Kevin McCloud meets Michelle Parsons, an artist and teacher who decided to seize the day and build her own private hideaway in a woodland environment in Essex after she recovered from a serious illness. Together with her architect husband David, Michelle planned to construct a sleek, black-clad, three bedroom house complete with an art studio. However, torrential rain and a potentially disastrous gas leak stalled progress on the build, and as construction gets under way, Kevin wonders whether the couple's decision to eliminate windows on two sides of the property may leave them living in a gloomy bunker.

Grand Designs Season 17 Episodes...

• s17e01 - Gloucestershire: Treehouse
• s17e02 - Horsham: Fun House
• s17e03 - South Cornwall: Wavy Wooden House
• s17e04 - Essex: Black House
• s17e05 - Bolton: Ultra-Modern House
• s17e06 - Pembrokeshire: Low-Impact House
• s17e07 - Devon: Plough-Shaped House
• s17e08 - The Wirral: Floating Timber House

Grand Designs Show Summary

Grand Designs is a Channel 4 TV series covering unusual architectural house-building projects, presented by Kevin McCloud.

The properties featured in the series vary wildly from homes underground to converted water towers, with the only common factor being that they're all rather unusual or extravagant in some way.