Grand Designs Wirral House

I'm sometimes recognised by people who don't know where they know me from... and I can usually help them by asking if they are fans of Channel 4's Grand Designs...

Way back in 2015 my husband I embarked on quite a big building project. We had bought an unloved 1960's dormer bungalow a few years previously, and wanted to expand. With a bare-bones budget, we put our plans together for a striking modern design and jumped in. What I didn't know, as we moved out into a rental flat with our young kids, was that he had applied to Grand Designs to see if they would be interested in our project. It turns out, they were...

He dropped this little bombshell while I was packing the last of our stuff into a removal van. His timing was not perfect! This would be a whole new complication in the build project, along with managing the kids and running our retail business. I have always loved the show though, and after I got used to the idea, I was fully on board.

There followed lots of visits by Kevin McCloud and the film crew, who were lovely people - and endlessly interested in the build, in contrast to our family and friends who tended to glaze over after a while...

Looking back, this period taught me quite a lot. I tend to be quite goal-oriented, but I had to try and learn to enjoy the journey, rather than focus solely on the end goal, as we coped with the inevitable changes and hiccups along the way. We had some strong personalities in our team of professionals, and some frank exchanges of views. We also had to keep ourselves motivated and on top of things.... if only I had been fully active and accredited as a coach back then, I could perhaps have helped myself and some others get the most out of the build experience.

Less than a year later, we were 'finished' - or so the show, which aired in November 2016 as 'Grand Designs Wirral House', would have you believe. And its true that externally, the house was complete and the downstairs was looking great... but upstairs was a different story - we had moved back in and were camping on bare boards, with no internal walls and a very basic kitchen and bathroom.

But the house was big, new, warm and secure, and in all honesty, we had a lot of fun living with the kids, then 11 and 9 in what was effectively a massive playroom upstairs.

We continued building the upstairs ourselves over the coming years, until the magical day when we had carpet fitted, and eventually the kids got their own rooms.

In 2023 we started building again - a single-storey garden extension at the rear, which was to be a second reception room and give us better access down to the garden level, approx 5 feet below the inside ground floor. We also finally tackled our garden, which had been 'rewilding' since 2015.

Kevin and the crew returned in 2025 for a 'revisit' show filming, which gave us an excellent deadline to work to.