't really think this is...
Do you think... For ever and ever,
do you think this is your last house?
- This is my death nest.
- Is it?
We said... Yeah.
It's his death nest, but it's not mine.
But having gone through
this extremely lengthy process...
You were a year in the
bungalow even before.
I know what you're going to ask.
Do you?
You're going to ask
us if we'd do it again.
- Well, I am.
- Yeah.
And the answer's no.
Well, knowing what you know now,
would you have done it?
Oh, yes, definitely. Yes.
Yeah, yeah.
As I say, as soon as I saw this plot,
I thought, "This has to be done",
but I knew then how much pain
we were going to have to go through.
I really think that this building plot,
this position, this location
really did demand something extra-special
to be put on it.
Like all self-builders that I've met,
Rupert and Julie have been through a
lot of heartache and hard slog to get here,
but what they've got as a result
is a handmade, really friendly house,
one with loads of character,
not just because of all this oak, but
because it reaches out into the landscape,
and the world outside, grabs hold of it,
and brings it right back indoors.
This is a house that doesn't
just live in its natural setting,
it also lives up to it.
that we must build now.
So, it's kind of a very
unusual design, isn't it?
I think most people think we're mad.
What's the contingency if it goes over?
We're slightly living on
our nerves with that one.
If you're lucky
enough to find a virgin
building plot in open
countryside like this,
then you'd be mad not to want a house
that takes full advantage of the views.
Well, this week's couple
want a house that does just that,
and to get it,
they're prepared to take their chances
on an experimental and very expensive idea,
and put everything they've got into it.
What are you going to build?
- What are we going to build?
- What is it?
We're going to build a
cruciform-shaped house
with green oak.
You said cruciform house,
not house in a cross shape, so...
House in a cross shape.
The cruciform shape
has no deep significance.
- Deep religious significance?
- None whatsoever.
But it's kind of... kind of a very,
very strong, unusual design, isn't it?
It's a very exposed position here,
and the architect very
early on said, "Wouldn't
it be nice if we
could build something
that gave us sheltered areas
at different times of the day?"
Where are you building it?
Very close to the existing bungalow.
Literally only a couple of metres away.
For pure, unadulterated landscape,
it doesn't get much better than this.
The Lambourn Valley in the Berkshire Downs,
famous for racehorse training.
Rupert and Julie have bought a plot
with a bungalow that sits on top of a hill
overlooking this valley.
The bungalow will be demolished
after the new build finishes,
but they'll be living here
with their two children
for the duration, literally
right on top of the build.
So, what drives you to pursue this dream,
this great vision of your future?
I think it's really because there's...
We've finally found
somewhere with great views,
and we can actually...hopefully
build something
that will allow us to
enjoy those views.
You're building in oak- barn material- and
most people might love to live in a barn...
- They like the idea of it, yeah.
- This is a very modern building.
We've always wanted to live in a barn,
but we know that in convening barns,
you're rarely allowed
to put much glass into them.
If they have got nice views,
it doesn't necessarily mean
you're going to be able
to see them from inside,
and that's what really
sold us on this idea.
And what Rupert and Julie are getting
is a cross-shaped house
made of oak and glass, designed to
make the most of its stunning views.
On the outside, the
look is strikingly modem.
Inside, the sheer amount of oak will give
the place a mediaeval, barn-like quality,
but one bathed with tight.
Every room in the house
leads you to the centre of the cross,
an octagonal-shaped kitchen,
quite literally, the heart of the house,
making this an interesting family home.
Upstairs, all four bedrooms are arranged
off a circular gallery
overlooking the kitchen.
The master bedroom
has a panoramic view of the valley.
The plot cost £310,000.
Rupert and Julie are hoping the build
won't be more than £250,000,
making an estimated total cost of £560,000,
which is coming from savings,
and a small mortgage.
So, on that £250,000 build...
You've bought the land,
so that's done and dusted.
What's the contingency if it goes over?
It can't go over.
Rupert has to get another job.
If it goes over, what's the contingency?
I don't know yet. I don't know.
We're slightly living on
our nerves with that one.
You have no more assets?
I'd have to dig very deep,
I'd have to dig very deep.
So, is this, as it were, the ideal?
Is this the final resting place?
- Yeah, I think so.
- I hope so.
- Our death nest.
- Your death nest? Nice term.
When do you expect to get it done by?
We would like to be in for Christmas,
wouldn't we?
Yeah.
There's a lot to do in ten months,
but Rupert and Julie
have at least some experience of building.
They've moved house three times
in the last 12 years,
and as Rupert's courier company has grown,
so have their houses.
From a two-up two down semi,
to a 16th-century cottage
which they renovated,
before moving to a four-bedroomed farmhouse
onto which they built an extension.
Two years ago,
they decided to build their own home.
