The WORST episodes of Grand Designs
Every episode of Grand Designs ever, ranked from worst to best by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The worst episodes of Grand Designs!
Presenter Kevin McCloud follows some of Britain's most ambitious self-building projects, as intrepid individuals attempt to design and construct the home of their dreams.
#1 - Grand Designs Revisited: London 2002
Season 2 - Episode 15 - Aired 9/17/2002
Kevin McCloud revisits Sharon and Tony Relph a couple who hoped to restore a dilapidated Georgian house in London to its former glory. Once 200 years of redecoration and refurbishment had been stripped away, the property boasted elegant period features, but the pair still had to overcome daunting interior decay problems.
#2 - Revisit: Clapham, 2005
Season 5 - Episode 12 - Aired 11/23/2005
Anjana and David Devoy started building a contemporary home that curved around a protected chestnut tree in their garden. Kevin McCloud returns to see if their plan worked.
#3 - Grand Designs Revisited: Amersham 2002
Season 2 - Episode 16 - Aired 9/24/2002
Kevin is in Amersham to update on a project taken on by Deborah and architect Andrew. Their venture involved designing an 'invisible' house that blended in with the surrounding reservoirs.
#5 - Medway, 2007
Season 7 - Episode 3 - Aired 3/14/2007
Chris Miller and his wife Sze Liu Lai lived in a tiny flat in East London with their two children Alexion and Tayszea. It was very tight for space and as the kids grew they really felt in need of more room. Chris and Sze are both social workers on low incomes and they have very little in the way of savings.
#6 - Revisit: Esher, 2008
Season 8 - Episode 9 - Aired 3/12/2008
Kevin revisits David and Greta Iredale, who replaced their original house which they designed and built themselves with a German built, precision engineered Huf Haus.
#7 - Ashford, 2006
Season 6 - Episode 4 - Aired 4/26/2006
For six years Bruno and Denise Del Tufo stared at the large concrete water tower at the bottom of their garden trying to figure out what to do with it. It’s a very rare object – a square water tower on stilts designed by architect Edwin Lutyens, who built it to supply the manor house nearby. The planners were open to persuasion so they approached an architect who came up with a bold, uncompromising extension in metal, glass and concrete. Denise and Bruno were keen to keep the original structure visible so the new house is threaded between the legs of the water tower.
#8 - Monmouth, 2008
Season 8 - Episode 4 - Aired 2/6/2008
Jo and Shaun Bennett want to build an Addams Family style Gothic house with a £400,000 budget. With the challenge growing bigger than they ever imagined they face financial problems and struggle to stay within their budget.
#9 - Brittany, 2009
Season 9 - Episode 5 - Aired 2/25/2009
Daren Howarth and Adi Nortje are keen to build an earth-sheltered home from recycled materials in Brittany. The house is a very low tech one, mainly constructed from old car tyres.
#11 - Midlothian, 2008
Season 8 - Episode 5 - Aired 2/13/2008
Pru and Richard Irvine plan to build a bespoke family home in the Midlothian countryside, but the plot of land is an old industrial site with lime kilns and they come with conditions.
#12 - Exmouth, 2005
Season 5 - Episode 10 - Aired 11/9/2005
Kevin McCloud meets Julie and Mark Veysey, whose Grand Design is a stunning Miami-style beach house on a beachfront plot overlooking the south Devon coast. Julie and Mark have had several holidays in Miami, and Julie wanted to recreate the outdoor beachfront lifestyle back in England, living in a house full of light and sun, within easy reach of the waves.
#13 - Ross-on-Wye, 2006
Season 6 - Episode 2 - Aired 4/12/2006
Hillcott Barn looked more like a Tuscan monastery than an English barn. When the farmer put it up for sale, most people who viewed it walked away. It was dark and isolated and could only be reached by a half mile farm track with a steep 1:8 gradient. But furniture designer Robert Ellis (58) had had his eye on it for some time. For years he’d been jogging past the barn and always thought one day he’d like to live there. Against all advice, Rob and his wife Jane, (58) a textile designer, went ahead and bought the barn for £210,000 and proposed to convert at £250,000.
