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Short filmTranscript
00:00Aging is quite a process, isn't it?
00:04As we get older, we develop character.
00:07A bit like a building or an object,
00:10which, as it wears its history, develops patina.
00:14Although the thing with wear and tear
00:17is the temptation to rejuvenate and renovate.
00:20Give the old façade a bit of a lift.
00:26Trouble is, the more that we fix and tweak,
00:29the more we risk erasing the thing that we love,
00:32so that in the end we, or it, become...
00:35unrecognisable.
00:38Oh, jeez, who the frick is that?
01:00Bedfordshire, in the east of England,
01:03has a history of arable farming.
01:06Small farmsteads once dotted the land,
01:09but they were mainly swallowed up
01:12as large-scale farming took over in the last century.
01:15Many of them were left redundant, their outbuildings rotting.
01:19And here's one, a 150-year-old grain barn,
01:23which seems ready to keel over.
01:26I was told to bring my hard hat. I can see why.
01:33What a state it's in!
01:36But there's a kind of beauty in this,
01:39because of its sort of lightness and its sort of length.
01:42It's 30 metres long,
01:45an historic document of the Victorian model farm era,
01:49and now soon to become a home.
01:52And yet it's pitch black.
01:55And yet its pitch pine balloon frame is as flimsy as a flower.
02:01This depends on the skin being nailed on
02:05to kind of stop the whole thing from wibbling around.
02:08Take one of these timbers out, it falls over.
02:12Ah, I think you're just creating
02:15a whole fabulous suite of nightmares...
02:21..to enjoy.
02:25Sarah, an HR director, dreams of giving the barn a facelift.
02:30She stables her horse nearby.
02:32So this is Jimmy.
02:34He's an ex-inventor, but he had to retire because he has arthritis.
02:38Like most of the animals in our lives, he's a bit of a kind of rescue case.
02:43He was a sort of waif and stray.
02:45Sarah's passion for vulnerable animals
02:48is shared by her partner Pip, a technology director.
02:51For us, part of the reason for wanting a place in the country
02:54and with a bit of land is so that we can get more animals.
02:57Some donkeys and goats and possibly some sheep.
03:02So, for their future menagerie, they bought the £400,000 barn.
03:08It's another waif and stray, it's another thing that he's looking after.
03:11It will be beautiful, but it is at the moment a three-legged cat.
03:16Hmm, maybe two-legged.
03:18It's deteriorated even more
03:20during the seven months' delay navigating planning issues.
03:27Hello. Hi.
03:29Good to see you both. And you. You too.
03:31Wow. I mean, what a place, I have to say.
03:34Derelict is the word you're after. Yeah.
03:37What on earth made you buy it?
03:39I found this online. I had showed it to Pip.
03:42He said, absolutely not.
03:44Because it's just got ridiculous written all over it.
03:47And I knew that once you saw it, you would see what I saw.
03:50Yeah, and I did. Fell in love with it.
03:53So, what's it going to be?
03:55We're basically taking an old barn
03:57and we're going to make that into a beautiful modern home.
04:00And the planning is such that, you know,
04:02we need to keep the superstructure, so the timber frame will stay.
04:05This is wild. Yeah. And it's very, very big. Yes.
04:09Flattening this knackered barn and starting afresh
04:13would be infinitely easier.
04:15And woe upon woes, it sits on an Iron Age hillfort,
04:19which means it's legally protected as a scheduled ancient monument.
04:23So we're going to attempt to do most of this build with minimal digging.
04:28I like that. It's like no-dig gardening. That's it.
04:32No-dig building. Yeah. Yeah.
04:35An architectural designer has helped draw up plans
04:38to convert three structures.
04:40The pondside stalls, the lean-to stables and the barn,
04:45which they'll tackle first.
04:47The archaeology of the site means they can only dig
04:50to a shallow depth just for drainage.
04:52Then they'll repair the old structure in sections,
04:55removing the cladding and swapping out rotten timbers for new wood.
04:59They hope they can save 80% of the timber skeleton to keep costs down.
05:04By way of a steroid boost,
05:06they'll add a fresh exterior skin of plywood
05:09for sagging and movement,
05:11extra timber splints to the frame for better bone structure
05:14and plump out the walls with thick insulation.
05:17Four big steel portal frames will add heft.
05:20Two will sit on top of the brick columns behind the dividing wall.
05:24A new overhead floor between the steels will then form a mezzanine.
05:29They'll then fix the roof, repairing rafters and purlins
05:33and re-skinning it with a mixture of slates, original and reclaimed.
05:39Because the courtyard floods,
05:41they'll construct a comprehensive drainage system
05:44before dismantling the outbuildings,
05:46which will then rise again as masonry structures with corrugated iron roofs.
05:51It'll all feel both agricultural and sharply modern,
05:54especially once the barn is reclad in fashionable black
05:57and a giant wall of glass inserted on the pond side.