While they were out looking for a plot,
they stumbled on a newly-built house,
and fell in love.
I'd never seen anywhere like it before.
It's a brand-new house that you walk in,
and it just has a lovely old feel to it.
When I went into it, it was just
more than I could have imagined, really.
It's got a kind of
frontier land feel to it.
So much wood, not just the beamed
ceiling that you see in lots of places,
and that we've had before.
It was just the huge vertical beams,
and it was just fantastic.
Just a fantastic feeling
to the whole place.
I went home and said to Rupert, "If ever
we manage to get a building plot, ever,
we must find out who
the architect is, and
see if he could do
something similar for us."
The house was designed
by Roderick James Architects,
who specialise in oak-framed buildings
that combine modern design
with traditional timber craftsmanship.
They came up with the design
for Rupert and Julie's new house,
and the project is being run
from their head office in Devon
by architect Hugh McCann.
We've been lucky with this design,
because Rupert and Julie
have let us come up
with lots of ideas for them.
The idea with this is that,
from immediately entering the building,
you're in the heart of the building.
Rupert and Julie have concerns
over the privacy of the kitchen,
and whether or not they're going to
have to keep it permanently tidy.
Well, the whole idea
of this building is it's
a building for living
in, and having fun in.
It's February.
The outbuildings are
demolished, and the site
is cleared in preparation
for the foundations.
Normally,
when you dig footings out for house,
you think, "Have I designed it big enough?"
Not that I've built a whole house before,
but this looks just enormous.
I've sort of got more
worries now about whether
we're going to be able to afford
to build the damn thing.
You do think, "God, I hope this is right.
What if I don't like it?"
We cannot see this house until the day when
we've gone past the point of no return,
which we've done anyway now, really.
The builder is their friend Andy.
It's his first job as a main contractor.
They've been very brave
really, cos they came
from a lovely house -
a really lovely house -
and to live in this for two years
by the time the house is built...
It's made it a little bit difficult,
the house being where it is,
so it's going to be a bit
tight on this corner here.
With any new
build it's always an
interesting time when
the foundations go in,
because it's really
the first opportunity you
have to understand
the scale of the building.
Now, for Rupert and Julie, it's not
only the scale they have to accept.
It's also this very unusual shape.
- Are you pleased with it?
- Yeah, yeah, we are.
But it is bang next-door to your bungalow.
- It's very close, isn't it?
- I mean, astonishingly close!
Isn't it going to make demolishing that
building hard once you have the walls up?
It'll be quite worrying, yeah.
I wouldn't like to have to do it anyway.
I think they'll have to be quite careful.
Is it how you imagined it to be?
This is the first time
presumably you've seen it...
- Seen anything apart from the drawings.
- Anything off the drawings.
It's the first time I've ever seen footings
that look big.
Normally they look... look smaller.
Have you had it costed yet?
No.
Only ballpark, but...
Any compromise now is going
to be in the height of the building?
Yeah, something like that.
- No bedrooms!
- We might end up in another bungalow.
A single-storey building.
So, when's the frame coming?
Well, probably about 8 weeks from now,
I would hope.
Where are we now? May... May...
July we're hoping.
July? So, it'll go up in mid-summer.
Yeah, yeah. And then it
should go quite quickly, I hope.
I hope we'll have everything
moving quite quickly after that.
The main cost that they're waiting for
is for the oak frame,
and a week tater their
architect Hugh comes to
break the news of how
much it's going to be.
OK, well, I've finally got
all your figures put together.
- Great.
- As you know, based on our original guide,
we reckoned it was going to
be about £65,000, the frame.
The frame's come in at £92,000.
- Oh, my God!
- Goodness!
£92,000?
We can look at something quite fundamental,
and I think we actually
take out one of the wings,
and actually build
the utility wing, which
is the boot room,
utility room and toilets...
We actually build that in masonry.
We clad it in soft wood so that,
from the outside,
it looks exactly the same
as the rest of the building.
And the key is, on the inside,
from the actual main octagon space, it
will still look as if it's all oak frame.
That adds up to £78,760, which is...
A lot nicer number than...
Than the 92.
Mm. So, yes, the masonry will cost...
will have a cost attached to it,
but it won't be £13,000.
Well, I don't mind
having that as masonry.
Mm.
With one of the four wings
now to be built in block work,
a start date has been set for making the
frame, so it should arrive on site in July.
All Andy and his team can do
is put down the block and beam floor,
and then come back when the frame is up.
In the meantime,
all the action is taking place off site.
It may be expensive and time-consuming
to build a house with an oak frame,
but Rupert and Julie are getting
a handmade, highly individual house.
Unlike most timber-framed houses,
Rupert and Julie's isn't
coming out of a box.
It's not prefabricated in some factory.
