Early last year we were invited to take part in a new TV show presented by Sarah Moore of BBC programme Money For Nothing. The opportunity seemed like a no-brainer; free publicity? Yes please…and so we agreed! The idea being that the programme would follow our journey through the highs and lows of building our cabin, in all its recycled pallet wood walled, upcycled corrugated tin roof glory.
Once a month or so we had Sarah Moore and the film crew from HGTV rock up and put us through our paces. Sarah totally bought into the plan that our cabin would be built using recycled wood, reclaimed and repurposed materials wherever we could. This was right up her street.
We’d spent a few years renovating a barn to live in and were left with piles of things that could surely be turned into a cabin. There was corrugated tin sheeting that had been the roof of pig styes; there were roof trusses that had held up the granary store roof; there were pallets which materials had been delivered on; there were fallen trees. A cabin hiding somewhere in there, we just knew it.
The design and build of the cabin had to be organic due to the way we were using our chosen materials. Lots of questions like this from me: “So Pete, we’ve got all these pallets here, how about if you pull them all apart, de-nail them, sand them and then we use them to clad the internal walls?” You can imagine how slow it made our progress.
Right at the start of the filming Pete was made redundant, which was devastating but was obviously going to make great telly. We could almost see the producers rubbing their hands with glee. Seriously though, they were very supportive and made it clear that they would only bring this element into the programme with our blessing. The upside of Pete losing his job was that he could then be totally hands on with the build, putting him in his element.
It was interesting seeing how much filming gets done and how little of it actually ends up in the programme. There must be lots of outtakes somewhere on the cutting room floor. Big elements weren’t included at all, like the fact that I ran a successful Crowdfunding campaign after Pete lost his job and raised £7,500, but I guess they have to edit 10 months of filming into a 30 minute programme.
By the end of the process we felt like pros and the crew all felt like part of the family. I was even baking a cake each time they came to see us.
The programme aired this week on a new channel called HGTV and is called Cash in the Spare Room. Ours is episode 4.
Sarah Moore gave some wonderful feedback about our cabin on the programme. Our favourite being “one woman’s vision, two peoples very hard work and one OUTSTANDING cabin.” Thanks Sarah!
Click on the link below to watch the programme.
https://www.dplay.co.uk/show/cash-in-the-spare-room/video/season-1-episode-4/EHD_275694B