06:03In plan, two accommodation wings will sit outside the main space,
06:08and the big act here will be the grain barn.
06:11Two bedrooms will tuck under the mezzanine end,
06:14while above them the main bedroom suite will overlook the single voluminous space
06:19and the original timber trusses,
06:21complemented by white paint and a polished concrete floor.
06:25It will not be quaint.
06:28A deep-set balcony to the south will face the sun and be lapped by water,
06:33but this pond-side wall needs a complex underwater repair.
06:37It should come with a health warning.
06:41Of all the threats, which keep you awake at night?
06:44Money. Ah.
06:46The original budget that we set last year was about 4.20,
06:50and, of course, prices have gone up,
06:53so every single slate matters.
06:55Every bit of timber matters. Yeah.
06:58They got a mortgage to buy the barn and they'll be using savings to build,
07:02but even if they scrimp, save and salvage, they're going to be short.
07:06I'm going to come in at 700. Oh, OK.
07:09If you wanted to kind of, you know, top-class 1.1 million to do it.
07:14We're going to do it for half that.
07:16So who's looking after the spreadsheets and all that?
07:19That's Sarah, yep, keeper of the spreadsheet.
07:22Brains of the operation. Brains of the operation, yep.
07:24Great. And you're the foreman, so... I'm the foreman.
07:27So you've interviewed for yourself a not-in-charge role here.
07:30Yeah, and I'm totally happy with that role.
07:33LAUGHTER
07:36So, is this building about building conservation or historic monuments
07:41or the conversion of an agricultural building
07:44into a fabulous contemporary space?
07:46Well, of course, it's all these things.
07:48And one other overriding factor which governs them all.
07:53Money.
07:55They just haven't got enough of it, so one thing is guaranteed.
07:59There will be pain on the way through.
08:04At least they and their pets have been lent a comfortable home
08:08near the site by Pip's sister for their 18-month project.
08:11There you go.
08:15And a few weeks later, our novice Pip breaks ground,
08:19taking out the floor beneath the mezzanine himself
08:22to save £750 a day.
08:25It's a brutal and hazardous job...
08:28Jeebus!
08:30..because it's vibrating the gable end.
08:33This wall is all bowed,
08:36and there is, in fact, a piece of blue string,
08:39which is probably the only thing that's stopping that wall from falling out.
08:43And the tension, you can now see...
08:46LAUGHTER
08:48..is quite a lot.
08:50Makes me feel a little nervous.
08:52Given risks like this, it's a relief that a month later,
08:55two expert builders, Remo and Claudio, are hired.
08:59It is the most derelict barn I've worked on.
09:01Probably 40% of it is rotten and it has to be rebuilt again.
09:07Yikes! Pip and Sarah wanted to save most of it,
09:11but then they didn't expect to be rebuilding this old wall
09:14for the next 18 months.
09:16You can move it with your hand.
09:18After two rotten joists were lifted off it...
09:21So it's almost like it's not tied.
09:23..it's almost certainly too wobbly to support a floor above.
09:27We'll be finding a lot of things wrong as we go along,
09:30and then that will have to be an extra.
09:33£13,000 of extra this morning alone.
09:37Claudio and Remo's first day is a festival of destruction.
09:43But they do have a methodology.
09:47You have to know what you're doing.
09:49If the bucket hits the side of the building,
09:52the building could collapse and also all the slates
09:55could come tumbling down on you.
09:57It is quite dangerous.
09:59This all needs hard hats, steel toe caps and steel nerves.
10:04The whole place is shaking.
10:06Keep an eye on it.
10:08It seems eye-wateringly precarious,
10:11but in under an hour the place looks gutted.
10:17OK? Yeah.
10:19The materials will all be salvaged,
10:21but for Sarah it's an unhappy revelation.
10:25Because I'm having to work and Pip's staying on site,
10:28I'm finding out about these things via text message.
10:32It's a bit of a mess.
10:35If only the damage stopped there.
10:38As the floor is dug out for drainage,
10:41Claudio uncovers a problem with the pillars they wanted to reuse
10:45to hold the floor above.
10:47So they call in their structural engineer, David, urgently.
10:52If these can't support the message,
10:54the building will collapse.
10:56It's a bit of a mess.
10:58It's a bit of a mess.
11:00It's a bit of a mess.
11:02If these can't support the mezzanine floor,
11:05an extra steel frame will be needed.
11:07That'll cost a few thousand.
11:09That one there fell down as we were digging.
11:11That one did. Oh, right, OK.
11:13They're all loose anyway. Yeah. And they're all the same.
11:16Well, look at that.
11:18This pier has actually shifted off of its support.
11:21I think we do need to fetch that out.
11:24I don't think you have much choice in it, if I'm being honest.
11:27Of course, that adds extra cost, which we didn't really factor in
11:31or kind of don't have, so that has been a bit of a blow, really.
