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’. 

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.

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.

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’?’

Burnley make third offer of £9m for Sunderland’s Jack Clarke with Brentford and Crystal Palace also interested in the talented winger after he helped the Black Cats reach the Championship play-offs

By Simon Jones for The Mail on Sunday

Published: 02:46 EDT, 2 July 2023 | Updated: 04:06 EDT, 2 July 2023

Australian fast bowler Josh Hazlewood has taken the biggest steps on his path to a Test return after snaring two wickets in his first outing for nearly four months – but Michael Clarke believes he should be preparing for the Ashes.

Hazlewood bowled three overs for Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League, taking 2-15, in his first match since the New Year’s SCG Test against South Africa in January.

The 32-year-old looms as a key plank in Australia‘s attack for a massive six Test matches in England that begins with the World Test Championship final against India, then the highly anticipated Ashes.

Hazlewood hadn’t bowled in a match since injuring his achilles tendon in Sydney, forcing him to miss the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test series in India.

The New South Welshman has been working on a recuperation program designed to get him ready for the WTC final on June 7 and said he was ‘more excited than nervous’ about finally getting back.

‘It has been a long while,’ said Hazlewood, who is playing on a $1.4 million contract.

‘I was excited more than nervous. It is great to be back here in front of some good fans.’

Hazlewood, who took 20 wickets at 21.85 in four matches during the last Ashes tour in 2019, has only played 11 of Australia’s 28 Tests since that series due to a string of injuries.

But he was picked in the 17-man Ashes squad with the expectation of rejoining Australia’s frontline attack alongside captain Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc.

National selectors were happy with Hazlewood to use the IPL to build up his bowling loads outside of games in the hope he could play as many of the six Tests in England as possible.

However, former Australian captain Michael Clarke believes Hazlewood should be focusing on preparing for the Ashes and following the lead of Cummins and Starc, who withdrew from this year’s IPL to ‘take some rest’ ahead of a busy winter campaign.

‘I don’t know why he’s over playing IPL. I don’t know why he’s not over here in Australia preparing to play Test match cricket,’ Clarke said.

‘I know they’ll have people over there, in the nets he’ll be bowling more than what the IPL players are bowling, in preparation for Test match cricket.

‘But I just don’t know if him bowling three overs, four overs right now is his best preparation for an Ashes series, after the injuries he’s had and the amount of time he’s had out of Test cricket.

‘It’s great to see him back playing, there’s no doubt about it … but for Australian Test cricket fans, you want to see him at his best for this Ashes series.’

Clarke was unsure whether Cricket Australia should have intervened and prevented Hazlewood from participating in the T20 tournament.

‘They can do it now. They can stop you going,’ he responded.

‘But it’s India. Are you kidding? No-one is saying no to India. 

‘We had the conversation about Cameron Green … is it in Cameron’s Green’s interest right now, with his body, with the Ashes series coming up, with the amount of cricket we have coming up, for him to be over there playing IPL? Or would he be better off taking four weeks rest, recover, rehab and start a pre-season?

‘Unless Cricket Australia are going to say, ‘OK the IPL has just offered you $3 million for eight weeks … we’ll pay you that $3 million you stay home and train with us,’ there’s nothing they can do.’

Victorian quick Scott Boland is also in the Ashes squad and chief selector George Bailey said they would also have the capacity to call up Michael Neser and Sean Abbott, who are among a plethora of Australians playing in the County Championship, should the need arise.

‘If we do need to call upon another quick we can we can be really specific around who we need and why,’ Bailey said last month.

‘And then not necessarily have someone in the squad who ends up being superfluous.’