that's why we have to spend so much time sharing ideas and experiences so we can approach professionals better informed with more concrete ideas of what we need...professional's don't have the time to work through every little detail and renovators and home owners often don't realise what they need to know until professionals are long gone and we've already paid for something that isn't quite what was expected...better prepared clients with enthusiastic professionals is the perfect compromise

I love Grand Designs, but as soon as I saw what size the house was going to be, 70 squares I think, I lost interest. It was gigantic, at least 3 times bigger than what any family would need. I love the show, but this was one of the very few episodes I fast forwarded, just to get to the final result. I guess to become involved in the episode, to want to follow the journey, I have to feel some connection to the "builders". They were just extremely annoying. To me you'd have to be mental to want a house that large, covering up other issues, an extreme case of "look at me" - keeping up with the Joneses. "Hamptons homes are trendy, let's build the biggest one we can afford".

To your point. There are some builders on the show, with extremely limited budgets, where it's impossible to afford qualified help. There are other episodes on the show where the self-builder is in the industry & has the skills required to manage the job themselves.

But generally, I guess these self-builders don't see the value of professional help. They don't know how complicated the building process is, how self consuming, & don't appreciate the skills a building professional has. Usually biting off more than they can chew. Often slaving away at it for years. Putting themselves in financial difficulty. As their Grand Design becomes a grand nightmare.

If only they'd reduced the scope of their plans (often the size of the house), allocating part of their limited budget to professional help. I'm sure the results would usually be better. Though I guess the TV experience mightn't be so entertaining for us.

For crying out loud, this couple had a budget of $1.5M. Halve the size of the house, or more. Spend some of those savings on professional help. The results will be far, far better.

very pleased to read your comments Ruth, so often the TV reality shows are full of distortions and some of the home owners are so unrealistic, building monstrous big houses that are supposed to be for the benefit of their long suffering children...prefer to see small and simple so time saved can be spent with their children instead of constructing one off shaped buildings that cost too much and are way out of the scope of domestic owner builders and i have to report that, even with professional help, there will always be some stress and sleepless nights but we keep going back for more