George Clarke left gobsmacked as couple on Old House, New Home with no building
George Clarke is left gobsmacked when a couple who want to change the entire structure of their terraced home by themselves pull it off for under £40,000 – despite having no building experience whatsoever.
The Geordie architect visits Simon and Holly in Weston Super Mare in tonight’s episode of Old House, New Home, which airs on Channel 4 at 9pm.
The couple have recently bought a three-storey terraced house with six bedrooms on a Georgian crescent in the seaside town – but since it was built, it has been converted into three flats and then back into a townhouse, leaving the whole building with an unusual layout.
As the couple, who have two young children, lead the presenter around their new home, which they purchased for £345,000, they tell him their plans for changing the layout – which include knocking down walls and breaking through ceilings.
However, George is left lost for words when Simon reveals he will be doing the majority of the building work – even though he has never worked on a project like this before.
But after an 11 month project in which Simon and Holly manage to complete the work for under £40,000, George brands it a ‘miracle’.
A couple on George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces transformed their Georgian terraced house on their own for less than £40,000
Simon and Holly bought the house as a family home for their children Alfie and Daisy after spending four years sailing around the world.
At the beginning of the programme, Holly says: ‘We didn’t intend anything like this. We thought, ‘small mortgage, hassle-free’ after being on a boat. And then somehow we bought this.’
Simon adds: ‘It just kind of spiralled out of control and then we had it.’
Describing the house as a ‘great space but definitely tired’, George said it needed ‘a lot of work’ and asked who would be carrying out the renovation – to which Simon responded it would be him.
The couple transformed their kitchen into an open plan kitchen/dining room space after knocking down a wall
The couple’s farmhouse-style kitchen/dining area featured French doors which open out onto the garden
At the beginning of the episode, Simon and Holly have already done up one living room on the ground floor of the house
George said: ‘You must have loads of building experience.’
‘Zero, none,’ Simon replies, leaving George wide-eyed as he responds: ‘You’ve never built anything before? And you’re going to do all this?’
Simon explains he won’t touch things like the gas and electricity and will instead bring in professionals to take on those jobs – at which point George looks relieved.
Holly then jokes: ‘Do you want me to get a defibrillator in?’
As George is shown around the house and its unusual structure, he decries the ‘bodge’ DIY jobs that have been carried out on the property over the years, when it was split into three flats.
He is shown into one room where he looks out of the window onto the garden, and says it’s ‘a shame’ to see how the 19th century house’s original features have been covered up, such as the fireplaces and the handrails on the stairs.
‘You would never think you were in a beautiful period house in here would you?’ he asks, before adding: ‘It’s pretty miserable actually. Sorry.’
As the couple gets started on their mammoth project, for which their maximum budget is £40,000, they run into problems early on – but luckily, George is on hand to help.
In one scene, he dons his safety goggles to help Simon knock through a hastily-built, tiny bathroom (the placement of which he described as ‘criminal’) to create more space.
George visits Simon and Holly in Weston Super Mare, who have bought their six-bedroom property for £345,000
At the beginning of the project, George looks at the house and declares it needs a lot of work doing to it
As he looks around the house with the couple, George says it’s ‘pretty miserable’ to see how its original features have been changed
Later in the programme, he calls in a favour with a carpenter who helps restore the bannister on the stairs to include a curved handrail which had been cut out and replaced with a hard angle somewhere during the building process.
By the end of the programme and 11 months later, Simon and Holly have completed almost the entire project by themselves – but the architect and his team have spent a few days on the property to put the finishing touches on the project.
The big reveal shows how the couple have managed to knock through a wall on the ground floor of the property to create a farmhouse-style, open plan kitchen diner with patterned tiles that had been hand-painted by Holly.
As he tours the property, George says: ‘I feel like I’m in a completely different house altogether.’
Among the huge changes made by the parents was restoring the first-floor reception room in the house, which had been split into two rooms by previous owners.
The room now features red velvet furniture, patterned wallpaper and a period fireplace which has been restored.
Simon and Holly sit down with George in the reception room at the end of the programme to debrief on the project.
Holly praised her husband for his hard work completing the project almost entirely on his own with no building experience, which she said had taken him away from the children.
The couple tell George they have completed the project for between £35,000 and £40,000.
Holly says: ‘I still think that’s pretty good for what we’ve done!’
George replies: ‘Pretty good? That’s a miracle! It’s an absolute miracle! What are you talking about, ‘pretty good’?’