This week’s episode features Ruth and Lindsey, who live in a 1990s developer home near Middlesbrough. Their focus in recent years has been achieving their goal of having a family.
Now, with two young daughters, it’s time for Lindsey and Ruth to tackle their home, which fails to meet the needs of their family. The problems begin the moment they come through the door. The tiny hallway barely allows for a buggy to be brought into the house.
Once inside, it has to be moved through almost every room on the ground floor before it can be put away. Meanwhile, the kitchen has almost no storage and is disconnected from the living spaces where the children play, so the family are rarely all in the same room at the same time.
Ruth and Lindsey are both desperate to solve the problems of their home but cannot agree how. Ruth thinks they should extend into the garage; Lindsey is worried the value of the house will drop if they do, so is keen to extend into Ruth’s beloved garden.
Desperate to finally break the stalemate, they’ve handed over control to two competing architects: Laura Jane Clark’s speciality is the ingenious re-imagining of homes so that they perfectly fit the needs of their owners. She will go head to head with Robert Jamison. Robert has a reputation for the unconventional and draws on his time living on the Indian sub-continent to constantly challenge how we live in our homes.
Each architect interprets the brief in wildly different ways and pitches their vision to Ruth and Lindsey using virtual reality. Laura suggests a bold reimagining of the layout centred around that awkward entrance hall, but has cleverly found a way to link the front of the house to the forgotten garden at the rear. Robert meanwhile offers them a design which would completely alter how they arrive and move through the house. It is also rich in natural materials, which makes Lindsey believe she’s been transported to a different country. Ruth and Lindsey are wowed by both designs, so how can they possibly decide which to go with?
Having experienced both ideas in virtual reality, there is one final reveal yet to come: what Ruth and Lindsey choose to build in real life.
Angela and the winning architect arrive at the once divided and awkward home. They are faced with the most extraordinary transformation, even more amazing than the one in virtual reality. But they also discover that the most significant change here is not in the bricks and mortar, but the ease with which Ruth, Lindsey and their girls can now live together in their incredible new home.
Your Home Made Perfect – Wednesday at 8.00pm on BBC Two.
