Following its return on Wednesday night, Grand Designs has courted controversy. As Channel 4 aired a brand new episode, fans were introduced to Howard and Sarah – a couple determined to create their very own floating home near Worthing, West Sussex.
A powerhouse pair in the realm of design, Howard, an architect, and Sarah, an interior designer, impressed Kevin McCloud with their ambitious plans.
Explaining that they intended to build a new boat alongside a tidal river bank, Howard said it would be a "highly-engineered steel structure" with views over the estuary, while Sarah emphasised that it would be a "floating family home" as opposed to an ordinary boat.
After extracting an 80-year-old landing craft from the mud and assembling a completely new structure, Howard and Sarah ended up extending their 18-month building schedule, with the programme revealing that it had taken them three years and £465,000 to reach the finish line.
As he headed to the houseboat community for a glimpse of their home, Kevin declared that the structure was a "triumph of architecture, engineering and imagination", but after the credits rolled, fans delivered their less-than-glowing reviews on social media.
Taking to X (formerly Twitter), one wrote: "It's absolutely hideous! I bet it's like a greenhouse in the summer and freezing in the winter."
"Could this be the ugliest home ever on #GrandDesigns? I think so…" quipped another.
"Well, just watched the new Grand Designs [and] that is the biggest pile of [expletive] in the show's history," penned a third, while a fourth remarked: "I bet all the neighbours hate it, it's an eyesore and looks as cosy as a fridge."
Back with a new season, fans last caught up with Grand Designs in October 2024. In a particularly poignant episode, Kevin had taken a walk down memory lane and revisited the show's first-ever build featured in 1998. "Has it survived this seaside location and the fierce weather here? Has it coped with their burgeoning family? So I've come back for New Haven to revisit that first story," the presenter began.
The show even revealed footage from 1998, which showed a young Kevin introducing Tim and Jules to viewers. Still living in the beautiful home 25 years later, the couple spoke about their idyllic life at their forest-side property, revealing that their daughters had loved growing up there and would sleep on the deck every night for almost a year at one point. They now have five grandchildren combined.
