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 - Revisit: Creuse, 2006
Season 6 - Episode 5 - Aired 5/3/2006
Kevin McCloud revisits Denise (Deni) Daniel and Doug Ibbs. The couple, in their mid-50s and from Dorset, bought a 19th-century manor house in Creuse, Limousin – in central France – on a Sunday, having seen it for the first time ever on the previous Tuesday on the Internet and visited it on the Thursday. They don't mind hard work too, which is even better news because the house was a wreck.
#2 - Peak District, 2017
Season 18 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/18/2017
After 15 years of saving and planning, ecologist Fred and communications manager Saffron Baker start building work on their new family home in a village in the Peak District. However, the couple face difficulties as the start of construction proves more a feat of civil engineering than a house build, and work comes to a halt when their self-build mortgage falls through.
#3 - East London 2017
Season 18 - Episode 8 - Aired 10/25/2017
Design engineer Joe Stuart and service designer Lina Nilsson take on the London property market, as they build their own home on a miniscule 38 square metre plot. Joe designs a split level, six half-floor house that will cleverly maximise the space, but the project is soon runs months behind schedule, and thousands of pounds over their budget.
#4 - Herefordshire, 2017
Season 18 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/1/2017
Following the work of Ed and Rowena Waghorn as they continue to build a handcrafted, five-bedroom house on an eight acre smallholding in Herefordshire, 10 years in the making. Progress on the build was slow as Ed decided to do most of the work himself, and after four years the house was still a shell. Now, years later, is it possible this house may finally become a medieval masterpiece?
#5 - Padstow, Cornwall 2018
Season 19 - Episode 2 - Aired 9/26/2018
Kevin McCloud meets Harry and Briony Anscombe, who have decided to move from London to Cornwall with their three young children and begin building work on an ambitious house, inspired by American modernist properties. With a budget of just £400,000, Harry opts to project manage himself, paying local builders by the hour, but his lack of experience in construction proves to be problematic.
#6 - Aylsebury Vale 2018
Season 19 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/19/2018
Kevin McCloud meets Spanish architect Jaime and his wife Mimi as they embark on a mission to convert a Grade II listed folly into a family home in Buckinghamshire. Giving themselves a wildly optimistic six month deadline to finish before the birth of their second child, it's not long before the couple hit trouble. Jaime puts all his energies and creativity into the project, using innovative 3D mapping to squeeze living spaces into the tower, but it proves to be an exhausting struggle.
#7 - Richmond 2018
Season 19 - Episode 3 - Aired 10/3/2018
Gallery owner Elinor and fitness entrepreneur Born set themselves the task of creating Britain's first hypoallergenic house in a leafy back garden plot in south west London. Driven by the need to alleviate their two young sons' life-threatening allergies, their new part-submerged, shed-inspired home, will be constructed using low toxin materials and deploy cutting-edge filtration systems to clean the air they breathe. Will their innovative new house deliver the benefits Elinor and Born are hoping for?
#8 - Galloway 2019
Season 20 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/4/2019
Andy and Jeanette plan a precarious cliff-top build on the west coast of Scotland. There are battles with extreme weather, budget overruns, and a sudden emotional shock.
#9 - Lincolnshire 2019
Season 20 - Episode 2 - Aired 9/11/2019
Kevin McCloud meets entrepreneur Paul Wilkinson and his wife Amy, who are building a giant new home on a 16-acre plot in Lincolnshire. The superstructure will be comprised of five circular buildings made up of interlocking timber cylinders, linked by raised wooden walkways that hang over a fishing lake. The complicated build proves difficult for Paul's local team, and their ambitious schedule of completing the project in a year soon looks out of reach.
#10 - Hull 2019
Season 20 - Episode 4 - Aired 9/25/2019
Kevin McCloud follows the progress of engineer Richard Bennett and his partner Felicia Böhm as they transform an underground water reservoir near the Humber Estuary into a family home. In 2013, the pair decided to embark on the ambitious build with a budget of only £150,000, but it proved a monumental challenge, and design and layout decisions stretched their abilities and the schedule to the max.
#11 - Strathaven Revisit 2019
Season 20 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/16/2019
Kevin McCloud revisits a home built on an airfield in Strathaven in Scotland to check on the progress made by Colin MacKinnon and his partner Marta Briongos. Their ambitious plan was to build a metal-sculptural home inspired by aircraft hangars right next to the runway, but the difficulties of building their elegant design saw a year-long project stretch to three years.
#12 - Blackdown Hills, Devon, 2017
Season 18 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/11/2017
Kevin McCloud visits a house belonging to an engineer that resembles a giant snake. The building was inspired by an ammonite shell and has a scaly, curving structure that spirals over two levels and combines natural materials with the latest modern technology. However, completing the project within the 12-month schedule may not be possible.