Their timber frame is made out of green
oak, and that means that it's fresh sawn,
it's cut straight from
the log in the forest,
and the process of
working it is down to highly
skilled, traditionally
trained carpenters.
That process starts
right here in the forest.
Oak is the quintessential English tree.
It's strong, beautiful and durable,
which means that for centuries,
it's been used for building.
As well as its physical
attributes, there's
also something spiritual
about the mighty oak.
It was held sacred by the Greeks,
by the Romans,
and by the Druids, who were
actually the priests of the oak god.
And right into the Middle
Ages, sacrifices were
being made still at
oaks throughout Europe.
This one is probably what?
150 years old?
And it's 85 oaks like this one
that are being cut down
to make Rupert and Julie's house.
Say it takes what?
70, 80 trees sometimes
to make an oak-framed house.
That's a huge number of oaks
standing in the forest.
I mean, can you justify that kind
of sacrifice from the natural world,
considering these take
100, 150 years to grow?
But it's not a sacrifice.
It's a growing crop, and a forester grows
a product that has to be harvested.
Now, not all of these 80
will come from one area.
They will be thinnings.
Really, it's like growing carrots.
If you don't thin carrots,
you have only small ones.
So, we thin oaks long-term,
and we get some larger ones.
Same view. With the same view.
How much can you get for this tree?
This tree, 150 years old...
Probably about £150.
- That's all.
- What, for the lot?
- For the lot.
- That's a pound a year.
The logs are taken straight to a sawmill,
where they're cut roughly to size.
Rupert and Julie's frame is being made
by five carpenters in Scotland.
Because the oak has only just been felled,
it's still very soft, and that means
they can work on it more easily.
That's why they call it green oak.
The special thing
about a frame like this is
really that the... every
piece is individual,
and you're dealing with a material
which is really not square,
and it's not straight,
and it takes a lot of
skills which have...
really are traditional skills,
things which died out
in England probably
150 years ago with
the industrial Revolution.
This means that designing
and cutting a highly
complicated structure
like the cruciform
is a lot more painstaking to do in practice
than it is on paper.
We're quite used to doing
really difficult geometric things,
but in this frame, there's definitely
added layers of complexity.
Can you fax back to me...
The drawings are being constantly modified
by Hugh in Devon,
who's in daily contact
with the craftsmen in Scotland.
Then moving up the drawing...
Getting this frame right
is an intricate and lengthy process.
So, when is the frame arriving, then?
It's now mid-August, and nothing's happened
on site for over 2 months.
Rupert and Julie
were expecting their frame in July.
It feels as if most of the summer's
gone by without very much happening at all,
and suddenly autumn's
just round the corner,
and, you know,
it could start raining and never stop,
and we haven't got a house yet, so...
...it's... it's a shame.
Perhaps
I should have installed a webcam up in...
in the yard in Scotland.
Understandably, Rupert and
Julie are frustrated by the delay,
but given the complexity
of the central section of the design,
I'm not surprised it's
taking so long to make.
What we had originally was, the main posts
were orientated as shown on this drawing,
which meant at each
connection there were two
members coming in
at an angle to the post,
with a third member coming in
at right angles to the post.
Now, that actually
meant that for every joint,
there were two complicated connections,
and you have to bear in mind that the
connections appear at ground floor level,
at first floor level,
and again at roof level.
Well, that's 24 times
at 3 different levels,
so quite simply what we've done
is reorientated the post.
Two difficult connections, and
one simple one, which has now...
...quite simply...changed to two simple
connections and one complicated one,
so we've basically
taken away two-thirds of
the more complicated
junctions in the building.
It's just erm...
one very expensive patio, yes.
The kids enjoy it,
but I'd rather it was a house now.
I hope we can still be in for Christmas.
I haven't spoken to my builder about it
in the last couple of weeks.
He did say only a couple of weeks ago,
"Yeah, it won't be a problem."
We will...
Everybody will be working here
at the same time, which...
There'll be a lot of
people on site. He
would rather they
weren't all here together,
but if it means getting us in,
then they can all come together.
But getting the frame right in a workshop
is only half the battle.
The true test will come when
they see if it all fits together on site.
It's the beginning of September, and at
last Rupert and Julie's frame is going up.
This is your house, darling.
This is the sitting room for your
new house. What do you think of that?
- Hm?
- Good.
That's what?
Fine.
That's fine, is it?
Well, we know it's happening now.
Yeah, see what they've been doing now
for the last few months.
It's a really good feeling to see it here.
I can't believe how many pieces
of wood go into making one...
one room either.
Just amazing. You think you'd build
a whole village with this amount of wood.
The carpenters are doing everything
to help make up the extra four weeks
the frame was in the workshop.
It normally takes two weeks
to put up a simple frame.
They're aiming to get this very complex one
up in just seven days.
Every one of the 750 pieces of wood
in this building is individual.
