Grand Designs

Tim Cox and Julia Brock want to build their home on a clifftop in Newhaven.

Kevin travels to Berkshire to see the conversion of an English barn by Denys and Marjorie Randolph.

Started in 1998, this development of ten timber frame houses is based on the Walter Segal method of construction and was led by Jenny and Paul Crouch. They incorporate high levels of Warmcell insulation and benefit from south-facing solar gain. The roofs are of sedum. Episode Revisited on 13 March 2001.

Kevin travels to Amersham to see the conversion of an old water tower into a stylish new home by Deborah Mills and architect Andrew Tate.

Kevin travels to Suffolk to see the build of an environmentally friendly house by former tax inspector Rob Roy. Episode Revisited 15 March 2001.

Kevin travels to Cornwall to see the conversion of an old chapel by Gavin Allen and Jane Fitzsimons.

In Islington, Jeremy Till and Sarah Wigglesworth are building a house of sandbags and straw. Episode Revisited 13 March 2001.

Michael Hird and Lindsay Harwood build a glass and steel home in Doncaster. Episode Revisited 8 November 2001.

Kevin McCloud revisits Jeremy Till and Sarah Wigglesworth in Islington, London. Will they have realised their dream of using straw bales in the construction of their house?

Kevin McCloud revisits a group of people in a Brighton co-operative who are building their own homes and the homes of their neighbours.

Helen and Mark had always dreamed of owning a Georgian house but knew they couldn't afford the genuine article. So they decided to build their own. They bought a large plot of land in Surrey, surrounded by trees, and commissioned an architect who specialised in conservation architecture to design it.

With a plot of land in Sussex overlooking the South Downs, newly-weds Jane and Willem wanted a house that would be atmospheric and open to the countryside. Inspired by memories of America, Jane planned a New England-style gabled house with large windows to make the most of the views.

A derelict woollen mill in a Yorkshire village may not say 'modernist' to everyone. But Chris and Gill - who, fortunately, run their own specialist joinery business - saw it as the perfect opportunity to create a visionary home. They liked the traditional brick of the building and opted to keep the exterior virtually untouched. Inside, they would strip everything out and make a home of fluid spaces, based around an open-plan ground floor, an atrium and a galleried upper floor.

An isolated hilltop in the Brecon Beacons might seem an inhospitable place for a couple's first home. But Adrian and Corinna both grew up in the area, and the ruined farmhouse they chose to restore had been in Adrian's family for generations. The site's lack of mains water and electricity gave them no qualms. True, the track up the hill was often inaccessible in winter. But the landscape was beautiful and they both felt they belonged there

When Rupert and Julie bought a hilltop site in the Berkshire Downs, they were determined to build a house that would make the most of the countryside and stunning views. They turned to architecture firm Roderick James, which specialises in modern design and traditional timber craftsmanship. Together with architect Hugh McGann, they came up with a house of green oak and glass, built in an unusual cruciform (cross) shape. 

In May 1999, 11 people in Bordesley, West Birmingham, set out to build their own homes. Few of them had any professional experience in construction. For the previous two years, the Accord Housing Association had been training them in the skills they would need. Now they were to put them to the test. Angela, who worked for Accord, would be the project co-ordinator. Peter, a builder with 20 years' experience, would be site manager, overseeing the work. The group members; Calvin (who was appointed leader), Paul, Carol, Mr Azad, Petrona, Tab, Gerald, Paul, Yasser, Richard, Bash - had not known each other when they signed up, having been attracted to the project through advertising and word of mouth

Sarah, a maker of modern jewellery, and Coneyl, a freelance photographer, wanted a modern home from which they could both work. But they also wanted a uniquely personal house. So they commissioned architect Mike Tonkin to come up with a radical design for their long, thin site in a north London residential street. 

Sue and Martin took a holistic approach when they converted a pair of Devon barns into a family home. They believed that the house should look like a natural part of the landscape. So they built it using environmentally sustainable techniques and allowed much of its design to evolve during the build. The oldest barn, dating from the 1600s, was built from stone and cob - a straw-and-mud mixture characteristic of Devon - while the newer, 19th-century barn was totally of stone. The older barn would have a thatched roof, the newer barn slates. A south-facing sitting room would overlook a double-height glass atrium, which would become an indoor garden, filled with citrus trees. Four bedrooms and a study would go upstairs.

Kevin McCloud travels back to Doncaster to catch up with self-builders Michael Hird and Lindsay Harwood and their futuristic glass and steel house in a suburb of Doncaster.

Kevin McCloud travels to Suffolk to revisit a couple who dreamed of building a 100% environmentally friendly house. How far have they managed to stick to their green ideals? 

Kevin McCloud revisits an innovative housing scheme in Birmingham. Just over two years ago a group of 11 men and women agreed to build, not just their own, but each other's homes.

Kevin McCloud returns to Wales to visit Adrian and Corrina, who have decided that their first home will be a 300-year-old ruin. The cottage is set in the Brecon Beacons National Park, Corrina and Adrian have a very small budget and an enormous amount of work to do to return the ruin to its former glory but they are eager and seemingly undaunted by the scale of the project. But how will they cope when the elements suddenly turn on them?

Kevin McCloud revisits Sharon and Tony Relph a couple who hoped to restore a dilapidated Georgian house in London to its former glory. Once 200 years of redecoration and refurbishment had been stripped away, the property boasted elegant period features, but the pair still had to overcome daunting interior decay problems.

Kevin McCloud returns for a second visit to The Water Tower. As one of Grand Design's first projects, Andrew Tate and Deborah Mills found a site with a monstrous, dilapidated, 100 foot tall water tower on it. Unusually, they saw it as the perfect spot to build a contemporary family home and convert the old water tower into a seven-storey bedroom wing. Andrew is a commercial architect and so the modern new build went up in just four months, using fast-track methods alongside unconventional building materials. Kevin went back to see Andrew and Deborah three years after they had moved into their contemporary extension, but they had still made no progress on the water tower, and were living with minimal bedroom space.

Kevin McCloud returns to south Devon to revisit Sue Charman and Martin Whitlock whose dream was to create a family home which feels part of the earth, using old English building techniques. They were not starting from scratch, but rebuilding two ancient run-down barns. Environmental concerns were extremely important to them, but did they manage to realise their vision of rebuilding the barns in same meticulous way they were built originally, whilst incorporating energy efficient, 21st century technology?

Kevin McCloud is in Cambridgeshire, where John and Terri Westlake intend to knock down a derelict house and commission commercial architects to build them a new one.

The 1930s derelict water works Chris Jones and Leanne Smith fell in love with was huge and its design had clearly been inspired by Gilbert Scott's Bankside power station, now better known as the Tate Modern. But nothing would deter the couple. 'We looked at it,' said Chris, 'and saw our home.'

For 10 years, Ben Law lived in tents and caravans in a wood in West Sussex. As a woodsman, he needed and wanted to live among the trees, but now he wants a house for some creature comforts. Ben has invited volunteers to help him build a sustainable house by hand, from the materials growing around him.

Philip and Angela Traill set out to convert a 150-year-old barn near Surrey. The barn is grade two listed which means they have to keep the outside intact but are free to do what they please on the inside. They didn't want to do another typical barn conversion, so they decided to build their "house" inside instead. A helical stairway leads to a suspended curved walkway, with master bedroom on one side and the children bedrooms on the other. The kitchen is in an adjacent stable block, which was integrated into the main building. The house is also packed with computer wiring a central stereo system and ambient lighting system consisting of 188 lights. Everywhere you look curves interplay with straight lines. The result is a beautiful mixture of new and old, exquisitely finished in detail.

Tom and Judy Perry wanted more than just a home for themselves and their two children. On a site of outstanding natural beauty in Buckinghamshire, they set out to build an ambitious house – a symphony of angles, glass walls and exposed steel, with a dramatic inverted roof. Tom made himself site manager and main contractor. He had no experience but he liked a challenge – and, after all, how difficult could it be? And it turns out to be very difficult.

After 10 years of living in a small house in east London, John Flood and Eleni Skordaki hankered after modern, open-plan living. They didn't want to move, so they decided to give their Victorian terrace home a radical redesign. The house was situated in a conservation area, so the outside had to remain unchanged. However, inside they decided to rip out everything; walls, ceilings, floors, and start completely a fresh.

Helen Gould and Phil Reddy wanted their home to make the most of spectacular views, but they also wanted it to be ecologically friendly. Their solution was to build an earth-sheltered home, with most of the house built into the hillside.

Merry's family have been Herefordshire builders for generations, so she knew that the county was rich in traditional building crafts. She and Ben Albright decided to combine these with technology for a new house with a genuinely rural feel.

Kevin McCloud catches up with Rupert and Julie Upton. The three-year build on the picturesque slopes of the Berkshire Downs was wracked with hold-ups, set-backs and spiralling costs but the gardens have now been landscaped, and the timber frame has aged in colour from honey to silver as the property settles down into its outstanding rural setting.

Kevin McCloud catches up with Sarah Wigglesworth and Jeremy Till, who constructed their experimental central London house out of straw bales, springs, cloth cladding and sandbags. They laid themselves on the line, both professionally and personally, as their build slowly advanced from one architectural style to the next. Kevin returns to this award-winning house to find out whether it is well and truly finished.

Kevin McCloud revisits a couple who converted a disused electricity substation in Sunderland into a four-bedroom family home, armed with just £50,000 and ideas from a book about Moroccan interiors. Despite a number of setbacks, Anne and Richard Curtis created a living space which, three years later, has had a sumptuous rooftop garden added to it.

Kevin McCloud catches up on retired couple Denys and Marjorie Randolph, who had decided to embark on their final building project, a brand new, green oak, barn-style house.

Louise and Milko Ostendorf wanted to build the home of a lifetime. Milko's job as a well-paid City banker meant they could think big, so Louise set up her own architectural practice and they bought a disused violin factory in the heart of London's Waterloo. The crumbling building was hemmed in on all sides and had no views, but Louise had a vision of a spectacular loft-style home that would combine stunning design with utter luxury.

David and Greta Iredale loved their home, a modernist structure in Surrey that they had built themselves almost 40 years ago. It was filled with things they'd chosen over the years – design classics, mementoes, David's paintings. But that house was falling apart and had to come down. Meanwhile, they had lost their hearts to a German post-and-beam house, designed by architect Peter Huf and available as a customised kit (Huf Haus).

Tom and Judy Perry wanted more than just a home for themselves and their two children. On a site of outstanding natural beauty in Buckinghamshire, they set out to build an ambitious house – a symphony of angles, glass walls and exposed steel, with a dramatic inverted roof. Tom made himself site manager and main contractor. He had no experience but he liked a challenge – and, after all, how difficult could it be?

When Reuben Welch and April Marr came across a ruined 19th-century house amid the tower blocks of Leith, Edinburgh, they saw it as their future home. They had no clear idea of how to restore it, and precious little building experience. Still, they were young and fit (they had met on Reuben's climbing wall) and they liked a challenge. So they bought the crumbling shell and set about transforming it with their own hands.

David and Anjana Devoy's tiny coach house was proving too small for them and their two children. So they decided to build a new house in their own garden, which was big by London standards. But this particular grassy plot came with problems. It was overlooked by huge blocks of flats, and in the middle of it stood a chestnut tree they weren't allowed to cut down. They came up with an inspired solution: they would build a curving house along the borders of their plot. What's more, they would do a lot of the work themselves.

Tom Watkins and Darron Copping wanted to build a house that would be home to them, their art collection and their two large dogs. Darron's passion for surfing meant it would also have to be near a beach. They already shared a timber beach house in a hamlet on the Sussex coast, and when a neighbour's bungalow came up for sale, they decided to buy it, demolish it and build a dazzling white modernist house in its place.

Tony and Jo Moffat, musicians with Scottish Opera, had long dreamed of a home in the countryside. They found a perfect site on the Clyde estuary in Argyll and Bute. Located in a small village on a hillside, it had glorious views as far as the isle of Arran and was less than an hour's drive from Glasgow. Inspired by local oak-framed barns, they gave architect Andy McAvoy an open brief. In return, he gave them a design that fused medieval and modern and promised a beautifully simple interior. However, the construction was anything but simple...

