Grand Designs UK: Young couple's off

REVIEW: We often wonder whether Grand Designs projects really work out for their owners, so getting a "revisit" is eye-opening.

This week it's a kind of back-to-the-future moment that makes you realise, perhaps this young couple's alternative lifestyle is how we might one day all be living, just like people did hundreds of years ago.

Kevin McCloud retells the story of Ed and Vicky who gave up their London city life for a sustainable, off-grid lifestyle in Somerset. I don't recall seeing this episode ever screening in New Zealand, so that's an added bonus.

They’re young and, they don't have much money, so you know it's going to be tough. Especially since they choose to do up a derelict cowshed, which McCloud describes as "pretty ugly", and it's on an "apocalyptic site". (Imagine the smell and the dust.)

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What is even remarkable, they’re doing it themselves, with zero experience – just a little help from YouTube and a builder called James. As McCloud says, the project "will be fuelled by nothing more than youthful optimism".

Ed, a private chef, and Vicky, a pilates instructor, have only been together six months when they set out on their build. And let's face it – there's nothing like a renovation to test a relationship. But this is much bigger than that.

The cowshed is a grim concrete and brick bunker in very bad shape, but it's on a hill with a truly magnificent view of the English countryside that was "wasted on cows".

The land and cowshed cost them just over £225,000 (NZ$465,000), and they have around £200,000 (NZ$410,000) to spend, from the sale of Vicki's London flat. McCloud thinks they are overly optimistic about having it done in seven months.

Ed does remarkably well, but he has a few "cock-ups" as McCloud puts it. He puts ties on his double-skin brickwork too far apart and has to redo them all. And he has to touch up the new concrete floor because it isn't completely flat.

The couple get married during the build, on a beautifully sunny day, with a reception in a barn. At least that all goes smoothly.

We see him putting up a wind turbine on the roof, and the solar panels and batteries are installed. Thick insulation all around the outside of the building, beneath the redwood cladding, should make it really cosy.

The build has the invariable hitches, including the late delivery of the windows. And the damp straw bale walls start to sprout green shoots through the cracked clay rendering. They look terrible.

When McCloud turns up for the first reveal (a year after they started), Ed and Vicky have moved in. The walls had been fixed, but they’ve not had time to work the land.

Then, seven years after the build began, McCloud is back for the revisit. Did the dream of an independent, sustainable lifestyle work out?

Ed and Vicky have two young boys, and a few more farm buildings, and it appears everyone is thriving. The converted cowshed is now an impressive family home.

The open-plan living area is vast, but seems somewhat dark, which is probably not surprising considering the house is a massive 280m² and there are not as many windows as a modern house. It looks old and rustic, which was always the intention. The straw bale walls are white, but still very bumpy.

The kitchen features a very solid concrete benchtop, and a large timber island – there's plenty of space for catering.

With dried flowers hanging from a piece of wood, and handmade cabinetry that looks like it was made from off-cuts, the whole space is quite hippy ‘70s-ish.

But it's welcoming, and Ed and Vicky are happy. It has been less than a year since they gave up their full-time jobs to spend more time with the boys. Vicky still teaches pilates from her new studio at home, but their main income is from their catering business.

They have the gardens, and animals, to provide much of the food for the business. In summer, the kitchen garden (and glasshouse) can feed 50 people at an event each week, which is impressive – there's a huge, long dining table in a new rustic barn Ed built himself.

He also built a small cabin, which is rented out as a holiday let, so that's more income. And we meet Vicky's dad Paul, who now lives in an annex. He has a gorgeous private deck to himself.

Multigenerational living off the land – it's a kind of paradise many people dream of, but seldom achieve. And it makes McCloud say all of us should perhaps consider throwing away the map and taking the road less travelled.

But it's such a lot of damned hard work.