That means that it has only one place
where it can fit.
Now, because all the
pieces of wood look the same,
they mark them in the workshop
before they leave.
For example, a straight one for
pieces that go on the left of the building,
and a curly one for
ones that go on the right,
and that's for a conventional,
rectangular building with four walls.
Rupert and Julie's house has 12 walls,
all of which meet here
in the middle at the octagon.
Head carpenter Paul
Price has had to invent his
own system for numbering
each piece of timber
to identify its unique place in the frame.
Can I have a go?
Yeah, absolutely.
There you go, that's it.
- And that makes a circular mark.
- And then what?
- Well, then I...
- Then what?
I sort of made it up
after that. I can show you.
I suppose it doesn't really matter,
as long as what's on the wood
corresponds to what's on the drawing?
Exactly.
So, all of these beams
have these weird runic signs on them?
I can try and explain, if you like.
Do you know... Do you know, I think...
I think I need a cup of tea.
Quite right too.
It's taken just six days to get the frame
to this stage, and so far so good.
The three wings are up,
but then they are rectangles, which
is a relatively straightforward shape.
Right now, they're in
the middle of putting
together the bit that
was hardest to figure out,
and the bit that actually
caused all the delays.
It's the central section
which locks the whole design together.
- Is this an exciting moment for you?
- This really is the moment of truth.
This is where you find out
if the builders' setting out is right,
and if they've made the frame correctly,
because if this bit doesn't go on square,
we've got a problem.
It's all about lining
things up very precisely?
That's right.
Getting those alignments.
It is critical that the
guys have got it right,
but it's looking good, and looking
over there earlier as it was going on,
and this is the moment
where I pray it's right,
cos if anything's going
to go wrong, it's now.
Is this very testing for
you, Steve, this one?
- This design.
- It's quite testing.
I mean, have you put one up
like this before with an octagon shape?
Not... Not as complex as this one.
But has it gone together well?
Very well. We're really pleased.
So, this man hasn't been
too much on your back, then?
No, he's been great.
Really supportive architect, which is
just what's needed on a project like this.
The essence of a really good design is a
strong collaboration between an architect
and a professional craftsman
who really knows their craft,
because neither one has the whole picture.
You only get the whole picture
by putting those two views together,
and then you end up with
a beautiful frame like this.
- Yeah, it is though, isn't it, eh?
- The devil is in the detail.
I thought God was in the detail!
The octagon fits
together perfectly, and at
the end of day seven,
the whole frame is up.
It's probably the most
user-friendly way of building a house,
because you go from nothing,
just a footprint, to kind of a volume.
You can almost imagine
there'll be a door there, a window here.
Oh, yeah, you can.
You can even imagine
where you're going to
put your furniture now.
- Yeah.
- I know there's a sofa to go...
If it were a house going up with bricks
and mortar, it'd be dark and dingy inside.
What's the next thing you have to do?
- We hope to get a roof on next week.
- Getting the roof on?
That's pretty quick,
because autumn is coming, isn't it?
Yeah. I can't see us
being in for Christmas at the moment.
Really? That was your original
plan, wasn't it? In by Christmas.
Mm. I don't know. We'll see.
You reckon there's a chance?
My builder's still optimistic
that there's a chance, yeah.
At eight - as the fuel
crisis enters its fourth day,
more and more workers
in Berkshire and North
Hampshire are being
forced to stay at home.
The little fuel getting
through the blockades
is reserved for use by
emergency services only.
Andy the builder returns on site
just when the national fuel crisis starts.
His main priority now
is to get the roof on,
but the timber for
the rafters and floor
joists has been delayed
by the fuel shortages.
They can get on with building
the one wing out of concrete blocks,
but after that,
there's not a tot for the team to do.
It's been difficult
organising all the subcontractors,
mainly the carpenters and the roofers,
trying to give them a date
which they can book in,
and then changing it constantly.
Changing it, and you can't
expect them to be sat at home,
waiting for you to say,
"Oh, we are ready now."
So you have to let
them go and do other
contracts, and just
hope that they, you know,
they'll come back after
they've finished that one.
The carpenters he has managed to keep
are fitting the spare time
by painting the pine boards
for the interior of the roof.
Andy had hoped to make up the time lost
by the Tate arrival of the green oak frame,
but with this extra delay on the timber,
it's looking unlikely.
Well, originally I hoped
I could get them in here by Christmas,
but I don't think that's
going to happen now.
But hopefully, the timber
will be here tomorrow.
Tomorrow turns into three weeks.
It's the middle of October before the
rafters are on, and the masonry wing is up.
Now you can really see
how dangerously close
Rupert and Julie's bungalow
is to the building site.
One day I went to go out of the door,
and one of the scaffolders
just yelled to me,
"Don't open the door!
You can't open the door."