Amid 55 acres of organic farmland in the New Forest, Lizzie Vann and Mike Thrasher set out to build an idiosyncratic home. They wanted a house that would reflect their love of travel and eastern cultures, yet blend into the very English countryside around them. Their first proposal, for a wooden Japanese house, was refused planning permission, but after three years of adapting their ideas with architect David Underhill, they were finally ready to build. Their ingenious design was in three sections: a living wing, a bedroom wing and a romantic tower.

April Marr and Reuben Welch. Kevin McCloud revisits a thrill-seeking couple who bought a derelict 19th-century stone house in Edinburgh with the aim of restoring it to its former glory. He hopes to discover whether their lack of building experience hindered their ambitious project or if their energy and enthusiasm managed to pull them through.

Here we see an extraordinary and inventive project in South London. This house proves that even in the most crowded areas of our cities, there is potential for Grand Designs. When Monty Ravenscroft and Clare Loewe began looking for a house to buy in London they soon realised that the only affordable option was to build one themselves. They snapped up a dirt cheap slither of land in Peckham at an auction only to be told it was too small to put a house on. Undeterred, three years ago, engineering whiz Monty began building an extraordinary experimental bungalow that filled the site to bursting point.

When lawyers Jeremy and Louise Brown walked into Upthorpe Farm in Gloucester, they couldn't believe their eyes. It was like stepping back in time. Apart from a few minor alterations, the Grade II listed 16th-century farmhouse had barely been touched for over 400 years and was completely unmodernised with lots of original features. Now that they've purchased the property their ambitious design plan is to bring the farmhouse into the 21st century, blending the original historic features with modern simplicity and luxury. Kevin watches on intrigued as they tackle the challenge of reconciling the very old and the very contemporary.

John Cadney and Marnie Moon have never had a permanent home. So John, a carpenter, has rolled up his sleeves and decided to build a house for his family with his bare hands. For 16 years, John, Marnie and their children have camped on land owned by Marnie's parents, because they could never afford to buy a house in the area where they live. So now they're building their own place. After much searching for the right kind of house they settled on an environmentally friendly four-bedroom log cabin. The whole thing was imported from Finland as hundreds of pre-cut bits of wood. All John had to do is figure out how this kit house fits together!

Kevin McCloud revisits John Flood and Eleni Skordaki, who completely gutted their Victorian terraced house in Hackney, London, to create an open, light, modern space. He discovers whether the struggle to modernise their home while dealing with an Anglo-German conflict between the builders was worth it.

An update on Louise and Milko Ostendorf, who embarked on a project to convert an old violin factory in London into a luxury home. The work was threatened by a battle with their orchestral neighbours over a jointly owned wall, and Kevin McCloud returns three years later to find out whether their dispute has been settled.

For the last 20 years, Pat Becker has been living in a large Georgian family house overlooking the sea in Devon. Now that her family have flown the nest and the house has grown too big for her, she's decided to build a new home at the bottom of the garden. Shaped like a curvy seashell, the new house has concrete and polystyrene walls, which spiral down from the central staircase. Her architect has promised it will take only six months to build but constructing a round house is never straightforward!

Kevin McCloud returns to West Sussex to see how Ben Law's woodsman's cottage has changed. The house was built on a low budget, using methods dating back to the early medieval period with raw materials from the surrounding countryside. During the past 18 months the upstairs has been completed and the outside has been landscaped. Kevin also discovers how the property has changed Ben's life since the original programme was broadcast.

This is Belfast, one of the great cities of the industrial revolution, and home to Thomas and Dervla O'Hare. They've lived here for 18 years, and although they still love their tiny cottage for its compactness, they're about to build something much, much bigger. They're building a 21st century answer to the Roman villa, with a copper roof, glass and concrete walls and vast amounts of living space all arranged around a central courtyard. In order to cope with the incredibly steep slope the house was divided across three levels. At the base of the building there is a garage and all the utilities. Through the front door a double-width processional staircase leads up to the living and dining areas.

Kevin McCloud meets Julie and Mark Veysey, whose Grand Design is a stunning Miami-style beach house on a beachfront plot overlooking the south Devon coast. Julie and Mark have had several holidays in Miami, and Julie wanted to recreate the outdoor beachfront lifestyle back in England, living in a house full of light and sun, within easy reach of the waves. The house is very much Julie's vision and she is passionate about the design. It is a series of dazzling white interlocking boxes topped with a flat zinc roof.

Andrew and Lowri Davies embark on a project to build an environmentally friendly farmhouse in rural Wales. Encouraged by their architect, they opt for some state-of-the-art experimental building materials; but do their builders know how to use them? As the budget spirals out of control, they find it increasingly difficult to balance the budget with their desire for a sustainable home.

Jim Fairfull considers himself a very lucky guy. He was out fishing with a friend when he came across a beautiful, secluded loch. It's a magical place with stunning views over the nearby hills. He got chatting to the farmer who owned it and discovered the site was for sale. Within a week, he'd done a deal and bought the land. Jim runs a successful wholesale fruit and vegetable company in Glasgow and his wife, Simone, looks after their two girls, aged 11 and eight. Jim and Simone were not intending to self build. But they fell in love with this dramatic location and decided they wanted to live here.

Robert and Jane Ellis decided to convert an isolated hilltop ruin in the Forest of Dean in Herefordshire. Adding modern steel and glass they created a mouthwatering contemporary structure. They decided to keep as much of the old barn as it is. The new additions are clearly modern and new, with a clear line separating old and new. The old barn was very dark with no real windows and since planners ruled that no additional windows can be added, they had to use as much of available light as they could. The result is a surprisingly bright space, filled with lots of steel, stainless struts, glass and the best of modern furniture, where new and old are sitting in a very easy dialog.

Theo and Elaine Leijser hoped to bring a bit of Dutch style to Scotland in the building of their first family home – a colourful, contemporary three storey house, with a striking cedar clad exterior. The couple stumbled across the perfect plot overlooking the beautiful Campsie Fells near Glasgow, bought it and began to plan their dream build.

For six years Bruno and Denise Del Tufo stared at the large concrete water tower at the bottom of their garden trying to figure out what to do with it. It's a very rare object – a square water tower on stilts designed by architect Edwin Lutyens, who built it to supply the manor house nearby. It's not exactly beautiful but Bruno and Denise feel very protective towards it. When they sold their house, they were worried that someone might knock the tower down, so they decided to try and find a way to live in this huge, concrete monster.

Kevin McCloud revisits Denise (Deni) Daniel and Doug Ibbs. The couple, in their mid-50s and from Dorset, bought a 19th-century manor house in Creuse, Limousin – in central France – on a Sunday, having seen it for the first time ever on the previous Tuesday on the Internet and visited it on the Thursday. They don't mind hard work too, which is even better news because the house was a wreck.

Kevin McCloud revisits Nicky and James Dobree. Nicky was raised in France, James in Beirut – both have fond memories of the mountains as children. So it was natural for them to one day look to buy a place amongst France's tallest peaks, the Alps.The journey moving the family, including their two young sons, Fabian and Felix, from South London to a renovated 300-year-old farmhouse in Les Gets was to have its ups and downs. It was never meant to be a permanent move. The original plan was to develop the top two floors of the chalet so the family could spend the summer there, overseeing the completion of the bottom floors. They would then be able to rent our the whole chalet in the winter months. The family were only planning to use their new home for the summer seasons.

Charting the building plans of Peter and Christine Benjamin, who are hoping to construct a small retirement home within a walled garden in the grounds of the Edwardian manor house where they used to live. The proposed property has floor-to-ceiling glass on one side, with a traditional potting shed-style exterior on the other, but Peter's ambition to design as they build causes problems.

Kevin McCloud revisits David and Anjana Devoy's who's tiny coach house was proving too small for them and their two children. So they decided to build a new house in their own garden, which was big by London standards. But this particular grassy plot came with problems. It was overlooked by huge blocks of flats, and in the middle of it stood a chestnut tree they weren't allowed to cut down. They came up with an inspired solution: they would build a curving house along the borders of their plot. What's more, they would do a lot of the work themselves.

Every Englishman's home is his castle, but for Francis Shaw this is quite literally true. He and his wife, Karen, and their two young daughters, bought the ruins of a 14th-century castle in North Yorkshire and took on the remarkable challenge of turning a pile of stones into a beautiful home. Surrounded by rolling green fields, the location is idyllic; however, the castle itself was little more than four crumbling walls.

Eight years ago Alex and Cheryl Reay left London for a new life in the New Forest. They bought a run down medieval thatched cottage and lovingly brought it back to life. Then just before Christmas, with Cheryl pregnant, disaster struck. A fault in the chimney caused a massive fire which destroyed the entire building. Overnight Alex and Cheryl had lost almost £400,000. Whilst most people would have walked away from this, Alex and Cheryl couldn't let go of their dream. Nine months after the fire, they decided to start all over again and rebuild the cottage, bigger and better than before.

Chris Miller and his wife Sze Liu Lai lived in a tiny flat in East London with their two children Alexion and Tayszea. It was very tight for space and as the kids grew they really felt in need of more room. Chris and Sze are both social workers on low incomes and they have very little in the way of savings. They did however own a small narrow boat, which inspired a solution to their 'no money, no space' dilemma. They decided to build a houseboat which would give them more space for a fraction of the price of a home on land. They began with an 86ft steel barge moored in a boatyard on the River Medway...

James and Katrin Gray live in Bournemouth on the south coast. James runs his own book distribution business and Katrin works for an investment bank. They used to live in an apartment on the second floor of a former Victorian hotel. But three years ago, James bought the top floor flat. It was originally built as a solarium for the hotel in the 1920s where holiday-makers could soak up the sun. Now James and Katrin plan to convert it into a modern, luxury penthouse. The first project was to build a large rooftop extension which became the main living area of the new penthouse. This steel frame structure was cleverly knitted between all the obstructions on the roof and leads out onto a fabulous roof top terrace with exclusive views along the coast.

Kevin McCloud returns to rural Wales to visit Andrew and Lowri Davies, who dreamt of replacing their cramped cottage with an environmentally friendly farmhouse built using state-of-the-art eco materials. The couple needed to reduce their mortgage and work to a strict budget - but after an argument with the architect, they found it increasingly difficult to balance the books.

Dean Marks has dreamt of living in a church for as long as he can remember. After searching for the right building for years, he came across St Martin's near Birmingham, a huge 18th-century grade II listed church which looks more like a mausoleum. The church wanted £25,000 for it but Dean knocked them down to £12,500. Now, after fighting for planning permission for four years, Dean and his wife, Hilary, are about to transform this derelict monstrosity into a family home.

When Pilots Andrew Berry and his wife Helen bought their cottage near Guildford in Surrey 7 years ago they always planned to add a small extension. But over the last few years the modest extension has evolved so much that retaining any of the original cottage simply wasn't practical. Now it's being completely demolished to make way for a new five bedroom Art Deco style house.

Here we see an extraordinary and inventive project in South London revisited. This house proves that even in the most crowded areas of our cities, there is potential for Grand Designs. When Monty Ravenscroft and Clare Loewe began looking for a house to buy in London they soon realised that the only affordable option was to build one themselves. They snapped up a dirt cheap slither of land in Peckham at an auction only to be told it was too small to put a house on. Undeterred, three years ago, engineering whiz Monty began building an extraordinary experimental bungalow that filled the site to bursting point.

Musicians Tony and Jo Moffat began building a home on the west coast of Scotland, investing in an architect who developed an experimental design emulating a Norwegian longhouse, using a medieval-style oak frame. However, the project soon hit problems, with rocketing costs leaving them struggling to continue. Three years on, Kevin McCloud revisits the couple to see how their creation has progressed.