11:36If it carries on like this, there'll be no barn to renovate.
11:52Barely two months in, Sarah and Pip's dreams
11:55of conserving their decrepit old barn languish, half-crushed.
11:59They'd wanted to keep the mezzanine-supporting wall and brick columns,
12:03but they were too unstable.
12:05I think Pip wants to keep these bricks, doesn't he?
12:08Replacing them will add about £20,000.
12:11Unexpected extras on a tight £420,000 budget.
12:19It's still falling down.
12:23And there's even less of the building there to hold itself up.
12:27Yikes.
12:29I'd hoped their builder, Claudia, would have conserved more.
12:32Forgive me, but this seems to me quite a pretty brutal approach here.
12:35I thought they were going to keep a bit more of the mezzanine,
12:38do you know what I mean, the structure of the posts?
12:40Well, we had to take it down because I just put a shovel behind it
12:43and went like this and the whole lot just come down. Oh, really?
12:46Brick piers, they weren't tied to anything, nothing at all. Wow.
12:49Of course, in the end, safety has to come first. Exactly, yeah.
12:53Speaking of health and safety,
12:55the scaffolding has just gone up at the hairy gable end,
12:58so Pip and Sarah can now examine it.
13:01Oh, my word!
13:03They had planned on saving this.
13:06It's started to collapse a little bit.
13:08Look at that. Yeah. I love it, that little flappy bit there.
13:11That's held on by hope.
13:14So when you first had your surveyor's report from 2017,
13:17what did they say about this end gable?
13:19Essentially, the wall would stay.
13:21So is this another new unforeseen cost?
13:24Yeah. Do you know how much?
13:26It's difficult to say. This is the first time we've seen it up close,
13:29so not until we start taking cladding off will we know what we can keep.
13:33It's all quite a...quite a thing.
13:39To prevent the hemorrhaging of cash,
13:41a week later, Pip and Sarah, with no professional help,
13:44set to dismantling that perilous wall.
13:47Make sure you've got the weight of that end. Yeah, I got it.
13:50I'm clearly worried about our safety.
13:52OK.
13:53Our main concern is that once we take this away,
13:56then the building will rack and, you know, could fall over.
13:59This is pretty scary.
14:01And I am not good with heights.
14:04As you pull it, you're moving the frame underneath you.
14:08God, it's a long way down.
14:10OK, don't look at that.
14:12I'll just have to hang on for a moment.
14:17It's quite nerve-wracking. Have you just gone all a bit funny?
14:20Yeah. OK.
14:22I need a break.
14:26Cos it's giving me the willies.
14:29Not the willies.
14:31What worries me is that they're gambling they can rebuild this
14:34by recycling materials, and that's not working out.
14:37As they expose more pine frame, none of it looks savable.
14:40I would say that is structurally useless.
14:44And when you multiply this cost by the 200 or so pieces that there are,
14:49it adds up really quickly.
14:51It does.
14:53Rebuilding this wall will add nearly £10,000.
15:00Pip and Sarah do at last have some luck.
15:03A hot dry spell follows,
15:05so that phase two, resuscitating the barn walls, can carry on apace.
15:10Brickwork gets repointed and the timber frame repaired,
15:14with any rotten pieces spliced out.
15:17We've saved all those.
15:19They've all been sprayed now with woodworm and rot treatment.
15:24Just six weeks later, the gable end is all new.
15:28It's still early days, but Pip and Sarah have spent £110,000,
15:32which is £40,000 over budget.
15:34And then comes some bombshell news.
15:37The big change for us really is that I'm now basically
15:40the main project manager for it.
15:42And I'm not really a project manager.
15:45It's all because Sarah has a new demanding job,
15:49forcing her to take a back seat as the project speeds up.
15:56A month passes before she can take a day off.
16:00Catching up on progress, she inevitably spots a flaw.
16:04That's the same. That is quite low.
16:07I realised that if we'd followed what was on the current drawings
16:11for the floor level, it actually would have made
16:14the under the mezzanine ceiling a bit too low.
16:18Pip's approach, I think, would be to follow, you know,
16:21to follow what's on the plan, and it has made me realise
16:24I probably do need to be here more.
16:27Do you want to be a project manager in this?
16:29Not with the current lack of information that I have, no.
16:32It feels very pointed.
16:34I think even if I tell you the detail, you don't think about it
16:37because you're not obsessed with it in the way that I am.
16:40I don't make the same decisions that I would make.
16:42I think the way to do it is to have...
16:44We brief each other of an evening, every evening.
16:47If I have the time for that, why don't I just step back
16:50into making more of the decisions in project managing?
16:53Because those decisions need to be made during the day,
16:56and you're not here during the day.
16:59That is the problem.
17:01So we're just going to have a pow-wow every night?
17:04That's where we've got to start, yeah. Yeah, OK.
17:07I don't want to take over fully.
17:09I want to do a perfectly acceptable job of managing this.
