The House That 100K Built

Kieran Long and Piers Taylor are pushed to their design limits as they attempt to find innovative and inspirational ideas to help Wajid and Anam build a three storey, six-bedroom home in Burnley, Lancashire with just £100k. Anam’s baby is due in just a few short months so it’s no longer realistic for her and husband Wajid, to share a home with 8 members of their family. The pressure is on Naim, Wajid’s older brother to deliver a new home within their budget - but it’s not going to be easy. The house needs to meet a lot of needs: It must accommodate their extended family, but Wajid also is a local councillor, so at times he needs a public space for entertaining important guests – to top it all they want a luxurious finish on a par with a Dubai hotel! Their indecision about the layout is causing family disagreements and costing them money, so Piers and Kieran must act. Piers pushes them to commit to bold architectural solutions that will fit the difficult brief, whilst architectural journalist and senior curator at the V&A Kieran, must scour the nation for low-cost examples of luxury. But, having got Wajid and Anam on board with a fresh vision for their home, it soon becomes clear that they don’t have the final say. Wajid must also convince his Brother but their design ideas are poles apart. As money runs out and the months slip by, will this build pull them all closer together or push them apart?

Building a home had always been a dream of Sholto’s but when his partner Marcus had to have a double organ transplant, the couple reassessed what’s important in life. Their cramped house in the South of England became a thing of the past and they bought a rural patch of land in Scotland, forty miles East of Inverness, with the dream of building their own home. To keep costs low they opted for an off-the-peg design, but finding a kit home that suited their needs was a struggle: “larger houses are built for traditional families. There’s just the two of us, and Bramble the dog”. Converting a budget kit home into one which looks anything but is an enormous design challenge for Piers Taylor and Kieran Long. It’s already an ambitious build but Kieran attempts to push their design horizons further. He takes them to a breath-taking home in the Scottish highlands where a simple set of ideas has led to an inspirational space – but will Marcus and Sholto decide to recreate them in their £100k home? It’s then over to architect Piers Taylor to look for innovative low-cost solutions that will raise their home beyond the ordinary. As the money runs low, Sholto has less than £150 left to build a kitchen island which will be the focus of their main living area. Taking inspiration from some of Britain’s most renowned 20th Century buildings, will his self-poured concrete island become a triumph of design or a puddle on the floor?

Andrew and Claire have ditched their nine-to-five lives and gambled everything on a fledgling free-range egg farm – but having overspent just to get the business going, they are still missing one vital piece of the puzzle, a family home. They’ve managed to borrow £70k against the farm and have plans to build a basic chalet-style bungalow. Kieran is concerned they’ll end up with little more than a larger version of the static caravan they are desperate to move out of! He takes Andrew and Claire to see a modern farmhouse in Suffolk to see how the materials they choose to build their home from and even the colours they choose, can help it feel rooted on the farm. Piers challenges them to bring their own personality into their home, encouraging them to stop building and start designing. He encourages them to do away with predictable finishes and even to mill wood cladding onsite themselves from larch trees, costing just £15 each. Inside he helps them experiment with a low-cost answer to built-in furniture which is a fraction of the cost of bespoke joinery. But they are both much needed savings because as the build progresses Andrew and Claire hit serious financial difficulties. Suddenly they are forced to fund the build from credit cards and personal, will they end up with a home at all?

Jo’Ann and Andy are attempting to not only build a home from scratch for less than £100k, but also one that will never produce a heating or electricity bill! Building a low-cost home with such high eco credentials means something has to give. Bare concrete floors and breeze block walls are all helping the budget, but will their compact home feel more basic bunker than family home? Piers Taylor must broaden their horizons so it takes them to an award-winning eco-home in Nottingham. He tries to prove that sustainability should be pushing their ambition for a beautiful home not limiting it. They discover how using expensive finishes only where you touch them will save money and where to salvage high-quality fixtures and fittings. Back at the house Piers encourages them to take on the lessons, first by designing a lighting scheme with a just sheet of acrylic and a £5 light fitting. But, faced with the daily grind of self-building, it’s easy to lose motivation. Kieran Long challenges them to find ways to bring joy and delight into their home, even visiting a house in London that features a swing in the kitchen! But, as their budget runs low, decisions on where to invest and where to save become harder and harder, will Jo’Ann and Andy take a leap of faith towards creative low-cost design ideas - or will they stick to practical ones?