And then Andy arrived
round this side of the house,
and started knocking out a doorway there,
and has put that door in there,
which is now our access out.
Well, our only access,
really, into the bungalow.
Well, we won't be in for Christmas.
Definitely we won't be in for Christmas,
and a lot of that...
I have to say, is down
to the fact that the
roof timbers were
delayed by nearly a month.
We had to wait a month,
and that's a long time in building, really.
You can get a lot done in a month.
But it means, you know, more delays for us,
and no, we won't be in
for Christmas, so... but
we will by next Christmas,
so that's all right.
Living right on top of it, it never feels
as if it's moving as fast as you'd like,
because you notice every day what...
what's gone on.
We're not thinking along the lines of a...
of a rigid deadline.
I just don't think you
can on this kind of build.
I think you'd just end up
having too much heartache if you...
if you set yourself these deadlines, so
we just make what progress we can, really.
I'm hoping to make up the time...
...by employing more carpenters, you know.
We hope to have two or three
more carpenters next week on the job,
so...should speed things up.
But this is not a fixed-price build,
so more men means more money.
The budget situation's gone pretty...
pretty much out of hand, as I expected.
We look like being about...
...25% over budget, I would think,
as things are at the moment,
and that's only predicting wildly.
Uh...
No, not very good. I'm going to have to
borrow more money than... than I'd hoped.
Rupert and Julie now realise
they have to throw money at this job.
It's the middle of November,
and they've got to get the glass in.
It's the weatherproofing
for the building, and
they have to install it
before the winter sets in.
There's one thing
that's been puzzling me about this build.
Essentially, this design is a...
a green oak frame with lots of glass in it.
Now, the thing about green oak
is that it's flexible.
It wants to move, so how on earth do
you glaze a super-strong, flexible frame?
Well, of course, the answer is to use glass
which is also super-strong and flexible.
What they're using here is toughened glass,
which is four times stronger
than the glass in a normal domestic window.
A flexible rubber gasket tape
which will allow for movement in the oak
is used to seal the oak and glass together.
Installing these panes is a time-consuming
job, and they've got 190 to do.
- Where does this go?
- This goes on here.
And it's the same width as the oak post,
and then it's screwed through...
and compresses.
So, this... The timber that's
underneath here is soft wood.
That's just been nailed
on, just to help you
find the position,
just to help stabilize]?
That is the packer.
- The packer?
- It's what this will squeeze up to.
But because this is the same width,
it's also quite deep, isn't it?
Yeah.
When you put it up
- when you offer it up
like that, it suddenly
looks like the oak...
oak frame, that's been channelled,
that's been cut into to take the glass.
- Oh, that's a great cheat, isn't it?
- It looks good, though.
It looks very, very good.
How tough is it?
It's strong.
You can genuinely jump up and down on it.
You're joking.
- Presumably, I approach it from the edge?
- You can walk straight to the middle.
No!
You know the weird thing is,
you can feel it bending.
Or you can see...
You'll see the pane is bending.
That little piece
is a piece of ordinary float glass, is it?
No, that's a single pane of the same glass
as you're standing on.
You're standing on a double glazed unit.
That's a single pane.
Again, you can stand
right in the middle of that.
You're joking.
It's only about 4mm thick.
It is 4 mil, that one.
I can stand on this?
You can stand on that
one. Approach it carefully,
so you don't actually
slide off, is more the...
So what do I do?
Just very gently go
straight into the middle.
Oh, my God!
It's going to go, isn't it?
It's not going to go.
I've stood on some
heights, but this is
probably one of the
scariest things I've done!
- How do I get off?
- You carefully walk off.
Walk to the edge. Put
your foot on the timber...
Ooh, Mum!
50% of the wall space here will be glazed,
so how do Rupert and Julie feel
about living in a glass house?
I'm taking them to an award-winning home
in Wiltshire
belonging to the
architect Ken Shuttleworth.
Where's the glass? Now, then...
You think you're ready
to live in a glass house.
Look at this.
- Hi, hi.
- Hello.
Nice to meet you.
Wow, here's your glass.
Look at this.
Yeah, it's brilliant.
Brings the outside in, doesn't it?
Yeah.
You can't look at anything else.
Walking into the space...
Yeah, you do. Yeah.
Generally speaking,
though, Ken, what are the
advantages of using a
lot of glass in a building?
I think the fact you have this
incredible contact with nature.
The contact with the garden...
You're very aware when it's raining,
very aware when it's sunny.
You feel all the time
you're pan of the garden.
Does it ever get you down
if it's raining and howling across here?
No, because the house backs into the wind.
It's curved.
If you're warm and cosy inside, somehow
that can be a lovely feeling as well.
Like being in a caravan
hearing the rain on the roof.
- If you're warm and cosy...
- You've got a woodpecker.
And at night, of course...
At night, it's pitch-black.
