Open Writing

Lifestyles of the rich and famous? Not exactly. Some of the people involved might be rich, in the sense that they have a helluva lot more money than most of us. If they have any fame, it comes from allowing a TV camera to record their efforts and to witness their follies and failings. And we do sometimes see their successes.

I've been watching repeats of an old British TV series, 'Grand Designs'. Each week, we follow someone's efforts to design and build their dream house. They vary greatly. They are always interesting and can be very satisfying, but big questions sometimes come to mind. For instance, when you convert an old brick water-tower to a multi-storey bedroom suite, what sort of staircases will you need? Straight, spiral, or ladders?

The presenter of the series, a well-informed and jolly good chap, obviously has to say nice things in his summaries, but we cannot ignore self-made problems. Staircases appeared again in the conversion of a disused chapel. At a cost of quite a few thousand pounds, a huge spreading series of timber steps was erected in the centre of the building. It was surrounded by floor-to-roof poles. No matter how hard the camera operator tried, we could see nothing grand in the visual result. It looked more like a thirty-foot high wooden scaffold.

'Home' is a concept which obviously varies enormously from person to person. The more affluent of these owner-builders often finish up with something like a furniture showroom or an art gallery. There is little or no sign of that old fashioned factor, let's see, what is it called? Ah, yes, homeliness. Friendliness. Comfort.

It is understandable that a few of the couples do not intend having a family. That is their choice and we respect it. However, it is sometimes difficult to understand the attitude of those who have children or plan to have them. And at this point we're back to staircases. How on earth can you forget, or not bother, to erect balustrades when you're going to have children running around the place and on uncarpeted timber stairs? And how will elderly relatives cope when there is no rail for them to grip when they ascend? Not only relatives, but also elderly or less mobile guests.

Some of the homes are designed in such a way as to reduce consumption of water, electricity and gas. Others indicate no respect for that vital need. Look, we have 120 light fittings in this room! See, we have two hand basins in our bathroom! Here, admire our amazing spa-bath! Oh, what pretentious waste — especially when some viewers have worked to reduce electricity and water consumption by up to 50% in our less than grandly designed homes.

Given the dull, grey weather of Britain, it must be nice to have huge windows. The window cleaning bill, however, will be pretty steep. Pigeons, seagulls, and other friendly birds will no doubt avail themselves of a glass roof. Their little food parcels will increase the cleaning bill even more — assuming there are specialist roof birdy-doo cleaners in the UK, of course.

And then we come to the little matter of books. Where are they? In some cases, it's good to see books on shelves, visible and accessible. But some of these grand homes are devoid of books. At least, that's the general impression. Perhaps the owner-builders work on the same principle as one or two folk I've known — let's hide the books because they are so untidy. Shame on them.

We do sometimes see a well designed, user-friendly home which comfortably accommodates the needs of children, old people, and visitors, as well as its owners. There are a few folk who genuinely work for energy efficient use of electricity, water, gas, and even sewage. Some of the programmes give rise to the comforting thought, 'Yes, I could live there'. Let's just hope that those staircase designers feel the same way when they eventually have to live in what they created.

© Copyright Brian Barratt 2008