Grand Designs

- Season 13

(2013)

With two active boys in a house sized for newlyweds the Harry's need a bigger house. But with none available in their home town of Throne they buy a dilapidated 1920's theater to turn into a house. Retaining the facade and other highlights their architect friend intends to build out their home with board marked concrete inside and out.

For a decade Jonathan Broom has dreamed of building his own home in London. Meanwhile he lived with his wife and now two children in a one room apartment they planned to rent for six months. But at last they found an oddly shaped, overgrown, vacant lot and have an ambition plan to develop every inch of it and a little bit more.

A young couple wanted to change a 1960s bungalow into their dream house near York, Yorkshire, but once they move into the bungalow they find it will be cheaper to start a new build. So they sell the bungalow and rent it back to live in while they build a new house on the 2 acre sub divided lot. They have a £400,000 budget and they finish the home in 7 months.

Afghanistan war veteran and triple amputee John White wants to build a new house that better accommodates his physical limitations. But he has no intention of sacrificing style for ergonomics so the ergonomics have to be stylish.

Marta and Colin McKinney plan to build a house on their private airfield so they can live where they practice their vocation/avocation of operating a flying school. They even hope to use their house as a control tower. Aside from money, wind and storms, the biggest architectural challenge is designing a house that looks like a home but also looks at home on an airfield.

Tamay and Nigel Hussey decide to renovate and change a house from a 1960s forester's lodge in the woods to a Japanese design in the Wye Valley in Monmouthshire, Wales. Tamay is from Japan and wishes to integrate some Japanese features into the design.

Ben and Rachel Hammond plan to turn a drab vicarage into a modern house that better compliments the church and surrounding park. But getting the city planners to go along is a bit of a challenge.

Kevin McKay is Britian's leading proponent of the ancient building material; cob. With five cob houses under his belt he now plans a 10,000 square foot cob estate, larger than all the houses he'd built before, combined. And the house will be built with the clay excavated for the basement.

Looking for a change of scenery, Londoners Phil and Mike are smitten with a farm in Newbury. But the old farm house has got to go because they refuse to give up living in a modern house. To pay for it they have to become profitable farmers because, by law, they have to work the farm which means giving up their previous jobs and the associated incomes. Maybe brewing a certain popular British beverage will provide extra income since the tortoise collection certainly won't help.

Kevin re-visits a house in the Andalusian hills, built as a retirement home for Gill and Hilary, a pair of British people. An 8 acre site cost only £35,000 back in the early 2000s. One of the couple is an architect but he passed the job onto his son. The site is really rural and beautiful. It is 9 years later that Kevin re-visits the home, but sadly Gill has since died.

The host revisits Lucie Fairweather who were going to build a modest Scandinavian style house near a 1960s housing estate with her Architect husband Nat McBride. Since the last visit Nat had been very ill and had died, leaving a young wife and 2 very small children. After a delay due to the death, Lucie decided to start the house along with Nat's friend who is also an architect. This is in Woodbridge, Suffolk. The home is a clever, beautiful and practical plan, which should be adopted in profusion.