Yes, this goes... At night this
goes like a big, black piano...
Big, curved, black
piano, which is fantastic.
You don't feel the need
to sort of cosy up, and just...
just sort of soften it?
I think you actually almost
forget it's glass for a while.
It's almost like a solid
wall, which is nice.
Ken, there must be some disadvantages to
using glass as a wall material like this?
You have to insulate the rest of the house
really well to comply with building regs,
because the whole house
is treated as a whole,
so there's this much
insulation on the roof,
and there's this much insulation
on the rest of the walls.
And you...
You coming here, do you feel...
do you feel a little intimidated
by the idea of the glass?
- No it's great.
- I think it's exciting.
Yeah...
I mean,
I think where we're perhaps even luckier,
is that we've got fantastic views
from our glass as well.
To comply with building regulations, Rupert
and Julie have to over-insulate some areas
to compensate for any toss of heat
through the glass.
The good thing about a
timber-framed building like
this is that you can
literally stuff insulation
into every cavity between the oak frame
and the soft wood studding.
They've doubled the insulation in the roof,
and even put it in the floor
as part of an underfloor heating system.
We've steered clear of radiators.
There isn't a radiator
in the house, actually,
because we haven't got much wall space
in this house,
because most of it's glass,
and so we... we decided quite early on
that we would go the underfloor heating
route, and not have any radiators at all.
So, we're looking at it
that we'll spend the money now,
and hopefully keep the...
the energy costs down in the future.
Building an energy-efficient house
is an expensive process.
Rupert always knew
he was going to have to
borrow more money
at this stage of the build,
but he'd imagined the amount
would be well under £100,000.
I'm just having to
ask for rather more than I wanted to.
One could lie awake every night
worrying about how much it's all costing,
because the numbers
are fairly colossal now.
I'm just having to ask for
rather more than I wanted to.
It's a case of really not knowing how much
more is required for the rest of the build,
because it just depends
to what standard we finish it off.
I don't talk about furnishings to Rupert
very much,
because they're not
on his list of priorities.
We've got all that
beautiful wood everywhere.
You don't want to detract from that,
and as long as
you keep things plain and simple...
...it doesn't need to
have ostentatious sort of fittings
to make it really special, and that's good,
because we can't afford them anyway.
So, I suppose this
round is on me, isn't it?
I think so, yeah.
Dear me. How much...
How much have you gone over the budget?
The original.
Well, the original budget...
it's dead in the water, really.
We're about...£75,000 over it.
- Which brings you to what?
- £325,000.
And that's forecasting
what we're going to need to spend.
Forecasting into the end?
Into the end, yeah.
And that's happened why?
I think...
...the amount of carpentry
that needs doing, the
amount of chippie work
that needs doing is...
is way more than you
expect in a build like this.
Once the oak frame has gone up,
you've then got a load more extra to do?
A heck of a lot, yeah.
We've had six chippies
on site a lot of the time.
We've got three now.
The whole thing's
made out of wood, isn't it?
Yeah, I know. Yeah, yeah.
But what happens
if between now and the completion,
you go over again,
and you need another £10,000, £20,000?
We can't. We'll have to stop.
We will have to stop.
So, you may end up living in the bungalow,
and with a house next door that's]?
It's possible, yeah. It's possible.
What's the worst situation? You
know, supposing it all went appallingly.
If it all went appallingly, we'd have to
sell it, yeah. But that really would be...
That would be a wrench, wouldn't it?
It would be very, very depressing, yeah.
I don't want to have to do that.
We've put too much into it,
not in terms of just money.
We've just put too much effort into it,
and gone through two years of not
living very pleasantly in the bungalow.
We don't want to...
We could sell it.
I'm sure we could sell it, make money,
and buy somewhere else cheaper,
and live on... on the proceeds
for some time, but...no.
I haven't gone this far into it to do that.
One thing I find very
appealing about this
house is that on the
outside it's very strong,
modern even, and yet on the inside,
so much of it looks like a barn.
It's a real collision between 15th-century
building technologies and styles,
and 21st-century technology and style.
If there's a lesson to be learnt here,
it's that you can? commission
an unusually shaped building
without also commissioning
everything that goes in it.
From windows to doors,
everything has to be tailor-made.
As for the kitchen,
I've always been curious to know how
it would work at the centre of the house.
And now that the building is up around it,
I wonder if Julie is worried.
From this one vantage position,
you could command the whole building?
Exactly. Well, I do anyway.
So...
Is that why you put
the kitchen in the middle?
Definitely.
So, what about things
like cooking smells,
and your Aga flue?
Where's that going to go?
That goes straight up here.
Straight up, and through the...
What, all the way up?
Through the void,
and straight out the roof?
Yeah, yeah.
Through that panel?
I think it's such a big
space that I don't think..
