HEARD the story about the woman who sent her partner to buy a two bedroom flat in Glasgow and he came home with an uninhabitable, money pit of a villa in Dunoon?
Rather puts into perspective that recent argument with your other half over bringing home the wrong type of milk.
“There were quite a few tears,” says Claire Segeren, 23, from Toronto, whose boyfriend Cal, 26, from Hull, was the hapless soul who accidentally bid on the wrong unit at auction.
What happened next is set out in a new documentary series, Accidental Renovators (BBC One Scotland, Friday, September 30, 7.30pm). Finding out the bid was legally binding, the couple wondered what to do. The place had been lying empty for dozens of Dunoon winters so it was in a state of near collapse.
Tear it down and start again the couple were advised. They chose to stay and try to fix it, despite having no experience of renovation and just £10,000 left in the bank. Oh, and being environmentally principled sorts they wanted to do the job sustainably, natch.
After the tale of Jameswood Villa in Dunoon was posted on social media the story attracted attention from Wales Online to Fox News. Donations came in, totalling £3000. Other people offered their labour in return for a place to stay, food, and trips around the local area on days off. Peggy, a volunteer from Virginia, says she backed her fellow millennials (people born in the 1980s or 1990s) “because we never get good stories about us”.
The locals were supportive too. Mary and Ann, neighbours, brought soup and sympathy. Mary also asked if they were off their heads to take on such a project. At this point I was firmly on the side of Team Mary. You know on Grand Designs when it reaches the dead of winter and the build is mud and mayhem, and you wonder who on Earth would expose themselves to such grief? Well Cal and Claire are in that situation with knobs on (or rather off; they don’t have a roof yet never mind doors). They do have a caravan on site, but that hardly looks one star never mind five.
Narrated by Gail Porter and told in four parts, Accidental Renovators is as much a study of a relationship as it is the story of a build. Watch through the fingers stuff, definitely to be viewed from the safety and comfort of the sofa.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here