#14 - Revisit: Carmarthen, 2007
Season 7 - Episode 5 - Aired 3/28/2007
Kevin revisits Andrew and Lowri Davies who embarked on a project to build an environmentally friendly farmhouse in rural Wales. Encouraged by their architect, they opt for some state-of-the-art experimental building materials; but do their builders know how to use them? As the budget spirals out of control, they find it increasingly difficult to balance the budget with their desire for a sustainable home.
#15 - Birmingham, 2001
Season 2 - Episode 8 - Aired 8/21/2001
In May 1999, 11 people in Bordesley, West Birmingham, set out to build their own homes. Few of them had any professional experience in construction. For the previous two years, the Accord Housing Association had been training them in the skills they would need. Now they were to put them to the test. Angela, who worked for Accord, would be the project co-ordinator. Peter, a builder with 20 years' experience, would be site manager, overseeing the work. The group members; Calvin (who was appointed leader), Paul, Carol, Mr Azad, Petrona, Tab, Gerald, Paul, Yasser, Richard, Bash - had not known each other when they signed up, having been attracted to the project through advertising and word of mouth
#17 - Braintree, 2011
Season 11 - Episode 3 - Aired 9/28/2011
Kevin McCloud follows the conversion of a large, Grade II-listed timber-framed barn in Essex into a family home and work-space by artists Freddie Robbins and Ben Coode-Adams. Their plans involve few interior walls to display their collection of toys, but at seven times the size of an average three-bedroom house, the transformation of the 500-year-old building proves extremely challenging.
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#19 - Grand Designs Revisited: Islington 2003
Season 3 - Episode 10 - Aired 10/15/2003
Kevin McCloud revisits the improbable build of two architects who built their central London house out of straw bales, springs, nappy cladding and silver tin.
#20 - Grand Designs Revisited: Doncaster 2001
Season 2 - Episode 11 - Aired 11/8/2001
Kevin McCloud travels back to Doncaster to catch up with self-builders Michael Hird and Lindsay Harwood and their futuristic glass and steel house in a suburb of Doncaster.
#21 - Grand Designs Revisited: Suffolk 2001
Season 2 - Episode 12 - Aired 11/15/2001
Kevin McCloud travels to Suffolk to revisit a couple who dreamed of building a 100% environmentally friendly house. How far have they managed to stick to their green ideals?
#22 - Hampshire, 2007
Season 7 - Episode 2 - Aired 3/7/2007
Eight years ago Alex and Cheryl Reay left London for a new life in the New Forest. They bought a run down medieval thatched cottage and lovingly brought it back to life. Then just before Christmas, with Cheryl pregnant, disaster struck. A fault in the chimney caused a massive fire which destroyed the entire building. Overnight Alex and Cheryl had lost almost £400,000. Whilst most people would have walked away from this, Alex and Cheryl couldn’t let go of their dream. Nine months after the fire, they decided to start all over again and rebuild the cottage, bigger and better than before.
#23 - Exeter, 2006
Season 6 - Episode 7 - Aired 5/17/2006
Christine Benjamin and her husband Peter currently live in an Edwardian manor house called Medland Manor. Both in their 60s, the manor is getting to be too large for them, so they’ve decided to build themselves something smaller. Despite the manor’s traditional style, Peter and Christine felt strongly that their new building should embrace modern design whilst remaining sensitive to its site. So they came up with a house that is part traditional timber frame cottage, part modern glass pavilion.
#24 - Bournemouth, 2007
Season 7 - Episode 4 - Aired 3/21/2007
James and Katrin Gray live in Bournemouth on the south coast. James runs his own book distribution business and Katrin works for an investment bank. They used to live in an apartment on the second floor of a former Victorian hotel. But three years ago, James bought the top floor flat. It was originally built as a solarium for the hotel in the 1920’s where holiday-makers could soak up the sun. Now James and Katrin plan to convert it into a modern, luxury penthouse
#25 - Grand Designs Revisited: Wales 2002
Season 2 - Episode 14 - Aired 9/10/2002
Kevin McCloud re-visits Adrian and Corrina, who decided their first home was to be a 300-year-old ruin. The former cottage is set in the inhospitable climate of the Brecon Beacons National Park.