Kevin McCloud, the host of Grand Designs, was astounded to see how a homeowner changed a ‘late night inebriated spur of the moment internet buy’.
Kevin returns to Olaf and Fritha’s dreams to construct an oasis for themselves and their expanding family on a little slice of land in Sussex near a mainline railway and A-road in the next episode of the long-running series.
They encountered several challenges along the road, beginning with the discovery that half of the plot could not even be built on due to an underground mains sewer, leaving them with a very small triangle – and £190,000 in the bank – on which to create their future life together.
Now cameras have returned to Billingshurst to observe how their construction is progressing, with the presenter inquiring about a specific component of their home that was left unfinished two years ago – a double decker bus.
In the first episode, carpenter Olaf bought a double decker bus that had formerly served in Birmingham.
His aspirations to transform it into his final workshop had not yet materialised by the time the programme aired.
When Kevin inquired about the purpose for the purchase, the couple explained how it solved their problem of having a location for Olaf to work because they were unable to construct over the sewer that had been discovered on their block.
Costing them £2600, Fritha said it had been a ‘drunken eBay buy’, while Kevin added it was ‘not glamorous’.
Things didn’t go quite as well as planned when it came to putting the bus on site, with Olaf having to take away a fence and a traffic bottleneck building, but it was ultimately put in position.
Kevin has finally gotten to witness how the pair converted the former commuter truck into a carpentry workshop, and he is impressed by their work.
Kevin discusses how the red bus was ‘inventively reinvented’ in the forthcoming episode of the series.
Gasping as he steps inside, he exclaims: ‘Blimey! You have everything you need. There are big spaces.’
Olaf is pleased with the end outcome and notes that this is the first time he has had a ‘dedicated place’ like this for his projects.
Viewers observed how the couple’s distinctive ‘triangle house’ was erected on an eighth-of-an-acre property situated between a mainline railway line and a major A road in 2021.
At the conclusion of that episode Kevin explained how at the start of the build he saw them as ‘children of innocence, festivalgoers and free spirits’, but ‘by the end you are parents with a house and a mortgage’.
Grand Designs airs Wednesdays at 9pm on Channel 4.