Kelly and Masoko Neville set about building not just a spectacular oak frame and straw bale house, but a whole new way of life in the Cambridgeshire Fens. Kelly is a carpenter by trade and has always dreamed of building an eco friendly home with his own hands. This highly sustainable house, sitting in harmony with nature and its surroundings, will become the base for Kelly and Masoko's new self-sufficient life where they will produce their own food and energy from the land.

Kevin McCloud meets a couple who bought a ruin and moved to Italy in 1999, hoping to start work building their dream home in Tuscany. Since then they've spent all their time trying to get planning permission, but finally, after four years, they are about to start work. And it's an epic project: they have bought a derelict 1,000-year-old castle in the Tuscan hills. Now, the couple face their biggest battle of all: rebuilding this massive ruin into a comfortable and luxurious five-bedroom home.

Bill and Sarah Bradley are a couple whose dream of living mortgage-free rests on building not one, but two timber framed houses in south London. Building on the site of Bill's old wood workshop, the couple plan to sandwich the houses in between two existing rows, leaving them overlooking, and overlooked, by over twenty neighbours. To get around these difficulties Bill and Sarah's houses will use oblique windows, skylights and double height glazed courtyards to create two beautiful but private homes. But before long the budget is soaring and Bill's desire to go more luxurious and high spec leaves their dream of debt free living looking ever more remote.

A couple, Zoe and Tim Bawtree, who live in a Regency house in Cheltenham that is expensive to run decide to sell up and build a modern low maintenance house in their back garden. However, height restrictions mean they have to build 60 per cent of their new home underground and neighbours make 90 complaints about their planning application. Undeterred, the pair continue as planned, but the project encounters further problems including the departure of the builders.

Kevin McCloud meets a commercial surveyor, Henry Chopping, with an £800,000 budget who is planning to build an unusual home in Oxford. His chosen plot is situated behind a listed wall and strict planning conditions mean the house has to be only one storey high. With the help of an architect, the owner comes up with a design that makes the most of the land and available light, but his perfectionist nature causes the project to run behind schedule.

An architect, Martin Pease (and Katherine) plans an unusual home for his family where everything is white and open plan. He calls upon his experience of designing commercial buildings to build the house and uses materials and systems more commonly used in office projects. The biggest risk is that his house may look more like a car showroom than a comfortable retreat.

A couple, Jo and Shaun Bennett, with a love of gothic architecture and horror movies plan to use their budget of £250,000 to build an Addams Family-style house, complete with a stained glass window, a stone fireplace and an oak staircase featuring gargoyles. However, completing the five-bedroom house on limited funds proves difficult.

A couple, Pru and Richard Irvine, decide to build a family home on an industrial site in the Midlothian countryside complete with lime kilns, but are only allowed to do so if they become custodians of the kilns and their house blends in with the landscape. This proves challenging for the pair as they want to build a modern property that could be seen as a blot on the landscape to the locals. The task is made all the more demanding when they underestimate the long hours needed to be a project manager.

Rather than go down the traditional building route, Tiffany and Jonny Wood opted for a German pre-fabricated kit house with great green credentials. Before they could even think about building their house they had to prepare their site: a fiercely steep hillside. Tiffany and Jonny embarked on the biggest ground works project Grand Designs has ever seen, costing around £300,000. And, just when they were about to complete these mammoth works, the weather turned bad and disaster struck. Their neighbour's wall collapsed in a storm. The resulting damage could have cost them nearly £100,000. Determined to carry on, even through 80 tonnes of extra mud, Tiffany and Jonny persevered, and a year into their project, were finally able to go to Germany to choose their house. Every fixture and fitting had to be decided and, once made, no changes were allowed. Now, with the promise of the house taking only five days to go up on site, and with no possibility of landslides, hopefully their build will now run smoothly...

Kevin McCloud revisits artists David Westby and Leonie Whitton three years after they bought an olive farm in the Puglia region of Italy and planned to convert it into a home on a budget of £25,000. The project proved difficult due to their lack of experience and problems with Italian planning laws. When the presenter last visited they had built a guest house but their own residence was untouched.

Five years ago, John and Terri Westlake built a timber box that even they weren't sure about on the edge of a forest in the middle of open countryside. Now Kevin's back to see whether they've warmed to the design, and what life is like living the modernist dream in splendid rural isolation.

Checking on the progress of a couple, Greta and David Iredale, with a building background who replaced the timber house they designed themselves more than 40 years ago with a Huf Haus that was constructed by an efficient German construction team in just six days. Kevin McCloud finds out how successful the pair were in personalising the inside of the property.

Kevin McCloud returns to a Surrey village, where brain tumour sufferer Philip Traill and his wife Angela created a high-spec contemporary house in the shell of a barn. The design involved two bedroom pods connected by a walkway, leaving an open-plan living space between. Five years on, the presenter discovers whether the couple have managed to turn the building into a relaxing family home.

Kevin McCloud revisits Helen Gould and Phil Reddy five years after they built an earth-sheltered home in Cumbria. The presenter finds out if the house has survived without leakage and whether it has delivered the eco-friendly life the couple desired.

In Maidstone, Jean and Bill Letley, a septuagenarian couple plan a highly contemporary bungalow complete with underfloor heating and prototype steel foundations. The project would test even the most accomplished workmen, but is left to their daughter and son-in-law, who have little building experience and have to make personal sacrifices.

Ian and Sophie Cooper met at university and have since spent their time together enjoying life in London. Ian works as a marketing consultant in telecoms and Sophie is a sales manager for a fashion firm. Both are passionate about design. They've done the usual thing of renovating flats and moving on... but three years ago they realised they wanted a different kind of life in a different kind of building.

Inspired by an illustration on a yoghurt pot, Chris Ostwald decides to build a New England-style water mill in the Chilterns, on a hill and nowhere near any water. Londoner Chris bought the plot 20 years ago and it has always been his dream to build a retreat for himself and his family.

Sarah and Dean Berry grew up on a council estate in Newport. Having moved away to London and made good, they have now returned home 17 years later and bought an 18th-century folly – a castle perched on a hilltop. They not only plan to restore the folly to its former glory, but wrap a large modern extension around the original structure, with lots of glass to capitalise on the amazing views.

Young architect Richard Hawkes and his wife Sophie have decided to move out of London to live the good life in the Kent countryside. They buy a plot of land on which they plan to grow their own food, and lead as sustainable a life as possible. For Richard it's an opportunity to experiment and build the house of his dreams; one that embraces cutting-edge green technologies and is capable of providing almost all its own energy.

Daren Howarth and partner Adi Nortje live in Brighton, and are champions of sustainable living. They want to build an earth-sheltered home from recycled materials, based on ideas pioneered in the 1970s in New Mexico. But land prices and planning laws have forced them out of England, across the Channel to Brittany, in France.

Kevin McCloud meets dairy farmer Andrew Ainslie and his artist wife Meryl, who runs a gallery on their farm in Wiltshire. But their farmhouse has been separated from their land by the expanding village, and Andrew and Meryl want to build a new house at the heart of their farm, so they can keep an eye on their herd of 200 cattle.

Mimi D'Costa and her husband Andre have moved to the Kent countryside to bring up their two boys. They have bought a large plot of land and want to build a home on it that is functional enough to serve their young family, but that will also blend beautifully into the landscape.

Kevin returns to visit Kelly and Masoko Neville who set about building not just a spectacular oak frame and straw bale house, but a whole new way of life in the Cambridgeshire Fens. Kelly is a carpenter by trade and has always dreamed of building an eco friendly home with his own hands. This highly sustainable house, sitting in harmony with nature and its surroundings, will become the base for Kelly and Masoko's new self-sufficient life where they will produce their own food and energy from the land.

In 2005, Kelly and Masoko Neville set about building a spectacular oak framed and straw baled hexagonal house in the Cambridgeshire Fens. Kelly, a carpenter, had always dreamed of building an eco-friendly home that could provide a base for a new self-sufficient life where he and Masoko could produce their own food and energy from the land. Kevin returns to see their progress from series 7.

Barry Surtees, a self-made property developer, his wife Julie and their teenage children live in a large comfortable house in Brighton's most moneyed suburb. Barry decides to build a four storey modern mansion, complete with pool, gym, artist's studio, fantasy bedroom and Japanese roof garden.

Kevin McCloud revisits Alex and Cheryl Reay, who eight years previous had left London for a new life in the New Forest. They bought a run down medieval thatched cottage and lovingly brought it back to life. Then just before Christmas, with Cheryl pregnant, disaster struck. A fault in the chimney caused a massive fire which destroyed the entire building. Overnight Alex and Cheryl had lost almost £400,000. Whilst most people would have walked away from this, Alex and Cheryl couldn't let go of their dream. Nine months after the fire, they decided to start all over again and rebuild the cottage, bigger and better than before.

In 2005, businessman Jim Fairfull and his wife Simone set out to build a glass pavilion by a loch in Scotland. Jim was suffering from a stress-related disease and hoped that living in a tranquil setting might cure him of his condition. But there is nothing calm about the process of building; and with such a beautiful location, it was a challenge to find a design that would do it justice and appease local planners. Kevin catches up with the couple to see how their build was getting on.

For 10 years, woodsman Ben Law fought for planning permission to build himself a house in the heart of the woods where he worked. But there was a condition attached: he could never sell the house; only pass it on to his successor. Ben wanted his home to be totally self-sufficient with no mains services, and decided to build it using only materials from the woods, using techniques pretty similar to those used a thousand years ago. Kevin catches up with Ben to see how he and his house are doing.

Lincoln Miles and his wife Lisa Traxler modernise a stone-clad bungalow on the Isle of Wight.

Helen and Chris Seymour Smith get planning permission to build a house in open countryside.

In Woodbridge, Lucie Fairweather and Nat McBride plan a responsible, low impact, ecologically sensitive home for their young family. Nat tragically succumbs to cancer early in the build, leaving Lucie to continue on her own with a downsized version of the original design.

Kevin follows Simon and Jill Bennett's conversion of two timber framed barns. However, one has turned out to be a medieval guild hall.

Lindsay and Jonathan Belsey hopes to build a house that aesthetically pleasing, cheap to run and ecologically sound.

Following Kathryn Tyler as she designs and builds her Scandinavian-inspired eco house in Falmouth.

Alan Dawson attempts to build house like a giant Meccano set, in that he will make the pieces in a workshop and then assemble it all on site.

Robert and Milla Gaukroger plan to extend an old 1980s house overlooking Windermere.

Kevin returns to see how Daren Howarth and Adi Nortje's project has fared four years after they decided to build an earth-sheltered home in Brittany.

Kevin returns to see whether Bill Bradley has completed the work on his two timber houses in south London.Bill and Sarah Bradley are a couple whose dream of living mortgage-free rests on building not one, but two timber framed houses in south London. Building on the site of Bill's old wood workshop, the couple plan to sandwich the houses in between two existing rows, leaving them overlooking, and overlooked, by over twenty neighbours. To get around these difficulties Bill and Sarah's houses will use oblique windows, skylights and double height glazed courtyards to create two beautiful but private homes. But before long the budget is soaring and Bill's desire to go more luxurious and high spec leaves their dream of debt free living looking ever more remote.

Six years after his first visit, Kevin returns to see how the O'Hare's fared with their split-level home cascading down a practically vertical hillside in Belfast.This is Belfast, one of the great cities of the industrial revolution, and home to Thomas and Dervla O'Hare. They've lived here for 18 years, and although they still love their tiny cottage for its compactness, they're about to build something much, much bigger. They're building a 21st century answer to the Roman villa, with a copper roof, glass and concrete walls and vast amounts of living space all arranged around a central courtyard. In order to cope with the incredibly steep slope the house was divided across three levels. At the base of the building there is a garage and all the utilities. Through the front door a double-width processional staircase leads up to the living and dining areas.

Kevin McCloud returns to see the Sampson family in France.Mark and Deborah (Debbie) Sampson and daughter, Tilley, like to practice an ecologically sound way of life. Together, the family's over-riding desire is to make a statement about who they are and how they choose to live their life, and to be accepted for the way they are by the local people.