17:12It just won't be perfect.
17:16It seems to me that Sarah and Pip risk becoming divided
17:20on this pressure cooker of a project.
17:23It's unsurprising, given every waking hour is spent here.
17:28No, they've literally put that in the woodpile.
17:32OK, that's made me very upset.
17:34I want to keep all the hardware from the building.
17:37They're set on salvaging what they can,
17:40spending weekends cleaning lime mortar off 2,000 old bricks,
17:44each one of which saves £1.50.
17:50Bricks define another 19th-century model farm conversion
17:54in Suffolk that inspired them, Church Hill Barn.
17:59Once in a similarly derelict state, it's been imaginatively revived.
18:07Oh, what else are you going to do with some concrete stools?
18:11Park your bike here instead of parking your horse.
18:14Oh, my word.
18:20This immense cruciform plan building
18:23seems to have kept much of its real self.
18:26The timber roof is the original.
18:29The old relay switches now operate.
18:32Lights!
18:33And yet its architecture is all modern clarity and order.
18:37Its architect, David Nossiter, knows its secrets.
18:41So given it was derelict, given the quality of finish,
18:44which is beautiful, it must have cost quite a lot.
18:48Actually, the budget was very small, about half a million.
18:52Wow.
18:53We had a donor building which was too far dilapidated to be reused.
18:58We were allowed to demolish that.
19:00So no breaks for repairs elsewhere?
19:02Yeah, absolutely.
19:03And also we reused all the beautiful, thick Victorian slates.
19:06I think we probably saved about 100,000 or so, I'm told.
19:10That's great.
19:13But Pip and Sarah have nowhere to plunder.
19:16So in November, as work begins on the roof,
19:19they are intent on rescuing as many slates as possible.
19:23Take these dangerous ones down.
19:27We're really lucky having Cloudy and Remo as builders
19:30because they very much understand the importance of trying to
19:33keep as much of the original fabric of the barn as possible.
19:36Man, they're crap, aren't they? Useless.
19:40Most of it isn't worth saving.
19:43If it was my barn, I would fight to put a new slate up.
19:47It would be easier and quicker and cheaper.
19:51I think we'd estimated there's something like 5,000 slates on the roof,
19:55if we could save half, I think I'd probably be happy.
20:00Sadly, a huge number get junked.
20:03The budget's already £50,000 over,
20:06so Pip and Sarah have begun reluctantly eyeballing their assets.
20:12There's Pip's beloved Lotus.
20:16I've wanted this car for 20-odd years.
20:22My father used to work for Lotus.
20:24He used to design cars.
20:26And my father is not in the best of health anymore,
20:29so it's pretty special.
20:31Selling it would hurt.
20:35But the only other tradable item is Sarah's horse, Jimmy.
20:40That would be a last resort.
20:42That's making me feel a bit sad. Yeah.
20:45My job is to make sure that that doesn't happen.
20:48My job is to make sure that we can afford this
20:51by saving money everywhere we can.
20:54Yeah.
20:59There is so much at stake.
21:02But as Christmas nears, six months into this 18-month project,
21:06Pip and Sarah have to keep spending.
21:09£23,000 goes on the steel frame,
21:12£3,000 of which pays to replace the brick pillars that turned to dust.
21:21And then, in the new year,
21:23£6,500 gets spent on 5,000 reclaimed slates,
21:27twice as many as they expected.
21:29Sarah worked hard to get them for a bargain,
21:32but was away during the laying of the roof, so what does she think?
21:36Er...
21:38It looks a right state.
21:40It doesn't look a right state. It looks absolutely lovely.
21:43We've got too much of a mismatch between the colour,
21:46and it's really just how filthy these tiles are.
21:50Yeah, we should have cleaned them.
21:52But I think it looks fab. I absolutely love it.
21:54I know that you love it, so I don't want to tell you how much I hate it,
21:58but it's really awful.
22:00It'll all weather down, and it will be fine.
22:04Anyway...
22:06I feel bad about that,
22:08because it's really the kind of first ink piece of the building,
22:12and I'm not really happy with it,
22:14and I think that broke his heart a little bit.
22:18I wonder if Sarah will end up unhappy with this home,
22:22a tragedy given their slog, a slog which knows no end.
22:27The stables they're demolishing will become the bedroom block,
22:30but for this they need new foundations,
22:33foundations to be excavated on land protected by historic England.
22:38That's scary.
22:40The next phase is, I think, a little bit tricky,
22:43because obviously we're on a scheduled ancient monument,
22:46and every day of digging it's going to have an archaeologist here,
22:50and the archaeologists are £350 a day.
22:55The first archaeological digging day arrives two weeks later,
22:59and so does the archaeologist, Katie.
23:02It is exciting. It was a lowland univalate hillfort.
23:06There's only around 150 in the country,
23:09and we just don't know a lot about them.
