Ugly House to Lovely House With George Clarke | 25th Feb 8pm | Channel 4

The first episode of Channel 4's Ugly House to Lovely House with George Clarke features a 1970s house that is now a stunning contemporary home

The 'ugly duckling' house before its remarkable transformation

Your home is your castle, but what if you're not in love with how it looks - what if your home is branded as ugly?

The owners of this 1970s house in the Vale of Glamorgan wanted to transform their ugly duckling of a home into a swan and Channel 4 and Betty Productions' new show Ugly House to Lovely House, presented by expert architect George Clarke, came to the rescue.


Their home is the debut story on this brand new property series starting tonight (February 25) at 8pm on Channel 4.[tonight]


This new show chapions the power of great architecture to transform undervalued and unloved British houses into exciting spaces in which to live.

Channel 4

Owners Sarah and Tony outside their ugly house before George and architect Greg answered their plea for helpGeorge Clarke says: “I’m delighted to be presenting Ugly House for Channel 4. Phenomenal architecture and design should be available to everyone and this show will hopefully bring it to the masses, showing us how we can turn our unloved houses into homes.”

In each programme, innovative and awarding-winning architects will grapple with an "ugly" house and remodel it into a home that works and excites the owners. The results will be surprising, inspiring, and challenge our ideas about how we live in the 21st century.

The Vale of Glamorgan home was the project for London based architects Blee Halligan, who have also worked on BBC's property programme The£100k House.

Watch the trailer:

Greg Blee, director of the company, says: "This home was a typical utilitarian standard house, some might say boring, but it is located on a rural site with a stunning view.

"The brief of the project was to make the most of the setting, including the look of the home, but pebble-dash doesn't sit well in a rural setting. So externally we used natural materials that will weather-down and sit more comfortably within this rural surrounding.

"We also wanted to maximise the views, and as these homes typically have smaller windows, we made opening up the window spaces a priority to make a dramatic connection with the landsacpe.

Channel 4

Taking the decor back to basics literally

"These types of homes are typically well built and this one had no structural problems. In fact, these types of homes convert well into modern open-plan living spaces as many of the internal walls are not load-bearing so can be removed.

Channel 4

Contemporary Scandi styling comes to the Vale of Glamorgan

"It makes these types of houses very flexible. We've opened up the spaces and connected the house with the outdoors."

Channel 4House to garden connection through vast glass windows and doors

Channel 4

Room for all the family and many friends to eat and entertain in the new extension

The design of the new extension came purely out of solving a problem. The Shard-like structure was not a preconceived design, more a contemporary solution to the fact that the house sits on a steep plot and the garden is shallow.


Greg says: "To do a conventional box extension would have ruined the garden. The wedge shape does not take a large chunk out of the garden and it is also positioned to capture the best sunlight.

Channel 4

The Vale of Glamorgan's own 'mini-Shard' shaped building

Channel 4

The amazing extension is also an amazing sun trap

Channel 4

"The owners are delighted with the results, they love it. It was a really good project to work on as Sarah and Tony are a young couple who are very design savvy with strong contemporary ideas."

Iconic property site once used by U2 music super group as a recording studio to be redeveloped 

The core of the series is about making the most of the home that you have; recognising its potential and transforming it into an amazing new space to love, with the help of some of the UK’s finest architectural minds.Big transformations will be underpinned by a sense of real and positive social purpose, sticking to average budgets of around £50,000. 

For a young generation, who thought they would never be able to afford their own home, this series will inspire them to look at a whole swathe of housing stock in a brand new way. Ex-local authority properties, for example, can be significantly cheaper than comparable private properties and, with a little ingenuity and help from an architect, they can be transformed into dream homes

A girls' secondary school in south London has won the Riba Stirling Prize, the UK's leading architecture award. 
With the property market growing increasingly competitive, this isn't about redeveloping your house for profit and selling it on so you can upscale. This is about loving the house you live in - and reimagining what you can afford in an amazing new light, with the help of some of the UK’s finest architectural minds.


Whether the property needs reconfiguring to meet the needs of a modern family or redesigning to transform an eyesore into a home the owners can be proud of, the aim of the show is to help people to completely re-imagine their houses.


All the plans and the plans and details from the series will available on Channel4.com so viewers too, can draw inspiration from the six great architects in the series, to create their own imaginative homes.


GRAND DESIGNS: RIBA HOUSE OF THE YEAR 2015+ Feng Shui Interpretation 


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