Grand Designs: The Streets viewers were left stunned last night after a woman splashed out £35,000 on her dream kitchen which ‘looked like it was from IKEA’.
Jane and Richard, from York, documented the process of building their two separate homes three doors down from each other in the latest instalment of the hit Channel 4 show.
The new couple met through online dating and decided to take advantage of York City Council’s pilot Self-Build scheme – which allowed residents to buy plots of land for under £100,000 to build their dream homes on.
In the wake of her divorce, Jane continued living in the family home with her ex – which had ‘holes in the ceilings in the kitchen’ and gaps in the carpets too.
As such, the mother decided to make her new kitchen a focus of her three-story, five-bedroom house – choosing to spend £35,000 to get it up to scratch.
Pictured: Jane’s finished kitchen which boasted black ceramic surfaces and a trendy herringbone floors
At the onset, Jane set herself a strict £300,000 budget to build her new home – which included its foundations.
However, the build didn’t go entirely without a hitch – with Jane having to find an extra £10,000 to cover the cost of timber, which had sky-rocketed in price.
As a result, host Kevin McCloud noted that Jane could have made savings on her kitchen – but she was adamant that she wanted to stick to the original plan.
After telling Kevin that she had spend £35,000 on her kitchen, which boasted black ceramic counters and herringbone floors, the host couldn’t contain his shock.
Jane told him that this amount also included her new table – prompting Kevin to sarcastically respond: ‘Well that’s such good value!’
Taking a closer look at the surfaces, he joked: ‘What’s it made of then? Gold?!’
Defending her ‘hard-wearing’ choice of material, Jane said: ‘This is my indulgence, this is my investment.
Viewers were shocked by the price of Jane’s kitchen and likened it to something you would see on sale in IKEA
‘It will make my life easier. It does on the surface sound like an incredible amount of money.’
Speaking from his own experience, Kevin said he had previously spent between £5,000 and £7,000 on a kitchen – opting to buy units in sales and then perhaps ‘splashing out’ on a tap.
He added: ‘I would have to swallow very hard to spend £35,000 on a kitchen.’
In response, Jane said: ‘I just wanted it. This is probably where I spend 90 per cent of my waking life.’
Pictured: Jane and her new partner Richard. The couple met online and decided to build their dream homes three doors down from one another
Host Kevin McCloud said he has never spent more than £7,000 on a new kitchen and would only ‘splash out’ on a tab
Pictured: the exterior of Jane’s three-story new-build home in Yorkshire. The mother set herself a £300,000 budget to build it
However, the kitchen didn’t just leave Kevin stunned – as viewers were surprised by how much Jane had chosen to spend too.
One viewer tweeted: ‘Over £30k on a kitchen. Ouch! Jane has expensive tastes.’
Meanwhile, another compared it to an ‘IKEA kitchen’ – which can cost around £1,500.
What’s more, a third blasted the ‘boring grey’ shade of the ceramic.
A fourth added: ”£33,000 on a kitchen ….. is she for real??’
That said, Kevin was impressed with Jane’s drawers, which were kitted out with bespoke oak wooden fittings.
The kitchen was part of Jane’s open-plan living space and overlooked her spacious wraparound garden
On the other side of the room, Jane and Richard have their own enclosed working from home office space
Taking a look around, he said: ‘That is not your standard Swedish high street.’
As Richard knew he would be spending a lot of time at Jane’s property, the father told host Kevin McCloud that he ‘didn’t want to fall too much in love’ with his new home.
He said: ‘If it becomes my little space, my little oasis, then I become too attached to it.’
In response, Kevin said: ‘But if you make it too bland, nobody wants it.’
Before embarking on the project, Jane shed light on the state of her old family family home.
Jane (pictured) said at the offset: ‘Having lived in compromised homes, I want a home that really functions well and is easy to live in.’
She said: ‘We had holes in the ceiling in the kitchen. There was a hole in the wall where the boiler used to be.
There were holes in the carpets up the stairs. As hard as you try, you know it’s never clean and it’s never nice.
I felt like people judged me for it, they’d be like: “Oh she lives in a house like this, it must be awful.”‘
She explained: ‘Having lived in compromised homes, I want a home that really functions well and is easy to live in.’
Following the completion of their two projects, Richard and Jane were delighted with how their dream homes had come together – allowing them to remain close while also having separate family homes for their children from previous relationships.
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