Over ten years ago, as one of Grand Design's first projects, Andrew Tate and Deborah Mills found a site with a monstrous, dilapidated, 100 foot tall water tower on it. Unusually, they saw it as the perfect spot to build a contemporary family home and convert the old water tower into a seven-storey bedroom wing. Andrew is a commercial architect and so the modern new build went up in just four months, using fast-track methods alongside unconventional building materials. However, things were not so easy when it came to the three feet thick water tower: a doorway they expected to be made in two days, took two weeks. Kevin went back to see Andrew and Deborah three years after they had moved into their contemporary extension, but they had still made no progress on the water tower, and were living with minimal bedroom space. Now Kevin returns again to see if the water tower conversion has finally happened, and if their dream home has worked out just as they envisaged all that time ago.

Kevin returns to see how Pru and Richard Irvine fared one-and-a-half years after they began building their bespoke home in the Midlothian countryside.A couple, Pru and Richard Irvine, decide to build a family home on an industrial site in the Midlothian countryside complete with lime kilns, but are only allowed to do so if they become custodians of the kilns and their house blends in with the landscape. This proves challenging for the pair as they want to build a modern property that could be seen as a blot on the landscape to the locals. The task is made all the more demanding when they underestimate the long hours needed to be a project manager.

Kevin McCloud looks at the transformation of a derelict mill cottage in Northumberland into a contemporary family home, the longest-running project ever featured on the programme. Stefan Lepkowski and Annia Shabowska began work in 2006, and their ambitious plans involved restoring the Georgian building, reconstructing a watermill and adding a steel-and-glass atrium, but their budget of £250,000 was completely inadequate.

Kevin McCloud meets Paul and Penny Denby, who are demolishing their mock-Georgian home on an exclusive south London estate to replace it with a contemporary mansion. The couple have no building experience and they struggle with many design decisions, finding themselves £250,000 short of the amount needed to finish the property.

Kevin McCloud meets Tim and Philomena O'Donovan, who are trying to convert a lifeboat station in Tenby, Pembrokeshire, into a contemporary home and preserve the historic building for posterity. A weather-worn, rusting and rotting hulk that was never designed for habitation, it is perched on a steel pier 40ft above the sea and can only be reached by crossing the sandy beach at low tide.

Kevin McCloud follows the conversion of a large, Grade II-listed timber-framed barn in Essex into a family home and work-space by artists Freddie Robbins and Ben Coode-Adams. Their plans involve few interior walls to display their collection of toys, but at seven times the size of an average three-bedroom house, the transformation of the 500-year-old building proves extremely challenging.

Kevin McCloud meets estate manager Ed Waghorn and his wife Rowena, a couple living an almost self-sufficient life with their four children on a smallholding in Herefordshire. They have been constructing a timber-framed house using recycled materials, wood from nearby forests and stone from around the site, but as construction becomes a way of life for Ed they seem to have lost sight of their goal.

Stonemason Adam Purchase and his partner Nicola Brennan try to restore a dilapidated Grade II-listed engine house in Cornwall, which was formerly part of a silver mine. With a budget of £100,000, Adam takes a year off work to transform the property into a new home, but has to rely on favours to complete the project before he runs out of time.

Kevin McCloud meets Claire Farrow and Ian Hogarth, who are trying to construct a home containing a sauna, spa, dance floor and DJ booth on a small patch of land in London. They have applied for planning permission to include a basement and started work on the construction, but setbacks including their digger smashing into a neighbour's wall and the re-emergence of the old river under the project threaten to prevent them completing the build.

Kevin McCloud revisits Robert and Milla Gaukroger, who were in danger of their bank foreclosing on their unfinished timber house with views of Lake Windermere when he last saw them. They had begun construction with only a quarter of the £400,000 budget needed, and the physical effort of turning the 1980s property into an eco-home that mirrored the surrounding mountains had begun to put Robert's health at risk.

Kevin McCloud revisits an arch-shaped home made of clay tiles in the Weald of Kent, built by Richard Hawkes, who designed the property, and his wife Sophie. It was intended to be self-sufficient in energy and supply some to the national grid but serious problems occurred when the arch collapsed during construction, so the presenter returns to see if their innovative home has lived up to its promise.

Kevin McCloud revisits Denise and Bruno Del Tufo, who hoped to transform a concrete water tower designed by Edwin Lutyens into a contemporary home. Kevin was originally far from enthusiastic about their project, believing the original building to be ugly and brutal in its design – but the couple soon had other problems to worry about, as rising steel prices forced them to make drastic changes to their budget.

Kevin McCloud revisits Alan and Judith Dawson in west Cumbria, where they began constructing a prefabricated home in 2009. They employed a method of building that should have allowed them to assemble the home in just 15 days on a budget of £300,000, and the presenter returns to find out whether they were successful.

Kevin McCloud revisits a couple who took on the task of constructing a sustainable two-storey timber house heated by glass panels in the Kent countryside. Mimi da Costa managed the project despite a lack of experience, while her husband worked, and intended to have it completed in 16 weeks. But as the complex build threatened to drag on for months it became unclear whether their home would succeed in blending into the landscape and providing them with a greener, healthier lifestyle.

Kevin McCloud meets more people trying to build dream homes, beginning with Sean Simons, who bought the ruins of Cloontykilla Castle in the Irish county of Roscommon with a view to using them to create a spectacular mock-16th-century home. However, the outlandish plans - including jacuzzis in the battlements and water-spouting gargoyles - have Kevin worried the project could become a garish nightmare, and his scepticism increases when he realises Sean has not consulted an architect. Disaster seems to be looming as the contractors get frustrated and planning regulations are ignored, but somehow things begin to slowly take shape - until a national economic crisis plunges everything into chaos.

Kevin McCloud meets a pair of civil-partnered university professors who have decided to build their first home from scratch. In addition to all the complications this usually entails, Celia Brackenridge and Diana Woodward have also enlisted the services of industrial designers who have developed a new computer-assisted method for cutting precision-engineered building blocks from scratch. However, though the technique may be clever, its creators have never created a building before - meaning everyone involved with the project is taking a giant leap into the unknown.

Mary Martin and Carl Turner want to build a home that resembles a giant stack of glass cubes in Brixton, south London. The couple are hoping the structure will become an instant landmark, while on the inside they are planning a Zen retreat. But to succeed, their finances must be pushed to their limit, so Carl takes on as many of the specialist jobs as he can to save money. Kevin McCloud follows their progress.

Kevin McCloud follows Lysette and Nigel Offley, who are knocking down an old Thames boathouse and constructing a cutting-edge home in its place. Taking inspiration from the river itself, they have designed a building of waves and curves with a huge glass porthole for a roof light. But problems begin almost from the start, as they can't find a contractor willing to build over the water, their architect leaves unexpectedly and the costs turn out much higher than expected. To make matters worse, the neighbours aren't happy about such a radical sight in their traditional community. As they begin to compromise, Kevin wonders if the couple's dreams will ever be realised.

Kevin McCloud marks the 100th episode with one of the programme's most ambitious projects to date. Leigh Osborne and Graham Voce want to convert and extend a landmark 150-year-old water tower in central London into a luxury home. Grade II listed, derelict and with 6ft-thick walls, it's a huge challenge for the pair, who also plan to build two structures at the base - a lift shaft connected by a series of glass tunnels, and a modern living space. The result will be a four-bedroom property over nine floors, complete with a room at the top offering spectacular 360 degree views across the capital. The tower, which is located directly above London Underground's Northern line, was originally built for Lambeth Workhouse in 1877 and became a Grade II listed building in 2008.

Kevin McCloud meets Audrey and Jeff, who dream of living in one of west London's most exclusive areas. However, the only way they can afford it is to go underground. Their plan is to transform a listed Edwardian artist's studio - along with 5,000 sq ft of derelict basement - into a bespoke subterranean home, complete with supersize kitchen, mezzanine sitting room, four en-suite bedrooms, a gym, cinema, steam room and wine cellar. As if the task weren't tricky enough, they are doing it without proper architect's drawings and Audrey is project managing - and the difficulties begin almost from the start.

Kevin McCloud meets artists Indi and Rebecca, who are planning to build a modern, larch-clad home on the Isle of Skye, with a second hand-crafted building alongside to use as their studio, all on a tight budget of £150,000. They have been saving for years, but making it happen will mean taking on the savage weather, not to mention the sceptical locals - and as if that weren't enough, most of the work is being done by one man, local builder Donald.

Architect Henning Stummel and his partner Alice Dawson plan to convert a dilapidated joinery workshop in north London into a contemporary family home and office. They want to preserve the building's original steel frame, but to restore it they will have to take it down, which means carefully extracting it from the neighbours' walls without causing damage to their property - and that's just the start of the couple's problems. Kevin McCloud follows their progress.

Two years ago, architectural designer Lincoln Miles and his wife, artist Lisa Traxler, found an uninspiring 1970s bungalow on a plot on the Isle of Wight surrounded by ancient woodland. As part of their renovation project, they added a three-storey "tower" extension and used a range of unconventional techniques and alternative materials. Kevin McCloud returns to find out whether the couple's methods led to success.

In 2010, Claire Farrow and Ian Hogarth built a home containing a sauna, spa, dance floor and DJ booth on a small patch of land in London. It was a notorious project, with several setbacks - including their digger smashing into a neighbour's wall and the re-emergence of the old river under the building, which threatened to prevent them completing the project. Kevin McCloud revisits the couple to see how they are getting on two years later.

Kevin revisits artists Freddie Robbins and Ben Coode-Adams who converted a large, Grade II-listed timber-framed barn in Essex into a family home and work-space. Their plans involve few interior walls to display their collection of toys, but at seven times the size of an average three-bedroom house, the transformation of the 500-year-old building proves extremely challenging.

Kevin revisits the co-op. Started in 1998, this development of ten timber frame houses is based on the Walter Segal method of construction and was led by Jenny and Paul Crouch. They incorporate high levels of Warmcell insulation and benefit from south-facing solar gain. The roofs are of sedum. Episode Revisited on 13 March 2001.

Kevin McCloud follows a project to renovate and extend a classic 1920s cinema in Thorne, South Yorkshire. With little knowledge of restoration, Gwyn and Kate boldly set about turning the dilapidated building into a family home using masses of concrete after taking advice from an architect friend. The couple are hoping to create a hydraulic glass wall that opens up one side of the house to form a UV-filtered canopy, and there are also plans for a white roof extension that resembles a diving board.

Jonathan Broom, one of the founders of Ecoigo, and his wife Deborah have put everything on hold while he pursues his dream of building a miniature Hollywood Hills-style mansion. They stumble across a scrap of land in north London, but it's fraught with problems and the only way they can complete the £1million home is by sinking half of it six metres below ground. Surrounded on all sides by their neighbours' back gardens, the couple have to dismantle walls and fences and promise to put them back together again, and that's just the start of their difficulties. Kevin McCloud follows their progress.

Commercial architect Martin Walker and his art-director wife Kae want to build the ultimate family home near York, inspired by a giant farm shed. However, her idea for a warm and cosy design conflicts dramatically with his penchant for building large square warehouses, and finding something they both agree on proves extremely challenging on their tight budget. Kevin McCloud follows the couple's progress.

Marine captain Jon's life changed for ever when he stepped onto a land mine in Afghanistan and lost three limbs. After viewing many uninspired specialist homes and considering awkward conversions, he and partner Becky realised their best option was to build a property themselves. The design is cutting-edge, with sleek glass walls, open-plan spaces and a dramatic wing-like roof, and the couple want there to be no noticeable adaptations. However, they soon use up their budget of £250,000 and encounter problems with their incredibly tight schedule. Kevin McCloud follows their progress.

Colin Mackinnon and his partner Marta Briongos take on an ambitious project to build a bespoke metal home next to an airfield runway, designed by one of Scotland's most eminent architects and inspired by aircraft hangars. They have to contend with violent rain, snow, 100mph winds and the worst storms for 100 years, and the couple have to draw on their reserves of mental energy as what was supposed to be a 12-month build heads into a third year.

