A WRITER has detailed her very stressful self-build journey, and how it left her wanting to scream.
Melanie Reid has shared her Grand Designs experience with readers of her Spinal Column in The Times.
The tetraplegic journalist broke her neck in a 2010 accident, and is currently managing the construction of a disabled annexe in her garden.
Melanie has explained how things really aren’t what they seem like on the show, saying that she and other half Dave initially “had the fond notion it would be fairly straightforward”.
Their build would be “Single storey, small, modest, contentedly agricultural-looking. Tin shed porn. Not an architrave anywhere”.
However, she was left wanting to scream: “Dave and I didn’t know what we were letting ourselves in for…”
The writer explained that the Channel 4 show’s bosses “never tell you” about “the maddening stuff”.
She lists these as: “Trees. Archaeology. Local authority firewalls that send emails to junk. Holidays. Bats.
“Planning consultants and designers who disagree, leaving you floundering.
“Even baby problems, like penetrating massive utility companies to ask about electricity and water connections.”
Melanie also claims the show never tells you about the “dominance of process – the achingly methodical creation of a mountain of bureaucracy, an end purely in itself.
“The hideously long email chains. The waiting. The weeks when no one does anything.”
Despite starting the project two years ago, Melanie added that sadly, they “haven’t got within a sniff of construction yet, so Dave and I just keep smiling.”
