Our £2.5million Grand Designs home turned into a disaster when walls didn’t line up – then it looked like huge grey blob
AN INCREDIBLE £2.5million Grand Designs home turned into a disaster when the walls didn’t line up and it looked like a huge grey blob.
Hux Shard was built for property developer Joe Priday and his family and was showcased in 2022 on the long-running Channel 4 show hosted by Kevin McCloud.
Couple Joe and Claire began the project in 2021 but spent a fortune after being hit with a number of setbacks.
The project originally had a budget of £835,000, but ended up costing a whopping £2.5million.
As is liable to happen on builds featured on the show, a number of things went wrong during the build.
Construction of facades was done off-site in a factory with the pieces intended to be brought on-site and pieced together.
But the builders found that once on-site, the facade pieces were not lining up with the pre-drilled holes made to attach the brackets.
A whopping 300 wooden beams then had to be fixed by hand one at a time over the space of 12 weeks to the outside of the house to hold it together.
Carpenter Michael Taylor told Joe in the show: “It’s designed with no tolerance. It’s designed millimetre perfect. It just doesn’t fit.”
Project Manager Phil Saunders said he was “going to lose his head”.
Phil also slammed the artistic property as ludicrous as he admitted there had been a series of delays and constructive issues.
He said: “It’s a nightmare. The last two weeks of weather we’ve had rain, 70mph winds.
“You can see the shape of the scaffolding around is a nightmare in itself. To get to this stage, the work and the intensity and logistics behind it all are just a nightmare.
“I wouldn’t want to live in a house like this. Ludicrous isn’t it really?”
The plans covered a huge 6,000sq ft and had five bedrooms all with en-suites, a gym, cinema room, study and utility room.
The sprawling home had a huge living room and open-plan kitchen inside – which would cost a whopping £125,000 alone.
Despite starting well, the build hit complications halfway and the price skyrocketed to a massive £2.5million to complete the project.
At the end of the episode it featured on, it was compared to an art museum thanks to its unusual grey facade.
The finished result impressed Kevin, who described it as “Tate Exeter”.
Grand Designs disasters
By Emer Scully
There have been a number of Grand Designs build which have gone so wrong that it’s left people worse off from when they started.
Saddest episode ever:
It took Edward Short, 53, a decade to build his lighthouse-inspired home in Croyde, Devon.
It cost him £6million and his marriage to ex-wife Hazel.
Vandalised houseboat:
Chris Miller and his wife Sze Liu Lai’s 2007 episode followed their renovation of a two-storey houseboat using only recycled materials.
The couple dreamed of escaping their small London flat.
But the project cost £80,000 before it failed and the 100ft barge was left unfinished in the Thames estuary near Southend, Essex.
Flaming disaster:
A design nicknamed “Britain’s Cheapest Home” went up in flames in Pembrokeshire on New Year’s Day in 2018.
An electrical fire reduced the £27,000-build to ashes as fire crews battled for six hours.
Neighbour row:
Architect and owner Robert Gaukroger ploughed £1million and two years of his life into his seven-bedroom “Dome House” above Bowness-in-Windermere.
But he and his wife Milla reportedly fell into a vicious £55,000 battle with a neighbour after the couple was accused of encroaching on their land.