Tonight | Grand Designs: New Zealand on ABC and ABC iview

Grand Designs: New Zealand on ABC – Warrick Hyland makes things happen.

He’s a builder, cabinet maker and farmer. He can turn his hand to almost anything so when his wife Judy said she wanted to set up a local market in Kerikeri, he made it happen.

Not only did he build her a market but also their own home, not that he actually ever got around to quite finishing it. However it was always going to be a temporary base for the couple who share a blended family of six children and ten grandchildren.

Fast forward seven years, now the owners of the thriving weekend market and a too-small-not-quite-finished home are about to tackle another project – the biggest house they can afford on a budget.

Except just one thing, Warrick, is going to be hands off for the biggest build of his life. Judy is insistent – she wants this house finished and, as far as she’s concerned, the only way to achieve it is to put the responsibility of the build in another man’s hands.

And it’s not a job for the faint hearted. The house is going to be 600 square metres with four bedrooms and three kitchens. The interior will feature textured concrete walls, hardwood beams and there will be giant ten metre long glass doors framing the spectacular view out to the Bay of Islands.

But the question is, in a time of escalating building costs, will the budget blow out and will the man, with building running deep in his DNA, be able to stand back and watch while other people build his house?

Production credit: Based on the format “Grand Designs” devised by Talkback Thames, a Fremantle Media company.

Grand Designs: New Zealand on ABC – Thursday 13 April, 2023 on ABC and ABC iview