Chat Ed : Welcome to this evening's GRAND DESIGNS chat with Angela and Philip Traill!
Philip : Hello everyone, we're here and ready to take your questions after watching the very interesting programme.
Richard N Rachel : Good evening P&A
Angela : Hi, hope you enjoyed the programme as much as we did :)
Simon Luck : Hi Phillip and Angela, I came to your wedding, and I remember the enormous amount of energy you had then, I can see how it has progressed and helped you in building such an amazing house. But where was the TV?!
Angela : The TV is in the study which is behind the double-fronted fireplace.
wrighty : just watched the program, thought the finished barn looked fantastic!!! just wondered what exactly was all the cable running the house! it was not discussed in much detail on show!
Philip : The cables were of 2 forms, one was volts and the other one was no volts (CAT5 e) for lighting, TV, telephones, network, heating controls.
Lucy : ANGELA - THIS IS ABI ELLSON'S SISTER LUCY WRITING - wanted to say well done on a fantastic job and also to ask you to contact me as Abi has lost your number and is desperate to get in touch.
Ali Gabriel : Why did you put Cat5 in and not a wireless network ?
Swifty : Or fibre optics?
Angela : Lucy...go to our website www.threshingbarn.co.uk and there's an e-mail contact on there, mail us!
Philip : Wireless is always easy to do in the future and CAT5 is very good now and very good for the future. Fibre optics has a complexity in a house environment.
Margaret : Just wanted to say what a beautiful, beautiful home - the best I have seen for a long time
Michael and Dominiqu : Hi Well done. What a triumph. You never mentioned heating. Can you tell us about what you did?
Angela : The whole barn is under floor heated. It was really hard to find a supplier to do upstairs as well as downstairs. We found one system that worked upstairs because they usually only do it downstairs and make you have radiators upstairs, but we were insistent that we wanted to keep as much space as possible there.
Carol : Phillip how is your health now - you looked tired at the end of the build
PeterS : It was a great programme tonight - very inspiring _ I'd like to ask how Phillip is now?
Emma : How are you doing Philip?
Angela : He's really well and he's put on weight.
Emma : Excellent news!!!
Angela : He slept for the whole week following the end of the build!
davee : have the builders recovered?
Angela : They must have because they are sitting at this moment in their local cricket club after watching the programme together. I send a toast to them a big thank you.
Emma J : Congratulations on a fantastic build - I loved the kitchen units! Did you simply choose the woods for the inlay and then have the units specifically built?
Angela : We commissioned a master craftsman called Lionel Daniels and his hobby is wood. He knows every piece of wood around and when we met him we wanted to bring that out in the kitchen. We decided that the base wood would be sycamore and then we hand picked veneers of different species, 24 to be exact, so that every panel is different. Our favourite is the quilted maple that looks 3 dimensional. It's fantastic.
olivia : My husband and I absolutely LOVED that design and realisation, best Grand Designs yet!
PeterS : the builders seemed to be very cooperative - a great advert for them I think
Rascal : what did the builders think to the finish of the project?
Carla : It looks very impressive
Angela : I think they are very proud of what they have achieved. They had converted barns in the past but never with such a contemporary stance on it. I think they are pleased, and perhaps a little bit surprised at the end result.
Lucinda : Superb build how have your children settled in and where do you hide their toys
Ali Gabriel : What do your children think of their new home ?
Emma : Is such a place easy to keep tidy, espeically with two children?
Philip laughs
Angela chuckles
Angela : The children adore it - their behaviour has changed. They love the space, they love the music and the disco lights, we dance every night before we go to bed! And in terms of toys they each have their own room and there is a small selection of toys in the study hidden away.
Jill : The lighting looks incredible and it was very expensive too. Is it all remote controlled?
Angela : It's both manual and remote controlled.
Philip : It is totally automated in that a single switch will create total mood setting.
Angela : So you might have in one room, 8 different themes of lighting so there is a cocktail switch, a smoochy switch etc.
Philip : The actual supplier for the lighting control was www.ilight.co.uk You can actually change what any switch does as you require it. Huge light flexibility. We got the actual lights from www.deltalight.co.uk
Dave : I think this has been one of the best Grand Designs I have ever seen. Would you ever sell it?
Little Miss : I'm sure it is priceless to you but have you had the barn valued?
Philip : No we'll never sell it.
Angela : No way!
Angela laughs
Philip : And we never intended to, it's a house for life.
barndoor : Why have a modern design in an anceint building, why not build all from scratch, and leave these barns alone??
Angela : If we had left it, it would have eventually come to its downfall. The concrete tiles on the roof were dragging the structure down - the foundations were shifting, so something needed to be done. The whole point of our design is that we have respected the history of the building.
Philip : Throughout the project archaeologists recorded the barns and the out-buildings, so there is written documentation of everything that happened to them.
Jill : Is the barn a listed building? How did the planning officer react to the initial designs?
James : I'd really be interested to know whether the local planning department were sympathetic to the design?
Philip : Yes it was a grade 2 listed building. We discussed it prior to planning with the historic building officer and the planning officer.
Angela : We had very open lines of communication with the council and tried to take the lead from them. When we did put in a planning application we had already taken on board all of the input from those authorities.
alexa : Have you encountered any unfavourable reactions from neighbours?
Angela : People definitely had a problem with the parking when we were building - we had a lot of workmen here because we condensed the build into 6 months. But now it's all over and done with I think that everyone is happy with it.
Penny : have you experienced any post-build problems?
Philip : Yes there is a snagging list of which we are still working on, but no serious issues.
Emma : Is there anything you would have done differently?
Rascal : what is it like living in your dream home????
Angela : No, we just love the sense of space and freedom. And it's like living in a piece of sculpture.
Philip : It has been a huge learning curve as we've never done it before.
Angela : Actually I would have allowed myself more planning time to start with I think.
dad : Have the kids started throwing water bombs off the walkway yet? if i was a kid i might be tempted :)
Angela laughs
Angela : They haven't done that, but they have great skidding matches on the wooden floor and we pull them around on top of a blanket - they love that!
AndrewG : It's a fabulous place, enjoy!
alexa : thank you
topsy : first time here i dont get caught up in a lot of channel 4 progs
Carla : Goodbye and thanks for coming :-) All the best in your home
Angela : Thank you all for watching, like you we love the programme and it was really strange to be on it ourselves, it's given us a fantastic record of our build though, so that's wonderful to have a film record of it. And Kevin McCloud really is funny and good fun to work with.
Philip : And we'd just like to thank everybody who was involved in the programme and the build from Peter Shoesmith to the specialised individuals.
david : Well done to every-one, great show!
peter p : keep well
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