It's not sort of a small space
for the kitchen smells to hang around.
I think it's big enough.
- As you boil the cabbage...
- I don't boil the cabbage very often.
Does it gradually permeate
all of the bedrooms?
No, I don't think it will.
The kitchen is being made by a carpenter
in a nearby village.
You might think a handmade kitchen
is prohibitively expensive,
but even this complicated octagonal one
is costing £8,000,
which I think isn't bad.
Outside, the final phase
of carpentry is cracking on,
but with 16 watts to clad and protect,
it's taking more time
and costing more money than they'd hoped.
We're having to budget
for every penny that we're spending,
and hope that there aren't
any more big surprises, really.
Um... We have gone a lot over budget.
Decorating this house
with its nooks and crannies
is also proving to be
very labour-intensive.
Rupert and Julie have
made a decision to go
the extra distance that
this building demands,
but that means sacrifices elsewhere.
The thing I'd love to do
I haven't got the money to do is say,
"Let's have some landscapers in
to landscape the garden."
That's what I can't do.
After two weeks in the workshop,
the kitchen arrives.
I walk round it every night,
and I can't wait to get in there.
I can't wait to move in.
The place seems to
have a soul to it already.
It's still hard to
imagine we're actually
going to leave the
bungalow, and move in here,
but at the same time I
know we're weeks away.
We're not months away, which is brilliant.
We are also very tired.
You know, mentally very tired from...
from all the effort,
and I suppose that sounds
a bit sort of spoilt to say that, but...
...it has been two years of...
two years of grief, really.
Few people would be prepared to live
in a dilapidated bungalow for two years
while they realised their dream home
just next door,
with no clear idea of what they're getting.
Even fewer people would embark on such
an adventure with no real idea of the cost.
And yet that's exactly
what Rupert and Julie have done.
And a year later, they've got there.
Outside, the house has a modern
and appealingly New England look.
Those big eaves, all that cladding,
the covered balconies,
and I think that really works here.
Rupert and Julie could have built
a sleek piece of modern architecture
with vast glass waits
to capture their view,
but what they've got instead
is a subtler and more varied design
which looks different from every angle.
I like this side of the building,
this big sheet of glass.
I don't think it's the
best aspect of the house.
No?
No. I don't like looking up at it because
it... it's too sort of imposing, really.
It's got a very strong,
modern feel, hasn't it?
Yeah, I think so.
I do like it. I like this side.
Yeah. It's not from the
outside obviously cross-shaped.
You can't get to a point
where you can see the overall plan.
No, unless you're up...
up in the sky somewhere.
- Only God can see...
- Flying over.
If you come right back, you can
see it sitting down into the ground.
- Rather beautiful.
- Snuggles in.
So, bar a few extra nuts and bolts,
it looks absolutely finished.
- It's nearly there, yes. Yeah.
- So, have you moved in yet?
We're in the process of it.
We're between houses at the moment.
- Really?
- Between residences.
- And the bungalow? I mean, you know...
- Its days are numbered.
- It's living under a death sentence?
- Yes, it is, yeah.
When's it due to come down?
Well, as soon as we're out of it,
they'll knock it down.
A couple of weeks.
Is this your front door?
I'll show you when we go in.
Good Lord! This is...
...radically different, isn't it?
Yeah, it certainly is.
Julie, it's fantastic!
It looks so different.
- It's come on a lot, hasn't it?
- Very beautiful.
Yeah, it's nearly a home now, isn't it?
We're delighted. It's marvellous.
And this kitchen...
has worked very well.
It's larger than I thought it would be.
Yeah. Well, it's larger than
I thought it would be as well.
Yeah?
For so long I was looking
at this tiny little circle
in the middle of the room,
and thinking, "This is it."
Yeah.
But I mean, there's so much...
there's so much work surface area, and...
And as you look upstairs,
all this light comes
flooding in from the
roof, and you can see out.
Wherever you look, there are little
glimpses of views through glass.
One thing that strikes me though
about this space
that I've never ever clocked before
is how much light there is.
It's an odd thing to say, because
it was always going to be a glass house,
but it's always been covered up, so the
garden kind of draws you towards this end.
I think it will
when it is a proper garden.
- When it is a garden.
- That's right, yeah.
There should be a bit of decking
out in front of the house here as well.
That'll soften the boundary
between inside and out?
Yeah.
Makes you want to come down here
and sit in it, but it's not a formal room.
It's just a nice, family...
Cos it's sort of an extension
of the kitchen, isn't it?
It's the same single space,
and you've got then a dining table.
Somewhere you can sit down,
but if somebody's cooking a meal,
or preparing food, they're
in the room with you.
Yeah, and if you want to watch television
with the kids, you can do that here.
On the other hand,
you've also got your much more formal...
kind of your bonus space, you know.
Yeah.