23:11We're hoping something's going to come up
23:13that's going to tell us about the history of this that we're all in.
23:18Her job is to watch every bucket that's dug out.
23:22Any significant finds could cause terrible delays.
23:26It's a big risk. It's a big nervousness for us.
23:31Hang on, just wait a minute.
23:34Nothing gets past the enthusiastic Katie.
23:37A little glass bottle? Oh, yeah.
23:39This is probably 18th, 19th century.
23:42Not anything particularly old.
23:46But then, at 1.30pm, when Pip's off site, the inconceivable happens.
23:50We need to stop completely as well.
23:52There's not the right consent in place.
23:54An inspector from Historic England turns up and stops the dig.
23:58He doesn't want to be filmed.
24:00Hello, Pip. Claudio calls Pip.
24:02Have you got consent to dig these trenches?
24:05Sorry, say again?
24:06I'm just going to pass you on to someone.
24:08Some officer has just come here.
24:10You talk to Pip.
24:12I would imagine he'd be panicking by now.
24:16We've had to notify the local inspector of ancient monuments
24:20that the work's going ahead, so he's worried.
24:23But they haven't actually got the consent to dig,
24:25they've got consent for something else.
24:28Pip and Sarah make it back for crisis talks with the inspector.
24:32We're trying to do all the right things.
24:35I don't think people who are deliberately breaking the law
24:37invite the archaeologists who absorb everything.
24:42It seems they've made a mistake and not got the right consent.
24:46It's very serious, so of course they'll panic.
24:48It is a legal requirement for us to follow the right process.
24:53If we don't, they can fine you up to £10,000.
24:56We obviously don't want that.
24:58What their punishment might be remains to be seen.
25:01One thing's for sure, the dig is shut down.
25:04I think we might as well pack up and go home then.
25:16After digging on their ancient scheduled monument without the right paperwork,
25:20Pip and Sarah are potentially facing enormous fines from Historic England.
25:25So, three weeks later, I approach with trepidation.
25:30Well, there looks to be a new roof.
25:34With old slates.
25:36And new walls built in plywood.
25:39And some excavation work.
25:43Morning.
25:45So, what was the deal with Historic England?
25:47Did they literally walk on to site and shut it down? Yeah.
25:50It was terrifying, actually, yeah. It was pretty upsetting.
25:53Yeah, and it really stuck with you long after, didn't it?
25:56Yeah, quite a lot.
25:57Did they accept that it was a genuine mistake?
25:59Yes, yeah.
26:00I think the fact that we had the archaeologists here
26:02proved the fact that we weren't trying to cover anything up,
26:05so they got sort of the agreement sorted out really super quickly.
26:08Amazing.
26:09Which is why we've been able to crack on with the works.
26:11Annoying, because, of course, it slows you down,
26:13costs more money as a result. Yeah.
26:15The archaeologist piping system that's underneath this,
26:18we reckon this courtyard is about £25,000.
26:21Hmm.
26:23Oh, yeah, right, OK.
26:25That's a lot.
26:28They've sunk £250,000 into this site now, over half their budget,
26:33a great chunk of it on new materials.
26:35Can I ask you, how much of the building is now old?
26:38We've kept as much as we could.
26:40I mean, actually, in the roof, most of the timber is what was here.
26:43And Cardio rebuilt that wall, reusing the bricks.
26:47I can see some older timber ribs,
26:50but these will only survive if they get the fabric of the wall right.
26:54So, how are you doing these walls?
26:56What you've got is the frame and the skin.
26:58On the internals, the insulation is going to go in between the verticals,
27:02so we've got PIR boards.
27:04We're then wrapping the whole of the building in a quilted foil.
27:08What about the brickwork?
27:10At the moment, the timber is sitting on the culled brick.
27:13The culled brick, because it's in touch with the outside world,
27:16becomes the point at which condensation forms.
27:19Yeah. Seeps into the timber.
27:22I love these moments when we realise that we've completely messed up.
27:26I'm just asking you the question.
27:28Is this not Kevin MacLeod consulting? Not at all.
27:31My approach with old buildings is to treat them as purely as possible,
27:35to use breathable insulation, and it's expensive.
27:38And we come to the nub of this project, don't we?
27:41If you were doing a kind of conservation-grade conversion,
27:44that would cost you between £3,000 and £5,000 a square metre.
27:48Yeah, we don't have that.
27:51The mind-frazzling challenges of the barn walls are important.
27:56But their pond wall needs urgent repair.
28:01To save money, they simply went for the contractors with the cheapest quilt.
28:05But at £12,000, it's still double what they expected.
28:11So ten months in, their finances are at breaking point.
28:15We're building at the worst possible time.
28:18Materials are so expensive, labour is so expensive,
28:21borrowing money is ridiculously expensive.
28:24So that's why we have to pick up more of the work.
28:27Does that give you enough money to finish?