Kevin McCloud meets Tamayo Hussey, who has missed Japan ever since she moved to the UK 14 years ago with her husband, quantum physics professor Nigel. The couple want to transform a 1960s forester's lodge into a unique Japanese house, complete with a tatami room - decorated in her homeland's traditional style - sliding paper walls and a bath on the roof. Keen to keep costs down, they have decided to engage only the design skills - rather than the full services - of an architect, so with no previous building experience they tackle the project alone.

Ben and Rachel Hammond have spent a year searching London for somewhere exciting to live with their two daughters, and they have finally stumbled on a 1950s home on a unique plot, situated within the leafy depths of a park in the south of the city. The only problem is the house itself - an ugly, inefficient and uninspiring property - and their solution is to radically redesign it into a sleek, modernist masterpiece. But this is no easy task, as Kevin McCloud finds out.

Kevin meets Kevin McCabe who wants to build what may be the largest Cob structure in the world. With 6 metre-tall walls, McCabe fights a battle with the weather and his implausibly small £350,000 budget. He plans to form the huge property out of two vast curved roundhouses - the largest of which is inspired by the natural geometry of a snail shell - connected by glazing and topped with wildflower meadow roofs to mirror the surrounding countryside. However, the project involves mixing and laying a mind-boggling 2,000 tons of cob, all during warm, sunny weather - and the sheer scale of the task soon becomes clear.

Michael Butcher and Phil Palmer fell in love with Christmas Farm, near Newbury, and decided to give up their urban media jobs and move to the country. Michael and Phil want to bring a touch of urban glamour to their new home at Christmas Farm by creating a modern farmhouse that combines an open-plan party pad with functional spaces below. As the builders set to work on the handcrafted flint exterior, complete with a vast trapezoid window, the pair juggle construction with farming the land, and in an attempt to make the project work financially, they set up a microbrewery in the barn.

Around ten years ago Gil and Hillary Briffa retired to southern Spain. Instead of creating a home like the traditional old fincas in the area, their architect son designed them a confrontational, modernist glass box, surrounded by boldly colourful connected rooms, behind a giant citadel wall. A few years ago, Gil died, but now Kevin McCloud revisits Hillary to find out whether her home has settled into its landscape and how life is treating her as a British widow living abroad.

Six years ago Lucie Fairweather and Nat McBride began to build an affordable eco home in Woodbridge for themselves and their two young children. However, their journey was to be about more than bricks and mortar. Just before they got started, Nat discovered he had cancer, and after just a few months he died. Lucie decided to carry on with the project Nat had devised. Kevin McCloud returns to find out just how life has moved on for Lucie and to discover whether her wonderful and striking house has become part of the landscape.

Rob Hodgson and Kay Ralph plan to build a sleek glass-fronted house on a crumbling clifftop in Gwynedd, taking inspiration from the villas of California. However, access will be extremely difficult and expensive because of a low bridge over the narrow track to the site, and problems arise when one of the heaviest storms in recent history batters the coast. To make matters worse, erosion specialists predict the property could fall into the sea within just 60 years and the pair are prohibited from reinforcing the cliff face.

Product designer Rebecca Sturrock has returned to her family home in Cornwall with her partner Gregory Kewish and a highly ambitious plan. Together they hope to transform a small, damp bungalow into a cutting-edge home to share with their twin three-year-old daughters - all for just £80,000. The design is radical - to reinforce the walls of the old property and add a new living space on top to take advantage of the views. This extra floor will be made entirely of thick wooden panels engineered in Germany and normally assembled by a crew of specialist installers. However, budget constraints mean the couple are determined to do it all themselves.

GP Peter Berkin and his wife Chard, an alternative medicine practitioner, have decided to build a new home at the bottom of their garden, but cannot agree on any part of the design - even the basic shape. Peter is a keen hobbyist who wants the house to feature a workshop where he can build a plane, and he's planning to spend twice the £200,000 budget Chard has in mind. Kevin McCloud follows their progress.

Architect Patrick Bradley has come up with an unusual £100,000 house design built out of four 45ft shipping containers, welded together to form a giant cross and cantilevered over the top of a stream on the family farm in County Londonderry. His mother is hoping the new home will help her son find a girlfriend, but the small budget and tight schedule soon pose problems

Tracy Fox and husband Steve want to build an "urban shed" featuring two studios, three bedrooms and a double-height space with a walkway, made out of industrial-style materials including corrugated cement fibreboard and 20ft panels of polycarbonate sheeting. Having discovered an old milk yard tucked away behind some flats and shops in south-east London, their long-held desire to build a highly unconventional family home and workspace begins. But their choice of unorthodox materials proves challenging and costly.

Natasha Cargill wants to build a home shaped like two enormous periscopes in rural Norfolk, but to obtain planning permission, she has to ensure not only that the materials are sustainable, but also agree to measure the transportation used to deliver them. If these strict criteria are not met, she won't be allowed to live there, and to add to the pressure, she has just £330,000 to spend on construction and six months to complete the project

Kevin McCloud follows software executive Andy Bruce and garden designer Nicki Bruce, who are planning to build a "floating" house on the River Thames, which would be the first of its kind in the UK. Their architect has come up with an ambitious, experimental design that would see the whole property magically rise up with the flood waters. However, no one knows whether it will work, and the project soon becomes bogged down in the logistical challenges of bringing to fruition such a complex structure on a small island that is only accessible by a narrow footbridge.

Kevin McCloud revisits a memorable restoration project in the remote Creuse region of central France. Back in 2003, when Denise Daniel and Doug Ibbs gave up everything in the UK to start a new life abroad, they couldn't have known what was ahead of them. Falling in love with a dilapidated manor house with just four crumbling walls and half a roof, they embarked on a mission to transform it - working day and night, doing everything themselves, year after year - until slowly but surely they created a magnificent edifice out of the ruins they bought off the internet. It's now the 70th anniversary of the destruction of the original 19th-century building by the German army - and the house is finally finished.

Kevin McCloud revisits a unique Japanese-Welsh fusion home in the Wye Valley, completely transformed from a damp old forester's house in 2013. Tamayo Hussey has missed Japan ever since she moved to the UK 15 years ago with her husband Nigel. To stave off the homesickness they decided to turn the property into a one-of-a-kind home, complete with roof bath, tatami room and sliding paper walls. Kevin finds out how this somewhat improvised building weathered one of the wettest winters on record and if it has brought the calm and tranquillity Tamayo remembers from her childhood in the Far East.

Kevin McCloud returns to Devon for an update on an inspirational build. Royal Marine Captain Jon White and his wife Becky were living happily in a small cottage when in June 2010, while serving in Afghanistan, Jon stepped on an improvised explosive device, losing three limbs. Every part of their lives had to change - starting with where they could live. Their architect came up with a cutting-edge, semi open-plan building with a dramatic wing-like-roof - and crucially no obvious signs of adaptations for Jon's disabilities. Has the new home proved as enabling for the couple and their expanding family as they had hoped?

Kevin McCloud presents the first of four special programmes inspired by 15 years of Grand Designs. He begins with a look at the challenges of self-building in the city, where space is at a premium and architects have to be at their most ingenious. Kevin uses footage from the best urban builds from the show over the years, meets pioneers at the forefront of the latest architectural thinking and looks at clever innovations that continue to transform people's lives to reveal which designs work best and why.

In the second of four special programmes, Kevin McCloud looks at the challenges of self-building in the UK's most remote places, where beautiful landscapes often meet savage weather. Drawing on footage from 15 years of the programme, as well as new visits to extraordinary and incredible homes, Kevin reveals which designs work best, and why. Along the way, he interviews pioneers at the forefront of architecture in the wilderness and sees the astonishing lengths people go to live on the edges of society.

Kevin McCloud reveals how self-builders in the suburbs are transforming this most maligned of residential environments. He draws on some of the best examples from the 15-year history of Grand Designs, talks to experts in the latest architectural thinking and reveals the designs that have reinvented the suburbs as a place where home-owners really can have it all.

Kevin McCloud looks at the challenges of self-building in the countryside, where design must embrace and enhance tradition, yet often overcome stringent planning constraints. Drawing on footage from the show's 15-year history, as well as new visits to extraordinary homes, he finds out how pioneers at the forefront of architecture are transforming agricultural and historic buildings, and bringing cutting-edge contemporary design to rural parts.

Kevin McCloud meets Clinton Dall from Sussex, a self-made businessman and father of four aiming to build one of the largest homes ever featured on the show. Dall wants the end project to be perfect - from the finish of his mirrored cruciform steel columns, to how the floor tiles line up with the dining room table, and is willing to spend whatever it takes to achieve his vision. However, the construction represents a huge risk, as down one road lies abject failure and financial ruin, while down the other, is the creation of something sublime and almost heroic.

Boat enthusiast James Strangeways invites Kevin McCloud to survey progress on the construction of his new home, which his architect nephew Ben Hebblethwaite has designed to be as 'un-houselike' as possible. James has spent the past 35 years travelling the canals and waterways of Britain, and despite never liking houses, has decided now is the time to put down roots on dry land. Ben hoped a home standing on stilts above a marsh, and incorporating ship-like qualities such as a keel-shaped roof, will be enough to satisfy his boat-mad uncle. However, Ben's contractor goes into liquidation a few months into the project, taking £87,000 of the £300,000 budget, and when James decides to make a few tweaks to the design, alarm-bells begin to ring for the young architect.

After recovering from a life-threatening brain haemorrhage, Bram Vis, his wife Lisa and their two children want to build a house for sharing on a seaside plot on the Isle of Wight. Kevin McCloud follows the family's progress as they build an ambitious home complete with entertaining spaces and a swimming pool. However, the sheer scale of their project soon becomes clear when their original £850k budget spirals out of control.

Kevin McCloud follows the progress of 37-year-old Angelo Mastropietro, as he transforms a damp, dark and abandoned cave in Worcestershire. Having recently been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Angelo wants to create a retreat to help him cope with the news and become a 21st century caveman. He has a budget of £100,000 and plans to almost single-handedly carve, cut and drill into the hillside to make the cave comfortable for contemporary living. However, there is no manual for a project of this kind, and the unique challenge soon becomes an obsession.

Kevin McCloud follows the progress of teacher Michele Long and architect Michael Howe, who want to restore and transform a 100-year-old blacksmiths in County Antrim near Portrush,near the coast of Northern Ireland. With virtually no practical experience, Michael wants to do as much of the project as possible by himself. However, the weather on the coastline is fierce, and the freezing weather coupled with a tight budget of £150k means the build is stretched from one to three years.

Kevin McCloud follows the progress of private chef Ed Versluys and Pilates instructor Vicky Anderson, who want to convert a concrete cow-shed in the Somerset countryside into a three bedroom home. With the help of one young builder and the knowledge they can learn from the Internet, the couple plan to project manage the conversion themselves. However, they have only seven months and a budget of just over £200,000 to make a warm and comfortable home with straw bale walls and wide expanses of glass.

Kevin McCloud follows the progress of Stephen Yeoman and Anita Findlay, who want to build a cutting-edge, post-industrial house covered in rusty metal. However, their prominent riverside plot in the traditional and architecturally conservative area of South Downs means everyone will be watching. The project proves to be a real rollercoaster when the fitting of the rusty steel cladding goes wrong, cash flow problems threaten to bring work to a halt, and the couple announce that a baby is on the way.

Kevin McCloud revisits Andy and Nicky Bruce who were building an experimental amphibious house on a small island on the Thames in Buckinghamshire. They spent £1.2 million on one of the most ambitious Grand Designs ever, but the logistical headache of building on an island only accessible by a narrow footbridge soon became clear. Heavy machinery was swept away by the river, contractors were changed, and the site was hit by severe storms, causing delays and resulting in an unfinished and untested building. Kevin returns to find out what living on a regularly flooded piece of land is like, and whether the floating home performed when the river burst its banks in January 2015.

