Grand Designs

“Agh, it’s totally bonkers,” growls Kevin McCloud, as this week’s couple encounter another yawning problem. They’re converting a 1980s barn into a home, which sounds straightforward but naturally, there’s a catch.

Planning laws mean that although the building is only 35 years old, and essentially a shed, because it’s in a conservation area, they have to keep it intact, preserved like an ancient monument. They can’t remove the posts holding it up (even though said posts are rotten) and each of its 1500 planks of pine cladding must be stripped off, numbered and re-applied at the end of the build. 

Fortunately, Georgie and Greg know a bit about adversity: they’ve each had to overcome cancer, and boy do they have reserves of grit and dogged energy, even when someone says those words nobody want to hear when you’re assembling a crucial steel structure: "Yup, we’re 50mm out..."