Heidi grew up in the idyllic breath-taking countryside near Inverness, but she and husband Steven can’t possibly afford a home there. They’ve decided to try and build one, but their strategy is a risky one. Unable to raise enough savings to secure a mortgage for the build, Heidi’s parents have agreed to temporarily re-mortgage their own home to fund the £70K build cost! Heidi and Steven are keen to do as much of the work as possible but it’s a steep learning curve for these novices. Pouring and leveling the concrete floor themselves ends in disaster and puts them weeks behind schedule. As the dream of building their own home steadily becomes a nightmare they need to draw on all of Kieran Long and Piers Taylor’s expertise to create an incredible family home. Kieran takes them to see a property which is full of low-cost ideas that could add some much-needed character into their home, but also reveals hidden storage ideas that could make it more practical. Piers visits a boatyard and a plastics bending factory in his search for dynamic design solutions that could be achieved on their dwindling budget, but when Heidi picks up a seriously dilapidated kitchen for free - can he find a way to make it the centre piece of their family home?

Having spent the last five years living in a caravan, Sue and Tim are setting out to prove they can build a low cost contemporary farmhouse without scrimping on aspiration. Their design is startlingly modern and even includes a living room which seemingly floats in mid air, but their strategy to build it is a rustic no-frills one. Piers Taylor and Kieran Long are concerned that the cheap materials they plan to use, could seriously compromise the success of the building. Kieran Long is perfectly placed to show Sue and Tim the latest in contemporary homes and shocks them with a stunning one in South London where the entire exterior is clad in black glass! The challenge then passes to Piers who must help them achieve the look for less, but will the combination of Sue’s forensic online bargain hunting and Piers’ ideas pull it off at a fraction of the cost? Piers also tackles them on their plans for interior where they appear to be making it up as they go along! Kieran demonstrates key lessons in how to successfully arrange an open plan area using tricks, ranging from simply where to put your sofa, to hidden doors. But as the build forges on a major structural problem emerges which threatens the future of the entire project – will they even be able to complete the home that they had such big dreams for?

Ambitious builds, the tightest of budgets and a desperate need for fresh ideas united the projects that Kieran Long and Piers Taylor followed on ‘The House that £100K Built’. The self-builders created some remarkable houses, but they weren’t yet finished homes. Now, Piers is back to tackle a final set of challenges. With unexpected design dilemmas to solve, all on a shoestring budget, it’s now or never as they battle to complete their homes for good. Sue and Tim continue to push ahead with their hugely ambitious modernist home in Somerset, committed to showing what’s possible on a limited budget. All of their energies now are focused on what should be the stunning centerpiece that transforms their home - an entrance hall staircase - but they only have £2000 to do it. Piers uncovers an idea at one of Britain’s most stunning contemporary interiors, but in order to pull it off, Sue and Tim must follow a series of low-cost lessons to have a chance of achieving this high-end result with their low-end budget? In north-east Scotland, Marcus and Sholto have made some big design changes to their £100k home since we last visited, but also have a fresh problem to solve. The pair fell for the stunning rural landscape and their outstanding challenge now is to create outbuildings fit to stand alongside their glorious home. With inspiration taken from an extraordinary building on the banks of Loch Doine, Piers comes up with a design that incorporates seating and mirrored panels that could enhance any outdoor space, but can Marcus and Sholto pull it off?

Ambitious builds, the tightest of budgets and a desperate need for fresh ideas united the projects that Kieran Long and Piers Taylor followed on ‘The House that £100K Built’. The self-builders created some remarkable houses, but they weren’t yet finished homes. Now, Piers is back to tackle a final set of challenges - it’s now or never as the owners battle to complete their homes for good. Wajid and Anam from Burnley have now completed more of their ambitious house in their own luxurious style – but have hit a problem. They’re struggling to make the largest room, which sits at the heart of their home feel welcoming. But how do you make big rooms feel homely without just putting up walls? Piers searches for an ingenious design solution to solve it. Having drawn a blank with traditional furnishings he delivers a radical idea inspired by a fashionable hotel, but can Wajid and Anam pull of the idea for just £1000? In north-east Scotland, the dream Heidi and Steven had for a home of their own has become a reality, they've settled into their family home with their two young children. The home is perfect but it still sits in a barren piece of wasteland. The seemingly impossible challenge here is to turn a pile of builders’ rubble into a stunning, usable garden that is safe to play in for just £1000!. Piers takes a risk and shows them an extraordinary piece of landscape architecture in Edinburgh which could inspire a breath-taking design, but with such a tight budget can it be done? Recycling building materials and an ingenious way of sourcing a very cheap turf could be the answer…