This week's Grand Designs featured a couple who were chucking money - they were coy about the amounts - at a derelict solarium on top of a former hotel in Bournemouth with the aim of turning it into a luxury penthouse flat. The end result was pretty gorgeous, with the old copper dome of the solarium becoming a feature of the sitting room, which in turn offered fabulous views out over the wintery beach.
The thing about these programmes, though, is that they make me feel inadequate, and something of a slattern to boot. My place, a one-bedroom basement, is pretty nice by central London standards. You know, pale wood floors (wood, not laminate), white walls, a nice glassed-roof extension over the side return: nothing to be ashamed of at all. But, first, it's usually a bit of a tip because real people can't do minimalist; second, I'm never going to have the money to install mood lighting systems, nor put an aquarium in a wall; and third, it could do with a lick of paint, but somehow I never quite seem to have the grand or so that that will cost.
Also, have you noticed that they never have ugly people on Grand Designs? Kevin McCloud is quite easy on the eye, with that trendy, very short hair and his expensively casual clothes. He also always looks comfortable chatting to builders in French when he's doing a programme about some derelict barn in Provence that's being transformed into a chic holiday retreat. Last night's couple, James and Katrin, were attractive 40-somethings, slim, with expensive glasses and a well-groomed look about them, even while the builders were creating all kinds of havoc both for them and their neighbours downstairs.
Perhaps it's time to have a series entitled Modest Designs. Or possibly even Modest Slapping About of Paint. It won't feature a good-looking presenter, nor will it have a battalion of production company designers wanting to do appalling things to your place. The householders will be, well, normal. They won't have hundreds of thousands of pounds to spend on mezzanine levels and spiral staircases, nor will they agonise about which nearly defunct quarry in Italy will be supplying the marble. They'll be a bit grey, a few pounds overweight and will have an old bulky telly, not a big glamorous flat-screen one. In short, they'll be a bit like you and me. Preferably they'll be a tiny bit older than me, their places will be a bit scruffier and, like me, they won't have had the extension's roof cleaned for several years.
One of the secrets of television is to make viewers feel just a tiny bit superior. Modest Designs would do that. There's room for aspirational programmes like Grand Designs, but it would be nice once in a while to feel good about my home as a result of a TV show, not depressed.