28:30So the plan is to do the main barn structure
28:33and then in time do the other two barns which are attached,
28:37so the stable block and the carport.
28:39Yes. OK.
28:43It's a big change.
28:45But not building the outhouses will save them £100,000.
28:50And so focus now turns to the barn alone.
28:55With a labourer, Arik, they start to insulate the outside of the frame.
29:00Well, this looks amazing. Our house is wearing a duvet.
29:03It's very exciting. It's coming on.
29:07So the idea is all this foil reflects back
29:10and then you've got these insulation layers which create air gaps
29:14and then on the outside you have a porous membrane
29:17that lets all the moisture come out.
29:20I think it's controversial,
29:22so I'm sure that lots of traditional building experts will be screaming
29:28because this is not how you would do a proper conservation project.
29:33You know, you would use wool and other natural materials and we're not.
29:39They've gone the cheaper route, of course,
29:42using plastic foams and foils.
29:45But the duvet and padding on this enormous building
29:48still take a whole two months.
29:54Even in September, after sealing the pond end in more plastic,
29:58they're still battling with insulation, working now inside.
30:03Oh, come on.
30:04This polyurethane board was going to cover all of the wood.
30:09It would be such a shame to cover it up.
30:11Where it's, you know, in good condition like this,
30:14we want to keep it as a feature.
30:16It's a bugger to put in, though,
30:18because you've got to cut it around all these diagonals and uprights.
30:21It's a monotonous chore that remains unfinished eight weeks later.
30:26It's now November, 17 months in when they should be nearly finished.
30:32£55,000 worth of glazing for the gable end arrives.
30:36Eight panes up to four metres long will be going in.
30:41This is a massively tricky job.
30:43You've got to get the glass into the little balcony area
30:46and lift the glass using these robots in a very narrow space.
30:56The first pane of glass is being attached to the robot.
31:00It's just perched precariously on a piece of plywood.
31:03It's very exciting.
31:05I'm feeling slightly anxious and like I want to throw up.
31:08Sarah's understandably nervous.
31:10It took ten weeks to make these glazing units.
31:13Losing just one would not be good.
31:15Right, that's locked in. Start turning.
31:18So stressful!
31:20We're doing that all a bit too quickly.
31:26Oh, my God!
31:29They're professionals.
31:31Yeah, yeah, we're good, we're good, we're good.
31:33It's a lumbering...
31:35Try and take the corner.
31:38Oh, God!
31:39Scary installation.
31:44But eventually the barn reaches a pivotal moment.
31:49We are watertight, so the building is actually like a house.
31:57Looks pretty amazing, doesn't it?
31:59Pretty amazing, yeah.
32:02Work can now begin in earnest inside.
32:05And in the new year, underfloor heating is screeded into place.
32:11Pip and Arik then start turning this open barn into a home with partitioned rooms.
32:16We're like the Amish. We're barn-raising.
32:20Arik, however, isn't doing any of this for free.
32:23There's £70,000 over budget and work can only continue
32:27thanks to the sale of Pip's car for £32,000...
32:31Sadly.
32:33..a bank loan and Sarah giving up riding Jimmy and putting him out to pasture,
32:38saving £750 a month.
32:41But it's still all hands on deck.
32:47All the builders in the world will be like,
32:50what is she doing?
32:52Not just builders, Sarah.
32:55Oh, bollocks! No!
32:58The plasterboarding is fiddly,
33:00but they're now on to the final stages of their critical wall construction,
33:04with rockwall.
33:06I think we're making a bit of a dog's dinner.
33:08I think we're making total dog's dinner.
33:10We look like we've no idea what we're doing.
33:12They're using an arrangement of insulation and membranes
33:15to prevent warm, moist air inside the building
33:18from ever reaching the cold brickwork.
33:20It seems more eco-friendly than this stuff,
33:22which is kind of man-made, chemical-based,
33:25and should hopefully keep the bricks nice and warm.
33:28Hopefully we'll get the Kevin seal of approval.
33:35Nearly two years in and ever cash-strapped,
33:38Pip and Sarah have had to make tough choices.
33:41They've bought a wooden floor for starters.
33:43I had in my mind we'd have the concrete floor
33:46and it would look very industrial.
33:48And now my concern is that it's going to end up looking a bit crap.
33:52That's a sobering thought after all their hard work.
33:56Hello. Hello.
33:58Very good to see you, Pip. Good to see you too.
34:00You're fully transformed into builders, yeah?
34:03Well, DIYers.
34:05I mean, just looking around the place,
34:07it just seems like it's really progressed.
34:09I like the transplant of the frame poking through.
34:12That is the frame poking through.
34:14That is the frame poking through!
34:16Wait, wait, hang on.
34:18You've cut each piece of board to fit?
34:20Yeah. My goodness. A labour of love.
34:22Yeah. I know you've had a few difficulties
34:25making sure that you were insulating the bricks here.
34:28What was the solution?
34:30We've used rockwool and wool.