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#13 - Revisit: Les Gets, 2006
Season 6 - Episode 6 - Aired 5/10/2006
Kevin McCloud revisits Nicky and James Dobree. Nicky was raised in France, James in Beirut – both have fond memories of the mountains as children. So it was natural for them to one day look to buy a place amongst France's tallest peaks, the Alps. The journey moving the family, including their two young sons, Fabian and Felix, from South London to a renovated 300-year-old farmhouse in Les Gets was to have its ups and downs. It was never meant to be a permanent move. The original plan was to develop the top two floors of the chalet so the family could spend the summer there, overseeing the completion of the bottom floors. They would then be able to rent our the whole chalet in the winter months. The family were only planning to use their new home for the summer seasons.
#14 - Revisit: Tuscany, 2007
Season 7 - Episode 11 - Aired 5/9/2007
Kevin McCloud meets a couple who bought a ruin and moved to Italy in 1999, hoping to start work building their dream home in Tuscany. Since then they've spent all their time trying to get planning permission, but finally, after four years, they are about to start work. And it's an epic project: they have bought a derelict 1,000-year-old castle in the Tuscan hills. Now, the couple face their biggest battle of all: rebuilding this massive ruin into a comfortable and luxurious five-bedroom home.
#15 - 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.
#16 - Grand Designs Revisited: Sunderland 2003
Season 3 - Episode 11 - Aired 10/22/2003
Kevin McCloud revisits a couple who converted a disused electricity substation in Sunderland into a four-bedroom family home, armed with just £50,000 and ideas from a book about Moroccan interiors. Despite a number of setbacks, Anne and Richard Curtis created a living space which, three years later, has had a sumptuous rooftop garden added to it.
#17 - Revisit: Puglia, 2008
Season 8 - Episode 7 - Aired 2/27/2008
Kevin McCloud revisits artists David Westby and Leonie Whitton three years after they bought an olive farm in the Puglia region of Italy and planned to convert it into a home on a budget of £25,000. The project proved difficult due to their lack of experience and problems with Italian planning laws. When the presenter last visited they had built a guest house but their own residence was untouched.
#18 - Revisit: Lot, 2010
Season 10 - Episode 12 - Aired 12/1/2010
Kevin McCloud returns to see the Sampson family in France. Mark and Deborah (Debbie) Sampson and daughter, Tilley, like to practice an ecologically sound way of life. Together, the family's over-riding desire is to make a statement about who they are and how they choose to live their life, and to be accepted for the way they are by the local people.
#19 - Malaga Revisit, 2013
Season 13 - Episode 10 - Aired 11/6/2013
Kevin catches up with the story of a daring modernist home in the Andalucian hills in southern Spain.. Ten years ago Gil and Hillary Briffa decided to retire to southern Spain. Rejecting the coastal sprawl around Malaga they found a virgin plot of land up in the Andalucian hills for just £35,000. But instead of building a home like the traditional old fincas nearby, their architect son's design was a confrontational, modernist glass box, surrounded by boldly coloured connected rooms, hidden behind a giant citadel wall. Construction proved stressful. The couple put all their trust in a local Spanish builder who had never built a house like this before. The local residents didn't like it and the mayor tried to get it re-painted white. But if they could just finish the build, it promised to be the coolest retirement home Kevin McCloud has ever seen.
#20 - South West London 2021
Season 21 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/6/2021
Kevin McCloud returns with more ambitious self-builds. In south west London, Justin's restoring a neo-Gothic cemetery lodge and converting its toilet into an extension with a moat and pool.
#21 - Sevenoaks, Kent 2021
Season 21 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/13/2021
Greg and Georgie plan to convert a cavernous, dilapidated, 35-year-old barn in Georgie's parents' garden in Kent into a peaceful safe haven. But budget-squeezing building work soon sets in.
#22 - Revisit: Hampshire, 2009
Season 9 - Episode 11 - Aired 4/15/2009
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.
#23 - Buckinghamshire, 2003
Season 3 - Episode 5 - Aired 3/12/2003
Tom and Judy wanted more than just a home for themselves and their two children. On a site of outstanding natural beauty in Buckinghamshire, they set out to build an ambitious house - a symphony of angles, glass walls and exposed steel, with a dramatic inverted roof. Tom made himself site manager and main contractor. He had no experience but he liked a challenge - and, after all, how difficult could it be?
#24 - Carmarthen, 2005
Season 5 - Episode 11 - Aired 11/16/2005
Andrew and Lowri Davies embark 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.
#25 - 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.