What are you going to do here?
How's it going to work?
This is a room that you can just come
into, light the fire, and be on your own.
- Play your music.
- Find privacy from the kids?
Yeah, and I imagine this room at Christmas
time as well, sort of all decorated,
and all the beams, and sort of
all lit around the veranda as well.
With all this glass...
are you putting curtains up?
- How are you dealing with it?
- We've got curtains.
Just very plain cream curtains
that will just hang off sort of narrow
poles, wrought iron poles, or something.
Uh huh. So, that'll just reflect the light
back into the room at night?
Yeah, just to soften everything, really.
This room is quite different
to the other space through there,
cos that's in a way quite contemporary.
Low ceiling, flat...
This has got a pitched roof,
and... all these kind of great joints.
It's more like a traditional
barn. An old barn.
Exactly. It's quite
mediaeval in flavour, isn't it?
You have the view there. It's almost like
a gallery across the end of the room.
Yeah, that's lovely. We love that.
I love the way the powerful oak struts
in the windows
frame the views of the landscape,
surrounding each room
with a series of fantastic pictures.
And the oak columns inside
make the internal layout really successful.
It feels like one connected space,
but at the same time
it has rooms
that have their own separate identities.
God, this has also changed so much
since I saw it last.
All those panels have been filled in.
- Oh, yeah, we have a proper...
- It's fantastic!
...proper landing.
Haven't you just.
It's great to be able to look
down, isn't it, on that open space?
- It's a complicated space, but it...
- It works brilliantly, doesn't it?
It works brilliantly, yeah. It really does.
- And these great big solid timbers.
- I know. So lovely and chunky, isn't it?
And this is Ella's room?
Yeah, this is Ella's room.
Pink. Her pink bedroom that she wanted.
- Have all her dolls?
- Yeah.
- And what a huge bed, isn't it?
- Yeah, yeah.
- One of our carpenters made that for us.
- Really?
And it still has to have a ladder fixed,
cos she can't get in it.
- You had it specially made for her?
- Yes.
And then Felix's
bedroom is this one, is it?
Yeah.
It's a mirror image. Great. What a colour!
Intense, isn't it? A real boy's room.
Wherever you go in this house
there's a view, and there's oak throughout.
- Your room has the best view, though.
- It does. That's why we've got it.
Wow!
What...
- What a sight.
- Not a bad source of inspiration.
Absolutely.
You see all the way round,
and you see so much sky.
You're pan of it, almost.
You're pan of all the seasons as well.
Yeah.
I mean, how do you sleep?
I mean, do you both need absolute blackout?
Yes.
Well, I do.
- No, I don't, no.
- Yeah, I hate morning.
I hate being woken up.
We'll have curtains up,
but whether they'll be closed every night
I don't know.
In the morning, when you wake up...
I know.
Isn't it going to be, I mean... Every
day's going to be different, isn't it?
Like a sort of holiday place
that you come on holiday to, isn't it?
- That's how it feels to me.
- Yeah.
Have you built your dream home?
Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think I have.
I mean, obviously, you know,
we've got to live in it and...
...but from what we've got so far,
and what we can see,
I think we both think we have, don't we?
Mm, mm.
- Ask us in 10 years.
- Yeah, we...
- It has been very expensive to build.
- It has been very expensive.
Our budget was £250,000,
and we've ended up spending
about £100,000 on top of that.
So, where's that money come from?
- The bank.
- You just borrowed more?
We've just borrowed more, yeah.
We've just remortgaged.
So, does that make your
repayments excessive?
It makes our repayments fairly painful.
I'm going to have to work rather hard.
Would you ever, ever sell it?
- No.
- Yes.
No. No.
Why "yes", after all the heartache?
I don't think this is our last house.
I don't really think this is...
Do you think... For ever and ever,
do you think this is your last house?
- This is my death nest.
- Is it?
We said... Yeah.
It's his death nest, but it's not mine.
But having gone through
this extremely lengthy process...
You were a year in the
bungalow even before.
I know what you're going to ask.
Do you?
You're going to ask
us if we'd do it again.
- Well, I am.
- Yeah.
And the answer's no.
Well, knowing what you know now,
would you have done it?
Oh, yes, definitely. Yes.
Yeah, yeah.
As I say, as soon as I saw this plot,
I thought, "This has to be done",
but I knew then how much pain
we were going to have to go through.
I really think that this building plot,
this position, this location
really did demand something extra-special
to be put on it.
Like all self-builders that I've met,
Rupert and Julie have been through a
lot of heartache and hard slog to get here,
but what they've got as a result
is a handmade, really friendly house,
one with loads of character,
not just because of all this oak, but
because it reaches out into the landscape,
and the world outside, grabs hold of it,
and brings it right back indoors.
This is a house that doesn't
just live in its natural setting,
it also lives up to it.