Grand Designs Live

As serial renovators we dream of building our own house one day.

It’s the next logical step for two people who rarely see a house that is already in perfect shape – inside or out – to be our ideal home (or at least one that’s in budget).

I’m constantly frustrated by the parodies of past architecture that pass as ‘new builds’. I think people of the future will find it impossible to define our style when they look back at the buildings put up in the last 20 or 30 years.

Our generation makes great leaps forward and pushes boundaries in science and design every day – but when it comes to housing we seem to have little imagination and willingness to innovate. Or at least, those that do have ideas worthy of 21st century living spaces – I’ve been impressed with what Hemingway Design are trying to do, for example – don’t seem to make it through to the mainstream.

Of course, there are individuals who are the exception and Grand Designs is great programme for showcasing their ambitious projects (even though I wish they’d feature more people with more realistic budgets). I love watching the show for inspiration and although my husband tends not to – he calls it ‘homework’, a chore not escapism, because we’re renovating – he was up for coming with me to Grand Designs Live at Birmingham NEC recently.

Although building our own home is not round the corner for us, more in our 10-year fantasy plan, we were excited at the thought of seeing some innovative design on show that could give us ideas for the future, or even some things we could implement now, albeit on a much smaller scale.

I’d been kindly invited by Nordic furniture maker Ekornes and they even more kindly gave me some spending money while I was there. Unfortunately we actually struggled to find brilliant, stand-out ideas or things we really wanted to buy. We were hoping to see exhibitions by smaller innovators selling unique things for the home you’d never find on the high street, but there was little of this. There were many of the same brands and stalls I’d seen at Interiors UK. Maybe we were being unrealistic or just expecting too much?

Grand Designs Live is certainly a popular show. It was busy, with show goers clogging the narrow lanes in places. Plenty of people seemed to be buying stuff, so perhaps it was just that the things there weren’t really to our tastes.

We came away with this click clock, which we thought was interesting. The digital display shows the time, date and temperature and it’s sound-activated! A little unnecessary, but fun all the same. Unfortunately the other item we ordered, a small appliance for the kitchen, was out of stock we found out later.

Have you ever been to Grand Designs Live? Did you like it?