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 Home improvement Coming along nicely - the homes of their dreams (Filed: 17/08/2002) Russell & Janette Harris RUSSELL HARRIS, 44, is a television presenter and producer. He is married to Janette, 32, and they have two children, James, 12, and Sophie, six. The Harrises are converting and extending a Grade-II listed, 1870 water tower in Lymm, Cheshire, into a modern, family home. The build is scheduled to finish early next year.
Jannette has asked me not to talk to her about money any more. She is in Wales taking a break from the project at the moment. We brought in a team of quantity surveyors to go over our accounts and make sure that the money is handled properly: I think we are within budget, but they will just make sure that we are going to be OK. There are nice problems too, though. For example, when we cut open the water tank, we found that the inside was made of a particularly beautiful sort of steel, which had become patinated and so on. Because of the logistics of the site, we couldn't just raise the tank out in one go - it had to be cut down by workmen using blowtorches. But because it is so beautiful, we don't want to cut it up. So we are trying to decide how best to make use of it. Our on-site team from Redrow have been wonderful - especially our manager, Jed Frodsham, who must be about retiring age and has the most amazing knowledge of what can and can't be done. He is a very calming influence on the site, and it's great having someone with so much experience. What I'm finding hard is making the decisions. It's agonising. We still haven't decided on the bathroom fittings and we started that process months ago. We also slyly bring Jannette round to our way of thinking. When we started, she would never have considered a concrete wall on the site, but because our main architect, Julian Baker, and his wife are good friends of ours, we can persuade her over dinner and a glass of wine. We've also been around the country touring other incredible homes for our television series that will show the build. It's a thrill seeing homes like Skywood, the house built in Denham, Buckinghamshire, by Graham Phillips, from the Norman Foster partnership. But it can be daunting afterwards because effectively we are putting ourselves in the same bracket as these incredible homes, and sometimes I wonder what hope we have of creating anything as breathtaking, considering that we are not professional architects. We don't talk about anything else. It has completely taken over my life, people just don't understand. I don't have holidays, I don't have my own car. I don't have time to go shopping. Sometimes I work until 2am. I'm sick of it in many ways, but I keep going on the thought of the house-warming party. I can't wait to have everyone round. When it's all done, I'm going to take a holiday to get over it. There's no point in taking one now: I'd just be worrying." |
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| © 2001 - 2002 Russell Harris |
