A man who returned from the Royal Marines to renovate his late grandparents’ house into his ‘forever home’ with his wife and children almost blew a substantial part of their budget before the refurbishment barely began.
The former soldier returned to Ratcliffe-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, to start a new life as a fireman with his salesperson wife and children after inheriting the Victorian Cottage, which his grandparents purchased in the 1970s and modified to true seventies style.
Now, Joe and Nicola feature in tonight’s episode of George Clarke’s Building Home, airing at 8pm, to show how they put their stamp on the family home.
Joe’s grandparents originally purchased the home as a fixer-upper, and he and his wife followed in their footsteps by reviving the home once again with a budget of £200,000 and a deadline of four months.
It’s a hefty task, but with the help of family, including Joe’s bricklayer father, and Nicola’s love of interior design, the couple remained optimistic that their hands-on approach would fit the timeframe while keeping costs down.
The couple originally planned to remove the random collection of extensions completed by Joe’s grandfather to make space for an open-plan kitchen and dining area, as well as a living room, utility, downstairs loo, and upstairs bedroom with an en-suite.
However, Joe and Nicola had only just finished the first step of removing 270 tonnes of the previous extension when their architect got back to them and said they were already at £60,000 in the budget due to the square footage.
They were forced to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to make the renovations work while sticking to the original budget, despite the building work already having started.
Joe renovated his grandparents’ former home with his wife Nicola in the latest epsiode of George Clarke’s Building Home
The former soldier inherited the family house in Ratcliffe-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, from his grandparents
Nicola said: ‘Originally, the plan was to have a double-storey extension with a single storey on the kitchen.
‘However, to ensure we keep to our budget, we aren’t doing the single storey piece. It’s a compromise that we’ve had to make, but we still get the house that we want.’
But losing the single-storey extension had a knock-on effect on more than just the kitchen.
‘To maximise space for the dining room and kitchen area, it means we’ve had to put the toilet under the stairs,’ Joe said.
After some reworking, Joe and Nicola managed to get their renovations back on track, though it came at a higher-than-expected cost.
The couple ended up spending £25,000 over budget due to the unexpected costs of materials.
Nicola, however, put in the hours to complete the decoration of all the rooms, while Joe’s father completed the extension and worked through the weekend to ensure his son and daughter-in-law got their dream home when desired.
Eventually, the couple replaced the ramshackle of ad hoc rooms on the back of the house with a stunning extension, spanning a spacious open-plan kitchen, a stunning bedroom and an en-suite with high ceilings.
Joe’s grandfather had added various extensions to the back of the house since purchasing it in the 1970s
The Nottinghamshire-based couple tore down the original extensions to make way for their new double-story addition
Joe and Nicola were set on extending the kitchen to make it the heart of the home for their family
After the renovations were completed, the couple were left with their dream kitchen fit with an island
And despite spending more than expected, the couple got their dream home just one month after originally hoped for.
Host George Clarke said: ‘Restoring an old home is hard, building a modern home is hard, combining the two and doing it all in five months without putting a foot wrong is nothing short of a miracle.’
Nicola said: ‘It’s like a dream, I keep having to pinch myself. I can’t wait to spend time in every single room, because there isn’t a room that I don’t love.’
It comes after teenage sweethearts who returned to their hometown North Wales following high-flying careers in London and Manchester have spent more than a million to refurbish a dilapidated 18th century farmhouse into a stunning, modern ‘forever home’.
Barrister Tina and school administrator Steve poured their hearts and souls into a bespoke property on the island of Anglesey – which overlooks the coast where they had their first date, in a café, as youngsters.
The couple and their daughter Lucy featured in last week’s episode of George Clarke’s Building Home, airing at 8pm.
They took viewers through the painstaking transformation of the ruins into a sprawling two-storey build with strikingly decorated bedroom suites, a custom-made staircase and a glazed glass extension which was made into a sitting room, offering sprawling views of the surrounding Irish Sea.
The initial project was meant to take 12-15 months and budgeted at £800,000 – but in the end took two years and seven months, with the final figure very much ‘north’ of the planned finances, which Tina admitted is ‘scary to say out loud’.
She and Steve, supported by a team helmed by local builder Jamie, battled pouring rains and battering winds to get the property off the ground, conscious they needed to work around the area’s at times unforgiving climate.
‘It’s important to have someone who’s local and understood the constraints of the site,’ Tina explained. ‘And understood just how windy and exposed it is.’
And the weather wasn’t the only challenge – as a mistake with the size of the steel beams at the very beginning set the couple back too.
George Clarke’s Building Home aired on Channel 4 on Thursday at 9pm