Kevin McCloud returns to north Cornwall to see one of his favourite Grand Designs, and discover whether Rebecca Sturrock and Gregory Kewish have been successful with their ambitious plans. Their project, to reinforce the walls of an old bungalow and put a new living space on top made entirely of cross-laminated timber, soon ran into difficulties, but now fully complete both inside and out, Kevin finds out whether this innovative house is really big enough to accommodate a growing family.

A new run of shows starts with an overgrown, neglected half-acre site in the heart of a Gloucestershire town. It could be the perfect plot to build a house - if you were allowed to cut down its 27 protected trees and clear the site. But local plumber Jon Martin and ceramicist Noreen Jaafar have a much better solution. They love trees and they love their home town, so they're going to build a big modern tree house. The house will be way up in the trees, with stilts screwed into the earth and featuring balconies that see for miles. The only problem is building it, especially on a tight budget. It takes almost two years to crack the engineering as the project becomes an epic self-build, 40 feet up, as an exhausted Jon and Noreen battle towards the finish.

Why are our homes so often designed to be so serious and purely practical? Surely there's space for a bit more fun? That's what Matt and Sophie White from Sussex believe. They want to build a giant family house of fun for themselves and their children. It will be a mysterious black home kitted out with a revolving bookcase door, secret dens, hiding places behind one-way mirrors and a fireman's pole. Matt wants the house to evolve, so he uses a steel frame system which means they can change the layout whenever they want. There are other changes too - like amending the window shapes and sizes and adding a new half floor to create a James Bond room. Just what will this house look like in the end?

Tom and Danielle Raffield's lifelong passion is steam-bending wood into extraordinary curvy shapes. They've spent much of their working lives using the technique to make furniture and lighting. Desperate to escape their tiny gamekeeper's lodge, they've decided to build a spectacular wavy wooden house in South Cornwall, with curvy cladding, twisty furniture, and interior walls covered with naturally-weathered timber. With only a £100k budget to play with, they decide to do a lot of the building themselves. But have they taken on too much?

After artist and teacher Michelle Parsons recovered from serious illness, she and her architect husband David decided it was time to seize the day and build the private hideaway they'd always yearned for. David devised a sleek, black-clad, three bedroom house for a beautiful plot in an Essex woodland, with a separate studio for Michelle. The couple project manage the build, which gets off to a sticky start, including a dangerous gas leak and torrential rain. As the building finally starts to take shape, the big question remains - by choosing to eliminate windows on two sides of the property, could their new home turn out to be just a gloomy bunker?

Paul Rimmer has worked with bricks for 40 years renovating Victorian houses in Bolton. But now he plans to hand-build a state-of-the-art wooden home. If his funding holds up that is.

Can you really build a Grand Design when you've only got £500 to start with? That's what Simon and Jasmine Dale had in the bank when they started to build their unique three bedroom family house high up in the hills of rural Pembrokeshire. This is their take on 21st century low-impact self-building, featuring foraged and recycled materials. Despite the budget, their house will be open plan, have underfloor heating, an inside flushing loo, and a set of greenhouses that wouldn't disgrace Kew Gardens. They are part of a pioneering, government-backed, sustainable village called Lammas, which has a fierce planning condition attached: in return for the right to build on open farmland, they must become self-sufficient on their seven acre plot in five years, or lose everything. It's a huge double challenge.

Kevin McCloud meets Mark and Candida Diacono, who have set about building a home in the shape of a plough on their 17-acre smallholding in Devon. With its complex curved roof, timber-clad exterior and steel-framed working barn, the ambitious project presents a unique technical challenge.

How do you turn your small bungalow from a 1960s dormer into a generous 21st-century piece of slick architecture, all for £175k? Stuart and Rosie Treasurer from the Wirral plan to decapitate their bungalow - cutting the roof off to leave just the walls - then balance a big new floating timber box on top, containing five bedrooms. To keep costs down, they take on the plumbing and electrics themselves, spend as little as they can on insulation, and leave elements of the building unfinished. The hope is to get a stylish industrial look in the process. But the stress levels spiral when their neighbours grumble about the ultra-modern wooden box going up in the middle of their traditional suburb.

Kevin McCloud returns one year later to see the progress of private chef Ed Versluys and Pilates instructor Vicky Anderson, who wanted to convert a concrete cowshed in the Somerset countryside into a three bedroom home. With the help of one young builder and the knowledge they can learn from the Internet, the couple planed to project manage the conversion themselves. However, they had only seven months and a budget of just over £200,000 to make a warm and comfortable home with straw bale walls and wide expanses of glass.

Few people would be brave or foolish enough to buy a building plot without visiting it first. But that's exactly what ex-RAF pilot Jon and GP Gill Flewers did. Returning to the UK after a four year stint in New Zealand, this intrepid pair want to build a Kiwi-style hill house on the slopes of the Malvern hills in Worcestershire. Their ambitious three storey upside-down home will be clad in wood and stone, clinging to the hill and designed to take advantage of and enhance the surrounding scenery. But there are problems. The site is so steep that builders don't want the job. So, despite a complete lack of experience, Jon quits his job to run the project himself. It proves an emotional rollercoaster ride.

Penny Talelli has a passion for cutting-edge contemporary architecture, while husband Mark Edwards loves period buildings. Somehow, these two neurologists want to build a family home that satisfies both their tastes. But will it be the best of both worlds or just an appalling mishmash? Taking the plunge, they buy a derelict Victorian gatehouse on a very steep hill in north London, that currently sits abandoned and unloved. The plan is to restore it, paint it white, and then add a giant black zinc-clad box at the back, marrying their love of old and new. But they run into problems. The gatehouse needs knocking down. Excavating the sloping site takes longer than expected. Increasingly struggling to balance their busy working lives with project managing the build, the future of Penny and Mark's unconventional home hangs in the balance.

We are a nation that loves our sheds - but not many of us would want to actually live in one. In Northern Ireland, young architect and shed fanatic Micah Jones has the chance to re-invent a dilapidated old agricultural building in the rolling countryside of County Down. Micah plans an upside down four bedroom shed using new techniques and materials. Micah and family move into a caravan on their windswept site for the duration of the build. But their limited £200k budget runs short and Micah is forced to do more and more of the work himself. And then news of a new baby on the way adds yet more pressure.

Chris and Kayo build an intricate, radical and complicated home on protected land close to one of Britain's most historic abbeys.

Beth and Andrew rescue a crumbling Victorian dairy, hoping to make it into a 'shabby chic' family home fit for modern life. But is the building simply too derelict?

This is one of the most ambitious homes ever seen on Grand Designs - a scaly, curving house that's reminiscent of a giant coiled snake. Stephen Tetlow is head of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Stephen's wife Elizabeth is a committed horticulturalist. Together they want to build a home that reflects their passions - one that pushes Stephen's engineering skills to the limit and embraces Elizabeth's deep affinity with nature. Taking inspiration from an ammonite shell found on their land in the beautiful Blackdown Hills in Devon, the house spirals onto the landscape over two levels and mixes natural materials with cutting edge technology. Construction of such a complex curving structure proves a huge challenge and progress is tortuously slow.

Fred and Saffron build a home in the Peak District on a 30 degree slope, with the top floor in plain sight and two post-industrial style floors buried into the thick limestone below

Joe and Lina's clever space-saving low-budget build may be the smallest two-bedroom house you're allowed to build in London, but it'll be stylish, and theirs - not a landlord's.

Ten years in the making, this is the longest running Grand Designs ever. In 2007, Ed and Rowena Waghorn started to build a handcrafted five bedroom house on an eight acre smallholding in Herefordshire. Their budget was just £100k. Made from individually carved wooden beams and walls of straw and clay, the heart of the house was to be a huge medieval style hall, complete with massive stone fireplace and a glorious cathedral-like window with panoramic views across the valley. Ed decided to do most of the work himself. Progress was slow. Four years in, the house was still a shell. In 2012 Kevin McCloud decided to follow the build for another five years. In the end, it's just possible this house might turn out to be a masterpiece.

Kevin McCloud returns for a new series of the show that follows intrepid individuals trying to design and build their dream home. In Buckinghamshire he meets young Spanish architect Jaime and his wife Mimi as they embark on an epic mission to convert a Grade II* listed folly into a family home. Originally designed to exhibit a fossil collection, but gutted by fire and left in ruins for the last 200 years, the crumbling mini castle beguiles Jaime and Mimi. Giving themselves a wildly optimistic six month deadline to finish before the birth of their second child, it's not long before the couple hit trouble. The Saxon burial ground the folly is built on throws up some macabre surprises. Their stonemasons from Madrid let them down and local builders with no restoration experience have to take on the crumbling stonework. Jaime puts all his energies and creativity into the project, using innovative 3D mapping to squeeze living spaces into the tower, but it's an exhausting struggle.

Harry and Briony Anscombe have made a radical change to their lives, moving with their three young children from London to Cornwall - and setting up an outpost of their media business at the same time. It's a bold attempt to emulate the positive work-life balance and lifestyle they experienced in California. But even bolder is the giant five-bedroom house they want to build, heavily inspired by an American modernist house Harry saw in the 80s teen comedy Ferris Bueller's Day Off. All floating steel and glass, Harry by his own admission has become 'obsessed' with living somewhere just like it. But creating such an architecturally ambitious home would typically cost over a million pounds, and Harry and Briony have just £400,000 to play with.

In the first 'healthy' home project ever seen on Grand Designs, gallery owner Elinor and fitness entrepreneur Born set themselves the near impossible task of creating Britain's first hypoallergenic house in a leafy back garden plot in south west London. Driven by the need to alleviate their two young sons' life-threatening allergies, their new part-submerged, shed-inspired home, will be constructed using low toxin materials and deploy cutting-edge filtration systems to clean the air they breathe. Right from the start, Born and Elinor are up against it, with access issues to their plot and the need to be super strict concerning suitable materials. It's an immense burden and with the children still suffering weekly allergy attacks, a race against time to get moved in. But will their innovative new house deliver the benefits Elinor and Born are hoping for?

Chiropractor Steph Wilson has spent 20 years dreaming of living on her grandfather's farmland in Leominster, Herefordshire, which was sold when she was 16. Steph and her husband Alex have re-mortgaged their current house to buy back 27 acres of the farm. Steph has secured planning permission for a sleek contemporary cantilevered farmhouse in the old gravel pit where she played as a child. She is determined to give her two young children a version of the blissful childhood she had. Steph and Alex are told their ambitious design will cost £500k - twice what they can borrow. Regardless, the family take a leap of faith and move into a draughty old caravan on site. It's supposed to be a temporary solution. But after six months, caravan life is starting to look like it could become permanent. The family are in desperate need of a saviour, or their dream could turn into a nightmare. Then along comes Steph's oldest friend.

Identical twins Nik and Jon Daughtry run a graphic design company together. They drive the same car and even own identical dogs. Now these two brothers are building two near identical houses next door to each other in Sheffield. Raised up on steel stilts on the site of an old corn mill, the houses pay tribute to Sheffield's industrial past. Huge steel frames with exposed blockwork and black steel cladding should create two sleek and modern family homes. But Nik and Jon's plan is incredibly ambitious. Not only do they want to build the two houses for the price of one, but the materials and finish have to be absolutely perfect. With a tight budget, it's an almighty stretch from the start. As delays, overages and imperfections hit, it's clear the twins' intuitive and incredibly close relationship will be tested like never before.

Professional deep-sea diver Adrian Corrigall is obsessed with concrete. He fell in love with this cold uncompromising material in the skateparks of Scotland. Now he's convinced his wife Megan to agree to build their new family home in rural East Sussex almost entirely out of the stuff - both inside and out. No cladding, no carpets, no plaster or wallpaper - this will be as pure a concrete building as possible. Construction involves cutting-edge technologies conceived in Switzerland and never used to build a house before. The hope is these new mix recipes will overcome the historic negatives of concrete and keep costs down. However, the perils of being a pioneer soon become evident. With both schedule and budget under strain, Adrian is forced to resume work as a diver, servicing North Sea oil installations and taking him away for a month at a time. With Megan now left juggling the build, all the while looking after three young children, the concrete dream seems a long way off.

