To celebrate season 12 of Grand Designs coming to DVD next month, we have a fantastic prize up for grabs for fellow Kevin McCloud fans worth more than $300! Would you like to binge watch seasons 1 to 12? Well, here’s your chance!
The UK’s most popular property show returns with its 12th series, following intrepid home builders as they pursue their architectural dreams. Kevin guides us through the trials and tribulations of those obsessively trying to create a unique place to live, often over many months, even years. This series features a dramatic modernist villa perched atop a crumbling cliff in Snowdonia, a Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired bachelor pad made out of four shipping containers in the Northern Irish countryside and the UK’s first amphibious house on a floodplain of the Thames in Buckinghamshire.
In addition, Kevin revisits some of the series’ previous builds to see what changes have been made and discover whether the reality has lived up to the dream.
You could win series 12 and every other previous series on DVD. To be in with a chance, complete the form below by 5pm Sydney time on Thursday 16 July 2015.
My scheduled chat with Kevin McCloud in London was delayed by a mere five hours due to his non-stop schedule but he was, of course, worth the wait. The inimitable Grand Designs host arrived with some new sustainable materials made from old air bags and car tyres, capable of making furniture. “This stuff is going to change the world,” he tells me, excitedly. And I think it’s this infectious enthusiasm which is one of the things which makes him so likeable on TV.
A regular visitor to our shores for Grand Designs Live Australia the past three years, Kevin is amazed by and grateful for his popularity on the other side of the world, with more people watching the show in Oz than in the UK. He has a real fondness for the country and its people, telling me the story of how he almost was Australian (his parents had tickets booked but then found out his mother was pregnant with him and decided not to go).
“It’s actually amazing how popular the show is in Australia,” he says, joking that some of the re-runs are so old he has a lot more hair in them. “I’m very, very grateful. Here, Grand Designs is successful and everything else I do is two-thirds as successful. In Australia, Grand Designs is even more successful and everything else I do is just as successful too.”
Kevin, who was appointed MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) for services to sustainability in this year’s New Year’s Honours list, says he’s seen more passion in the decoration of houses in parts of Melbourne than he has in the UK. “I’ve probably seen more delight and wonder in Sydney and Melbourne than I have here.” He’s been blown away by Queenslanders (the houses) in Brisbane and loves how the architecture can be so different between states and territories, but always uniquely Australian due to our climate. “I’m really fond of some of the 19th Century and early 20th Century stuff, ” he says.
So, what is Kevin’s own home like? “It’s as shambolic, autobiographical, worn around the edges and unplanned as anybody else’s in truth! You and I know that the rooms we see in mags are highly engineered to meet the demographic and advertisers of that mag. Sometimes I look at those homes with a single pineapple in a bowl on the side and think where’s their toaster?! When we’re filming for the show, I always prefer the homes which are a little more shambolic, they’re more interesting.”
If Kevin was invited into your home he’d probably go straight to your library (if you’re lucky enough to have one) or bookcase (more likely), which he believes gives a great snapshot of someone’s life.
I couldn’t resist asking him how he deals with being an unlikely sex symbol, to which he joked it was a but a myth touted by journalists like me. I think we all know that isn’t true! Certainly not judging by the number of readers who tell me otherwise… “Nobody’s ever thrown their knickers at me anyway, ” he adds.
I was lucky enough to meet Kevin a couple of years ago at a media dinner in Melbourne. I can vouch for him being a thoroughly charming, polite, fun, clever and interesting man. He’s exactly as he seems on the telly! I totally meant to tell him that my husband and I watch an old episode of Grand Designs most nights before bed but I’m not even sure that’s a good thing…
Are you a big Kevin McCloud fan? Good news is he is in Australia for both Grand Designs Live Sydney and Melbourne next month. Hoorah! Even better, all my readers can get $10 off tickets.
Launching in Sydney from 18-20 October and continuing in Melbourne from 25-27 October, the exhibition features a bevy of attractions and more than 200 exhibitors. Visitors will find the best ideas and advice for their homes as well as see and hear from celebrity experts, including both the British and Aussie hosts of the Grand Designs programs, Kevin McCloud and Peter Maddison.
If you watched Offspring or The Block, you may have coveted Ali McNabney-Stevens’ colourful artwork, which has been in a few magazines recently. Behind the scenes, this very humble Melbourne artist and mum is just delighted to be doing what she loves day in, day out.
A fellow Pom, she moved here in 2001 after marrying an Australian. “After 5 years in London, he missed the sunshine and we decided to come for 2 years and that was 12 years ago!” There’s no doubt her surroundings have affected her work, with Melbourne’s bustling art scene and cultural diversity a constant inspiration. “Right from the get-go the artistic side of me was fueled. I am a very happy person here and I like to think that my art is happy. It gives me great pleasure in producing it and I guess I hope in turn that it gives others pleasure to hang it on their walls.”
I do love Kevin McCloud. No, not in that way, as I know so many of my female readers do, and not just because he comes from the same part of south west England as me, or because I’ve been lucky enough to meet him in real life, but because of that twinkle in his eye. When he knows a plan is downright ridiculous, he doesn’t hold back and he’s always, quite annoyingly, right. Equally, when he really loves a project, I can’t get enough of his passion. And that voice. Well, it’s just comforting isn’t it? Is it just me?
Kevin McCloud
I know it’s wrong of me but I am a Pom and I just can’t get into the Australian version (sorry!).
I devoured all 8 episodes of season 10 of Grand Designs (out to buy on DVD this week) in two evenings and it did not disappoint. It kicks off with an actor who buys the ruins of castle he used to play in as a boy and virtually builds a house within its frame. His plans for a theatrical, mock 16th century home were the kind that got Kevin raising an eyebrow or two.
I had such a treat earlier this week when I was invited, along with just two other media, to have an intimate dinner with Kevin McCloud and Peter Maddison in Melbourne. Kevin’s here for the first ever Grand Designs Live Melbourne which kicks off today. I do hope you’re planning to go over the weekend if you’re local. I went to the Sydney show last year and will go again this year (that’s next month). Kevin is only able to attend the Melbourne version so if you can, you really should go along! Having spoken to some of the organisers about the amount of work that has been involved behind the scenes, it’s sure to be fantastic!
Kevin lives in the same part of the UK I’m from, so we chatted about that and all kinds of things including Australian homes, social media and the popularity of Grand Designs here. Kevin, whose brother lives in Sydney, is a big fan of Australia.
I really enjoyed my time at Grand Designs Live in Sydney yesterday. Met some great people and saw some great furniture and homewares. Blog fodder collected for the next few months! Had my book signed by Kevin McCloud (and witnessed some serious ‘Kevin Fever’. I mean, he’s a great guy but I wouldn’t perv on him?!) and sat in on a talk by the lovely Shaynna Blaze from Selling Houses Australia on the difference between styling your home to live in or to sell. Was also great to meet Juliet Love from Love Style and her husband Charlie Albone (also from Selling Houses Australia). I think my favourite stand belonged to Sydney newcomers Project 82, who have an amaaaaaaazing online homewares store and just happened to have styled their stand in all my favourite colours!
You can read my interview with Juliet here and my interview with Shaynna here.