34:34Yeah. Superb.
34:36Well, the walls are finished.
34:39But there are no floors.
34:41No bedroom.
34:43No bathroom.
34:45And the kitchen is still flat-packed.
34:48I've made my fair share of these.
34:51And I have faith these two will fly them up.
34:55But it will be a cheaper kitchen than they'd hoped for.
34:58How many ideas do you think there are that you have compromised?
35:01Er, quite a lot.
35:03I think the biggest one for me is the concrete floor.
35:06100%. Yeah.
35:08I'm a bit worried it might look a bit...twee.
35:11Twee? Yeah.
35:13Because I had in my mind, you know,
35:15this kind of sharp, black, long barn.
35:19And what we've ended up with is a slightly wonky wood floor
35:23and it starts to feel a bit kind of country cottage
35:26as opposed to big, industrial, beautiful space.
35:29I don't know.
35:31Country cottage? Yeah.
35:33Oh.
35:35Oh, Lord.
35:37Could this project be one giant, unsatisfying compromise?
35:46MUSIC SWELLS
35:53A new dawn breaks in Bedfordshire,
35:56hopefully shining blindly on Sarah and Pip's big old barn
36:00that was about to take its last breath two-and-a-half years ago.
36:04I hardly need to say that building is really, really stressful,
36:07and goodness me, Pip and Sarah have been through the mill here.
36:11I mean, she had to retire her beloved horse,
36:14she had to sell his beloved car.
36:17They've given up everything.
36:19And you have to ask, after all this time, are they at peace with it?
36:23Are they? Are they happy?
36:26Thing is, the quality of this project has always sat on a knife edge,
36:30the alarming challenges always at odds with their budget.
36:34So I'm not sure whether I'm going to see a...
36:36Oh!
36:38..a repair job,
36:41a piece of conservation,
36:43or maybe even, I don't know, a new build?
36:47That would be a pity,
36:49because that wasn't really Pip and Sarah's hope.
37:00Wow. Well, that's like a black-framed slice
37:05of 21st-century glamour, that end, eh?
37:08Wow.
37:11I am not disappointed.
37:14Although slick and sharp, this is no new build.
37:18There are hints of history here and there.
37:22If you look down the side of the building,
37:24what you see is this wobbly line of the guttering.
37:28You see the building bellow in and out.
37:35The ridge is also shaped.
37:38And all that speaks of the age of the place.
37:42There's a real meeting of old and new.
37:47It's now five months since my last visit,
37:50and, lo, there is landscaping.
37:53The flowerbeds and the freshly laid shingle pass are unexpected treats,
37:58and that mossy tiled roof looks like a living woven tweed.
38:04All signs that the place's original spirit is not quashed.
38:10Hey.
38:12Hi, Sarah. Hello.
38:15How are you? I'm very well, how are you?
38:17How are you? Hello. Good to see you. I'm all right. Yeah.
38:20You both look very well, very smart. Thank you very much.
38:23As tidy as your building.
38:24What's interesting about the place is,
38:26if you give it a quick glance, you think it's a new build,
38:29but then you see the shapes in the building,
38:31you see the bumps... The wonkiness.
38:33Yeah, and it suddenly speaks of something else, which is much subtler.
38:37I'm just saying I think the result, personally, I think is beautiful.
38:40Thank you. Thank you.
38:41Hey, Sarah, have you made friends with the roof yet?
38:44Oh... Come on. Well, it's growing on me.
38:47I was hoping it was going to be a bit more uniform in colour,
38:51and we've ended up with a real checkerboard,
38:54but I think you were potentially right.
38:58They're all old and, yeah, kind of beautiful in their own way.
39:02Sorry, I can't get over this. I was right?
39:04You were sort of right.
39:06I'll take it.
39:08Hey, how long have you been in?
39:10Since June, so four months. Yeah.
39:12Wow. Luxury. Yeah, we love it.
39:15Excellent. Can we get in? Of course we can. Come on in.
39:20The exterior is cool and black, like a pleated Issey Miyake outfit,
39:26and it doesn't give much away as to what lies within.
39:32Which is so different.
39:34It does look beautiful.
39:36Oh, it's gorgeous.
39:39It is a joyous, light-filled cathedral of space.
39:43My goodness, it's really good.
39:46The building just invites the eye to leap through the sliding doors,
39:51across the deck and out over the pond.
39:55Which is so close that every reflection from it
39:59dances across the interior.
40:02That's one of my most favourite things.
40:05The play of light on a ceiling reflected off water.
40:09And the frame!
40:11The frame is mesmerising.
40:13All plastered and painted in. Yeah.
40:15Well... Don't look too closely.
40:18Yeah, it all looks exquisitely done.
40:20So you were worried it was going to be twee, Sarah?
40:22Yes. Is it? No.
40:25No, I think we've... Nailed it.
40:27We've nailed it. It's twee-free.