Kevin McCloud returns to Devon to meet Kevin McCabe, a man who wanted to build one of the biggest houses the programme has ever seen. Finally, seven years after it began, the herculean task of building this giant cob castle is complete. Has it proven to be the great home he originally intended, and does it prove as he hoped that cob is a viable material for contemporary architecture?

Kevin McCloud meets Andy Stakes and Jeanette Hardy, who are building a new house on top of a sheer cliff on the west coast of Scotland. The pair want to spend £250,000 on a two-bedroom, glass-fronted and earth-sheltered home for themselves and their two beloved Newfoundland dogs. However, construction on such an exposed site is fraught with danger and the pair face no end of problems throughout the build, and a last minute design change that begs the biggest question: even if Andy finishes the house, will Jeanette actually like it?

Kevin McCloud meets entrepreneur Paul Wilkinson and his wife Amy, who are building a giant new home on a 16-acre plot in Lincolnshire. The superstructure will be comprised of five circular buildings made up of interlocking timber cylinders, linked by raised wooden walkways that hang over a fishing lake. The complicated build proves difficult for Paul's local team, and their ambitious schedule of completing the project in a year soon looks out of reach.

Design engineer Mark Butler is paralysed from the waist down and needs a cutting-edge, wheelchair-friendly family home. Making it for £600k proves a huge emotional strain.

Richard and Felicia almost single-handedly turn an underground water reservoir in the Humber Estuary into a family home. It's an epic task. And then a life threatening illness strikes.

After recovering from leukemia, Toby is driven to build a complex home around an old oak tree. But can he balance high architecture and health with a comfy family place?

Edward and Hazel plan a shining white art deco lighthouse on a rugged beautiful clifftop. But almost immediately their wildly optimistic plan runs into trouble.In one of Grand Designs most disaster-laden projects, Edward and Hazel Short looked to build a vast lighthouse-inspired home in Croyde, on a crumbling clifftop the North Devon coastline. The grand plans for the build saw loans of £3 million taken out to fund the project, but with setbacks and delays, the money was soon gone, leaving the building half-finished. Edward estimated that it would take another £2 million to complete the build.

Six years on, Kevin returns to Scotland to see Colin and Marta's incredible metal home, inspired by aircraft hangars, now that the construction is finally finished

Kevin McCloud follows more of Britain's most ambitious self-building projects, as intrepid individuals attempt to design and construct the home of their dreams. In this first edition, Kevin meets former army captain Justin, who has spent £1.8million on an abandoned neo-Gothic cemetery keeper's lodge and adjoining ex-council toilet block in south-west London. Justin's vision is to restore the lodge but demolish the ugly toilet blocks and replace them with an enormous luxury ground-floor extension, with an added moat and a giant basement with a swimming pool - all just metres from the nearest grave.

Greg and Georgie plan to convert a cavernous, dilapidated, 35-year-old barn in Georgie's parents' garden in Kent into a peaceful safe haven. But budget-squeezing building work soon sets in.

Nathan and Amye are building a cathedral-like home modeled on local Dutch barn houses with a sleek twist and a 5000-tile armadillo roof. But the pressure mounts for project manager Nathan.

Energy conservationist Andrew plans to build a radical, self-heating home by storing the warmth of the summer sun into insulated earth banks. But will this gigantic thermal experiment work?

Kevin McCloud follows an ambitious build in Cornwall, as Leigh and Richard transform a derelict 17th century flour mill into a contemporary, three-bedroom home. They employ traditional craftsmen to start work on restoring the exterior, but it's not long before the true scale of the damage to the structure is revealed, and as the costs rise, they are forced to take more of the work themselves.

Kevin McCloud revisits professional deep-sea diver Adrian Corrigall and his wife Megan, who planned to build their new family home in rural East Sussex almost entirely out of concrete, with construction involving cutting-edge technologies conceived in Switzerland and never used to build a house before. With both the schedule and the budget under strain, Adrian was forced to resume work as a North Sea diver, leaving Megan juggling this messy and challenging build, all the while looking after three young children. By 2018, water leaks were still to be addressed, the majority of the spaces were raw and unfinished, and the family were still a long way away from moving into their concrete dream. Two and a half years later, with the house now fully complete, Kevin returns to see what living in a cutting-edge concrete bunker is really like.

Kevin McCloud visits a couple planning to build a home that looks like a work of art overlooking a valley in south Devon. Joe and Claire's new home will be a giant sculpture inspired by the local landscape, 70 metres long and featuring 34 enormous angled zinc shards jutting out in all directions. It will also be complicated to build and equally as expensive. And although Joe is wealthy, ambitious and fearless, his team quickly come up against problems and the budget virtually doubles the first walls go up. Is his dream home in danger of become a nightmare?

Kevin McCloud meets master carpenter Olaf, who is facing the biggest challenge of his career - creating an oasis for himself and partner Fritha on a small slice of land in West Sussex, which happens to be surrounded by a mainline railway and a busy A-road. Not only that, but half of the plot can't even be built on due an underground mains sewer. All they're left with is a very small triangle on which to build their future life together. With £190,000 in the bank, Olaf and Fritha must use all the ingenuity they can muster to make their triangular three-bedroom house come to life.

Kevin McCloud meets architect Iain and his wife Jenny, who intend to build an enormous black minimalist house right in the middle of a 19th-century Scottish country estate. Their grand vision also involves connecting the new rectangular block to a dilapidated gardener's bothy - and the neighbours are watching.

Dan and Nina want to build a unique family home, but their plot is dominated by a pond filled with local drainage. Will their West Sussex house be sublime and sleek or a Shrek-like swamp?

Kevin McCloud returns to follow more ambitious home-design projects, beginning by meeting adventurous couple Colin and Adele. They have employed a Swedish architect, an Italian interior design company and a Latvian building company to complete the eye-popping curved glass family home in the Manchester suburb where they both grew up.

Kevin McCloud meets Kate and Rob, who have lived in a 1940s prefab house built by Rob's grandfather. Originally designed to be lived in for just 10 years, this factory-built home is well past its sell-by date. Now, Kate and Rob are at last in a position to replace it with a bespoke, modern, warm home - which will also be built in a factory using volumetric modular construction. Over just six weeks, their new house will be manufactured on a production line, complete with insulation, tiling and kitchen installation.

Kevin McCloud meets Dorran, who has taken on the ambitious task of building a super-modern underground home on a hill outside Canterbury. He entrusts the work to a team of contractors, but when delays and rising costs force him to take charge of the build himself, Dorran faces the biggest challenge of his life, juggling his time between the site and his work as a ship's master out on the North Sea. However, having promised the house to his wife and children, he knows that failure is not an option.

Kevin McCloud meets Zimbabwean-born Davi and Matt from Australia, who are determined to create a home to reflect their backgrounds, so set out to build a house in the Chess Valley with a radical multicultural design, which is especially daring for their commuter-belt suburb. Despite their inexperience and the technical difficulty of the steeply sloping site, Davi and Matt manage the venture themselves. But it's not long before the problems begin.

Kevin meets Mike and Sarah, who bought a remote smallholding in the Derbyshire Dales, somewhere to rear animals and provide a home for themselves and their elderly parents. Kevin follows the couple as they set out to build a 21st-century version of a historic Derbyshire longhouse. Enormous, corrugated and with a highly complex roof shape, it was never going to be an easy build. But soon they face delays and their schedule begins to slide. However, that is nothing compared with the problems of a more personal nature that hit the project.

Kevin McCloud meets retired racehorse breeder John and his wife Helen in Dunstable. The couple met at Newbury races in 2005 and wed two years later, living together in a 17th-century farmhouse until illness struck in 2018. Helen had a catastrophic stroke, severely affecting her mobility and leaving her with aphasia, which affects her ability to communicate. Constrained by the steep stairs, narrow doorways and changes in level of their current home, John resolved to make a big change in their lives with the purchase of a nearby two-acre plot. Following the demolition of an old, dilapidated house on site, a new high-tech accessible pavilion, complete with wildlife garden, will be built in its place for £1.3million.

Kevin meets south London chef Corinne, who loves to entertain and is rustling up plans for a beautifully crafted, double-kitchen home designed around her love of cooking. The end-of-terrace plot is on a hill and surrounded by woodland within a strict conservation area, so it won't be an easy build. But having come through a divorce and cancer treatment, Corinne sees the house as vital on so many levels, not least as an opportunity to create a space that represents her new lease of life. 

In 2011, Edward and Hazel set out to build a lighthouse on the north Devon coast. By 2019, they were near bankruptcy with just a rusting shell. Three years on, has anything changed?

Kevin McCloud revisits Vicky and Ed, who in 2015 broke free from the shackles of their hectic London lives to try to build a new life in the Somerset countryside. With a budget of just over £200,000, they set out to transform an old derelict cowshed into a 21st-century off-grid smallholding. With no building experience or project manager, they took on this dramatic transformation themselves, learning building techniques from the internet.

In 2015 Paul and Carol set out to build an eco-friendly and energy-saving timber fortress in Bolton, on the edge of the wild West Pennine Moors. With extreme weather challenges, a tight schedule and a £350k budget they did not make their goal of finishing the project in 15 months. Six years later Kevin McCloud revisits to find out if their home is finally finished.

Kevin McCloud visits Sue and Martin who set out to renovate two 16th and 18th-century barns in 1999. Without conventional plans, surveys and specifications the project was delayed a number of times. The original deadline of Christmas 2000 came and went and by September 2002 the build was still not finished. Kevin returns two decades later to see if the house is finally complete.

Kevin McCloud meets Rosa and her partner Craig who are turning a century-old, family-owned, decommissioned steam railway reservoir into a home. Their radical plan to reinvent the reservoir into a unique living space involves punching huge holes through the walls to allow light to flood in, a mezzanine with views across the valley and a concrete extension with four bedrooms. Along the way they encounter a pandemic, numerous money crises, pregnancy and a schedule that grows from 12 months to over three years, is it worth it for Rosa to have the reservoir home she has dreamt of since childhood?

Kevin McCloud meets college deputy principal Danny who plans on building a four-bedroom house in his garden in North Lincolnshire. He plans to build a stylish, sustainable but affordable home among the trees with dramatic bedroom pods raised on steel stilts on the edge of a fishing pond to help his three children connect to nature. With plenty of ambition but no experience as a self-builder, his £300,000 budget doesn't seem to match the scale of his project.

Kevin McCloud returns to Gloucestershire to visit Jon and Noreen who, in 2013, planned to build a three-bed treehouse on a half-acre patch of woodland. Their stacked three box design was to be almost gravity-defying to avoid harming any tree roots and a mirror glass ground floor to reflect the surrounding trees but their £250,000 budget didn't seem to match the project's high ambition. Despite having worked hands-on for long hours with help from friends and family, by 2016 the house was barely ready enough for them to move in and the money had run out with the project not finished. Seven years later, Kevin returns to see their progress.

Kevin McCloud meet Graeme and Melanie who have huge ambitions for a home in Hackney. They plan to build on a tiny twin garage plot with no surrounding land that cost them £275,000 on a traditional Victorian terraced road. Architect Graeme has come up with an unapologetically modernist, bright red-clad design laid out to maximise space over three floors and has set out just 12 months to build it.

Furniture-maker Lucinda sets out to build a two-storey, highly insulated home entirely out of wood in the woodland near her old family home. She enlists the help of her children Dan and Rosie, who grew up learning her craft, to help her £150,000 budget stretch as far as possible.

An ambitious couple set out to build a revolutionary eco home in the Cotswolds, which will not only use very little energy, it will also produce four times the energy it needs. Environmental consultant Duncan is planning to manage the project himself, moving out of the London home he shares with solicitor Liz to live near the site. But although he is totally committed, he has never faced anything like this before, and almost inevitably the technically complex 18-month build, while living apart takes its toll on the couple.

In 2017, Leigh and Richard bought a derelict Cornish flour mill to restore and turn into their home. By 2021, rooms and landscaping were still unfinished. Kevin McCloud returns to see if this quirky old industrial building has finally become a home.

