George Clarke's Building Home - Season 1

Young married couple Chris and Ellie have returned to where Chris grew up, in Lancashire's beautiful Ribble Valley, to build a home together. After months of struggling to find the perfect property, they ended up buying a run-down bungalow from Chris's grandparents, in sight of his old primary school. But what they thought was a doer-upper has turned out to be a knocker-downer, and so began the months-long process of building a new house from scratch. Despite terrible weather and all the complications of a new build - from bricklaying mistakes to broken feature windows and 'decision fatigue' inside - the couple are determined to hit their schedule and be in by Christmas. For Chris and Ellie, more than other home builders, time is of the essence, as Chris has been diagnosed with stage four cancer.

Keith and Kate decided to up sticks with their children from their home in Glasgow and move to Dunoon on the Firth of Clyde, where Kate's dad grew up and where she came on annual holidays. Dunoon rose to prominence as a Victorian holiday destination and many fine Scottish families built grand homes there. Following that trend, businessman Walter Bergius and his wife Agnes - of the Teacher's Whisky family - built an impressive house with a castle-like tower in 1878 and named it Bonnie Blink. Once the family moved out after World War II, Bonnie Blink became a hotel and now, for the first time in decades, it's set to be a family home again. To make it work as a 21st-century home, Kate and Keith have set about extensive renovations - creating a huge new open-plan, modern kitchen from what was three small dark rooms, turning a guest bedroom into a dining room complete with new French doors onto the stunning views, and a smart snug that harks back to the house's history. But repairing a historic house comes with many expensive surprises. Will they derail their budget before they finish? 

In this brand-new series, George Clarke meets people who are taking on challenging huge builds for powerful emotional reasons, from being drawn back to an area that they've always loved or a place with strong family memories, to taking on a house that's close to their heart - like historic ruins that need rescuing, or a wreck of a beach house. We follow them as they uproot their lives, stretch their finances and test their relationships, all in order to build wonderful homes of their dreams. Kazal and Eleena both grew up and lived in the West Midlands for almost 20 years, before work took them all over the world. Now, after 14 years of living in Dubai, they've come home to Solihull to be close to Kazal's extended family. Although their grown-up children live away from home, Kazal and Eleena have decided to take on the challenge of restoring and massively extending a run-down house in a desirable street, to create the ultimate hub for hosting family gatherings. As well as repairing damage in every room of their ramshackle house, they also plan to pull down the old lean-to and sunroom to create a massive open-plan kitchen, dining room and living room. They also intend to build a second 'spice kitchen' where they can do their party cooking, to keep the mess out of sight. And they're extending the other side of the house upwards with a huge new master suite above the garage, complete with walk-in dressing room and luxury bathroom. But will their plans survive massive cost overruns, mistakes with building plans and having to live in a building site throughout a bitter winter?

In this brand-new series, George Clarke meets people who are taking on challenging huge builds for powerful emotional reasons, from being drawn back to an area that they've always loved or a place with strong family memories, to taking on a house that's close to their heart - like historic ruins that need rescuing, or a wreck of a beach house. We follow them as they uproot their lives, stretch their finances and test their relationships, all in order to build wonderful homes of their dreams. Daniel, Laura and their son Archie have moved to the Essex island of Mersea. Laura and all her family grew up on the island and she wants little Archie to enjoy a unique, idyllic childhood like the one she had there. To make that dream come true, they've bought what is little more than an old, drafty, cramped beach house just a stone's throw from the seaside. But their dream could soon turn into a nightmare as they try to rebuild their run-down space as a modern, sustainable family home, on a budget of £50,000. That money needs to stretch to raising the roof to build a whole new second floor to fit in bedrooms, creating a new steel skeleton for the wooden walls, and insulating the whole house! Dan hopes to keep the costs down by doing most of the work himself with a little help from his brother and dad, but it's a massive undertaking that starts to eat up all his time, energy and money, and push him to breaking point...