40:33There is a satisfying, thrifty and modest lack of fuss here.
40:38Ah.
40:39Albeit the furnishings are at scale with the building.
40:42Oh, heavens. It's actually giant.
40:46I know the carcasses were a budget choice,
40:49but the doors and drawer fronts, the golden handles
40:53and the huge sheets of quartz seem suspiciously all bespoke.
40:57There's some money in here, isn't there?
40:59No. This entire kitchen came in at under 15K.
41:03That's very good. Yeah.
41:05Yeah. This is what happens when you build the carcassing yourself.
41:08Yeah. I imagine if it were me, I'd be cooking here
41:11and turning around to find two dogs on that sofa.
41:13That also happens, yes.
41:15Yeah? What's your pet numbers at the moment?
41:18Only one dog, one cat, two chickens. Yeah.
41:21Yeah. That's in dire need of expansion.
41:24In dire need? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
41:29Apart from plans to extend the zoo, Pip and Sarah intend to work from home,
41:34so at the back of the barn, under the mezzanine, are utility spaces
41:38and, instead of bedrooms, her and his studies.
41:43Above these, there's a really special experience.
41:46Oh, this is good.
41:47A viewing gallery for the building itself.
41:52Oh!
41:54The shadow, the light, come all the way into the building.
41:59This is the long view that they'll enjoy from their bedroom.
42:05Sweet! It's a significant-sized room, isn't it? Yeah.
42:10It's romantic.
42:12And the head height is wonderful,
42:14achieved by replacing two trusses with steel portal frames.
42:18Looking down there, it's a world of wood,
42:20whereas in here, this is, you know, steel.
42:23Oh, I think it really works.
42:25And I think the steels give it that sense of solidity and safety.
42:29It feels sort of cocooning.
42:33That sense of embrace and cosy enclosure
42:36intensifies in the bathroom beyond, an inner cocoon.
42:42It's quite proper, talking about taste.
42:46Between the two of you,
42:47I've sensed this tug in different directions, almost.
42:50And actually, listening to you both talk now,
42:53much more overlap than I have thought before.
42:56I think that's true.
42:57I've sort of taken on a lot of Sarah's kind of focus, you know, detail.
43:02Sarah's also relaxed, slightly, about detail.
43:06So we've sort of got into this nice, sort of happy marriage, really.
43:10Kind of blended and rubbed off on each other. Yeah.
43:14I am so pleased this relationship is once again a happy one,
43:18given that their financial woes were so acute
43:21that despite excluding the unfinished outbuildings,
43:24they soared past their £420,000 budget.
43:29So, how far over are you?
43:32It's going to come in at about 540.
43:34That's kind of a little bit over £2,000 a square metre,
43:37which, for what you've invested in cash terms, it's pretty darn good.
43:41Yeah, well, that's good to hear.
43:43It required a lot of effort.
43:45The times we were here at 11 o'clock at night
43:47or 6 o'clock in the morning and working through the winters
43:50and things like that.
43:51We've not had a normal life for the better part of three years.
43:55And...
43:57And that is hard, hard, hard, hard when you're doing it.
44:00There was one point where we almost looked at each other and went,
44:04you know, that's it, we just don't understand each other,
44:07let's sort of knock it on the head.
44:09Wow. But we didn't, you know.
44:11You sort of pull together and you carry on.
44:14You seem today so much more clearly resolved
44:18and supportive of each other.
44:20What's the returning point?
44:22Yeah.
44:23Weirdly, it was actually when we were doing the landscaping outside
44:27and the sun was kind of coming around on the pond
44:30and I thought, God, this really has been worth it.
44:34Every second of it's been worth this moment.
44:38And now I think we've got a stunning house and, yeah.
44:43I agree. 100% worth it.
44:48It is a delicate synthesis of people and place, past and present,
44:54revived by two distinct personalities.
44:58We build in our own image.
45:01We make the world anew in order to try and make sense of the place,
45:07which is what Pip and Sarah did here, of course.
45:10I mean, sometimes with separate agendas,
45:12they followed different stories,
45:14sometimes together, sometimes antagonistically,
45:17but always with a sense that what they were trying to do here
45:21was to somehow embed themselves
45:24and make sense of this location and this old building.
45:29And what happened as a result was something quite magical, actually,
45:33because this building doesn't just represent a place and a history,
45:39but also them, and not as individuals,
45:44but as an expression, as an embodiment of their relationship.
45:50That is really powerful.
46:02Not so real.
46:04It's going to be a semi-detached that mirrors the original Edwardian house.
46:08Smash it down!
46:10These are my Jimmy Choo sight beads.
46:13It's a very big move for me.
46:15Shit, this is going to cause delay.
46:17We're going to need more money.
46:1915,000. What?
46:21If you make a choice, you've got to live with it.
46:24Has anybody said that you're...? Mad.
46:26You've got to wish her well, haven't you?
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