Kevin McCloud returns to West Sussex to meet with Olaf and Fritha who, in 2019, set out to build their own oasis on a piece of land that is boxed in by a railway line and an A-road. Due to an underground mains sewer, they were unable to build on half their plot and were left with a small triangle on which to build a three-bedroom house. They began with only £190,000 and were immediately surprised at the price of the sturdy retaining walls and foundations they needed to combat traffic vibrations and the sharp, pointed angles of the hand-built timber frame stretched Olaf to his limits. Kevin returns to see how life has gone for the pair and their new young daughter Lagertha in their triangular house.

Kevin McCloud follows the progress of Zahid and Ferzana from Leeds as they set out to transform an obsolete coastguard station in East Yorkshire into a cantilevered, three-storey home made of steel and glass to enhance their panoramic sea views. With a tight budget of £325,000 and a goal of finishing in 10 months, the pair had their son Yusef manage the project but when Yusef gets a career opportunity he can't turn down and Covid hits the couple's business, will they be able to stick to their budget and time frame?

Professional make-up artist Zara and her partner Giuliano from Reading take a leap of faith as they build the 400-square-metre malthouse-inspired home of their dreams in the Lincolnshire Wolds. Giuliano, who works in tech, faces the challenge of a lifetime as he manages the project with no building experience and it's not long before the pair run into difficulties that force them to get far more involved than they ever anticipated

Holistic therapist Kara and electrician Jonny are building a striking stone and zinc four-bedroom family home in the rolling hills of West Yorkshire, for themselves and their two young children. The need to build has been motivated by Kara's recent paralysis, caused by a rare autoimmune condition. Their ambition for the house is enormous, as Kara wants to create a home that is not only beautiful but will help her regain some independence. With money tight, Jonny needs to take on a lot of the work himself. As the build progresses, and despite the challenges coming thick and fast, compromise is not an option with both form and function so essential. Building their single storey pushes both Kara and Jonny to the edge of their emotional and physical reserves, but if they can pull it off, it might just redefine what accessible design means

Physical therapist Ara and researcher Tony set out to create a home focused on health and wellbeing on a woodland clearing near Henley-on-Thames. The pair plan to live on site to cut costs with Tony taking on the task of project managing to save Ara any stress that could compromise her already fragile health but as problems arise both Ara and Tony end up labouring onsite and what was meant to be a house of healing is in danger of becoming the opposite

Adam and Tassy take on an abandoned water tower - a concrete column stretching over 20 metres into the Northamptonshire sky - and turn it into a fun family home. Their radical design includes a concrete interior with curved walls, slides, secret rooms, a fireman's pole and - up in the tank itself - a swimming pool and a sky garden. The plan is to sell their terraced house and get a mortgage to raise £400,000 and do most of the conversion work themselves - even though they have two young children already and a third on the way. It's wildly ambitious and gets off to a slow start when a steel reinforced floor takes forever to excavate, and they have to build a sound wall to reduce the hum from a nearby electricity substation. As concrete pours, their walls start to leak and it looks like their water tower doesn't want to be lived in without a concrete-soaked battle of biblical proportions

Kevin McCloud celebrates the 25th anniversary of the show by making a special revisit to the show's first ever project in the East Sussex coastal town of Newhaven. In 1999, paragliding school owners Tim and Jules wanted to build a new family home on the cliffs in just three months due to Jules's pregnancy. The last time Kevin visited, newborn Tiger had come along but the house was barely finished. Now, a quarter of a century later, he returns to see how life has been for the first Grand Designs family

The iconic property show returns for a new run. Kevin McCloud follows more of Britain's most ambitious self-building projects, as intrepid individuals attempt to design and construct the home of their dreams. Howard and Sarah have embarked on a number of ambitious building projects together over the last 30 years, but now they've devised plans for the most radical yet - a sleek, angled, metallic floating home on a tidal estuary near Worthing. Designed to look like a boat, and nestled within an idiosyncratic houseboat community, the structure will sit on an experimental prefabricated polystyrene slab to deal with high tides alternating with hours sitting in the mud. On top of the floating polystyrene will sit a steel frame that will need to be strong enough to resist the stresses of a moving structure, covered in composite insulated steel cladding. Upstairs will be a soaring, open-plan living space with an outer deck and views of the estuary, while below deck there's to be accommodation for them and their teenage children, a home office and a cinema room. It's a huge experiment, with £385k to spend over an 18-month schedule, especially as they'll be doing much of the work themselves and finalising the engineering as they go. Things get off to an agonisingly slow start when it takes months to painstakingly remove a condemned D-Day landing craft from the plot. Designing and making the floating polystyrene slab is a real headscratcher, and they need to buy a crane to get materials over a tall sea defence wall. Add to all that the constant tidal shifts that disrupt any construction and it's a real recipe for disaster... Can they get their grand design over the line?

The new run of the iconic property show continues. Kevin McCloud follows more of Britain's most ambitious self-building projects, as intrepid individuals attempt to design and construct the home of their dreams. It's tough falling in love, especially when it's with a 150-year-old rickety barn that's in danger of keeling over. But HR director Sarah and technology director Pip are smitten. Never mind the many planning restrictions, or that it sits on the site of a scheduled ancient monument; Sarah and Pip are determined to keep its spirit while at the same time transforming it into a sleek and modern five-bed home, with space for their expanding pet family... a hugely challenging balancing act. With a budget of £420k, they try to keep as much of the original structure as possible to save on costs, but the fragile building starts to unravel almost as soon as work begins. Old brick columns, walls and an entire timber gable end come tumbling down, too unstable to withstand the identity change. The barn, it seems, is in danger of becoming a terrifying money pit. Under pressure on all fronts, and not always seeing eye-to-eye on what the end result should be, Sarah and Pip draw on every ounce of resolve to try and make it through...

The new run of the iconic property show continues. Kevin McCloud follows more of Britain's most ambitious self-building projects, as intrepid individuals attempt to design and construct the home of their dreams. Kathryn and her husband Jon lived happily in a four-bed Edwardian home on the same street in north London for 60 years. But now, at 82 and recently widowed, Kathryn faced an all too familiar dilemma: struggle on in a home where getting up the stairs was becoming increasingly difficult, or move away from the street that she's loved for so long. Until she came up with an audacious plan, with the help of her architect, James Mak, to build a new, accessible, ultra-sustainable home right next door, where a garage and extension currently sit. It'll be a mirror image of her current Edwardian house, but with a 21st-century twist. Pulling off this daring feat proves difficult right from the off, when far deeper than anticipated foundations have to be removed to make way for Kathryn's new home. Horrendously wet weather, spiralling costs - including eye-watering fees to connect to basic services - and the worry of selling her old house in time all test Kathryn's nerve as well as her budget. Only time will tell whether this late-in-life gamble will pay off... 

The new run of the iconic property show continues. Kevin McCloud follows Britain's most ambitious self-building projects, as intrepid individuals attempt to design and construct the home of their dreams. Kevin revisits architect Graeme and Melanie, who had huge ambitions for their new home in Hackney; a comfortable haven for themselves and their teenage daughters, Isla and Indi. They wanted the house to celebrate and cement their new blended family, formed following the loss of their own partners. The only problem was where they wanted to build: on a tiny twin garage plot bought for a whopping £275,000, on a traditional Victorian terraced road. Graeme came up with an unapologetically modernist bright red design. Inside, it was to be cleverly laid out to maximise?space vertically. Despite the challenge of excavating four metres down in a tight urban site, the schedule was set at just 12 months, with an equally tight budget. But a catalogue of challenges quickly hit Melanie and Graeme, from the basement contractor withdrawing due to skyrocketing material costs, to huge increases in mortgage rates draining the budget. And as the project neared completion, a final bombshell in the basement blew their schedule off course and put even their hopes of living in the house in jeopardy. Eighteen months since his last somewhat gloomy visit, Kevin returns to see if Graeme and Melanie are finally out of their hole. Do they now have the beautiful home they originally envisaged?

The new run of the iconic property show continues. Kevin McCloud follows Britain's most ambitious self-building projects, as intrepid individuals attempt to design and construct the home of their dreams. Does good architecture have the power to heal? In 2017, Elinor and Born began building a clean-aired, hypoallergenic house in south-west London for them and their three children. Motivated by the extreme allergies and serious asthma of their two boys, they desperately hoped that the house would alleviate some of their more severe symptoms. In an unusual back-garden site with huge access issues, they planned a partially submerged, shed-like building constructed with low-toxin materials and a powerful ventilation system to keep the air in the house fresh. But construction placed rigorous demands on their decision-making abilities, schedule and budget. And even when they finally moved in, the jury was still out on whether the house could actually make their children healthier as they grew older. Now, seven years after the house was completed, Kevin returns to see what the long-term effects have been - and to finally discover if a carefully curated house really can make us feel better, and actually improve our physical health too... 

Kevin McCloud follows more of Britain's most ambitious self-building projects, as intrepid individuals attempt to design and construct the home of their dreams. After 40 years living largely in the southeast of England, artist Sarah is returning to her roots in the northeast with towering ambitions for an exposed, three-acre plot that she's bought at auction in the Durham Dales. She wants to create a radical home and creative hub combined, including a studio and gallery for displaying and selling art. With her budget of £330,000, Sarah hopes to build with a super-sustainable yet still relatively unknown and hard-to-predict material - hempcrete. Left exposed throughout the interior, the hempcrete will provide a dramatic earthy look, but this relies on the building process going perfectly. But, just a few months into Sarah's eight-month schedule, her plan to move in before winter is scuppered as her inexperience as a project manager starts to show. With material costs going through the roof, and her budget doing likewise, selling her one-bed holiday cottage looks like the only way to keep building. As the critical hemp process gets going, and proves increasingly tortuous and unpredictable, the success of Sarah's project hangs in the balance.

Pete and Aey order a factory-built house to be constructed in Wales and transported to their rural West Sussex plot, where they plan to demolish an older property to make way for the new one. But there are two big problems - the old house is home to hibernating bats, and moving five gigantic modules down tiny lanes from Wales to Sussex is not going to be easy.

Kevin McCloud meets Marcus and Abi, who are building a luxurious off-grid family home deep in 20-acre woodland in Pembrokeshire on a budget of just £100,000. Granted permission through the One Planet Development planning laws, which are unique to Wales, they are armed with determination and timber from the surrounding forest. With no detailed plans, the project pushes the limits of design and endurance, and proves a raw, physical adventure that defies convention and challenges many of the ideas around what a home should be.

Kevin McCloud follows a couple who face a race against time to realise their dream. Two years ago, corporate accountant Pep was diagnosed with terminal cancer. But rather than rest and avoid stress, Pep and partner Malene focused their attention on a long-held ambition to build a new house on their land in the Surrey Hills. The plan is to construct a modern take on a Viking hall, inspired by their love of all things Scandinavian and Malene's Danish heritage. But they must build quickly so Pep can enjoy what time she has left in the finished home.

Piers and Emma build the first new listed castle in the UK for 100 years, complete with a tower, moat and futuristic tech. It's the biggest ever Grand Design, so is even their £2m budget enough?

Kevin McCloud revisits Stuart and Rosie Treasurer from Wirral, who he first met in 2016 when they set out to transform a small bungalow from a 1960s dormer into a slick piece of 21st-century architecture. The plan saw the couple decapitate the building and balance a new floating timber box on top to create five bedrooms, spending as little as possible on plumbing, electrics and insulation, but stress levels spiralled when neighbours grumbled at the ultra-modern creation. Nine years on, Kevin sees how Stuart and Rosie are getting on.

Kevin McCloud revisits Greg and Georgie, who in 2019 set out to convert a dilapidated 35-year-old barn in Georgie's parents' garden in Sevenoaks into a peaceful safe haven. It was a highly challenging build involving the painstaking conservation of the existing rotten structure, building a new two-storey internal steel frame and recycling everything they could to stretch their £250,000 budget. But how are they getting on six years since the original show went out?