Original subtitles

In the city of Bath,

antiques dealer and salvage expert Drew Pritchard

is fulfilling a lifelong dream...

Oh, my word. Look at that!

...taking on his biggest restoration project to date.

It's a big, daunting prospect. I'm gambling the lot.

He's trading almost everything he has for his dream home,

a 230-year-old Georgian townhouse.

This was the house I always dreamed of.

But, after decades of neglect,

the house has the potential to be a disaster.

And there was water pouring through the ceiling and this whole floor was flooded.

Perfectly restoring the dilapidated Grade I listed building

will take meticulous attention to detail...

This is stuff we're going back on and we're doing it the right way.

...will test Drew's patience.

This is bad. There's metal holding the house up.

Really don't need this. Not now.

...and demand every penny he has.

If I haven't got the money by Monday, we'll have to stop.

Will Drew, alongside master builder Kieran...

I didn't know about nipping off the corners.

Learn a new thing every day.

...and conservation architect Rhys

be able to overcome the biggest challenges he's ever faced...

This could have killed somebody. Multiple people.

...to achieve his ultimate salvage success?

Oh, it is genuinely exciting.

It's now 14 months into Drew's mission

to restore his newly acquired Grade I listed home back to its former glory.

We need to do a drill test in this. Yeah.

When work began, the plan was to

renovate the house from top to bottom.

However, due to huge costs and numerous unforeseen setbacks...

Slight change of plan, I've run out of money.

- Okay. - But I don't want you guys leaving site.

Drew made the drastic decision to scale back work

and only focus on the top two floors to give himself a liveable space.

At the moment, I can afford to do these top two sections.

I have to get everything absolutely right.

So I can't scrimp, but I can do these two bits right for now,

and I'd rather do it that way, and then we will -

we'll try and find a solution for the rest of the house as and when.

Completing the restoration is costing Drew

everything he's ever worked for.

Any renovation comes with issues.

And my issue was I spent all of the money I had on buying the house.

I've sold off the warehouses.

All my own collection of antiques and art.

And the biggest sacrifice that I could make to complete this

is selling my lovely cottage in Conway.

But that's, that's what's going to happen.

It's all gone into here, and I've made the decision

to move into this house in its unfinished state

into these top two floors,

because I've got nowhere else to go.

This is it now. I am all in, you know.

And it's worth it. It's absolutely 100% worth it.

But with the top floors still a long way from completion,

yet another structural problem has come to light.

While Drew is away sourcing items for the house,

head builder Kieran Dixon-Squier has discovered a worrying void

in a structurally critical supporting wall

that runs the length of the ground floor.

So we found that we've got considerable rot

in one of the main beams that runs through

the central part of the house.

The rot has caused the masonry to drop.

They've had some great builders at some point

because they've basically just filled the gap with expanding foam

and then plastered over it.

Conservation architect Rhys Brookes

is a specialist on Grade I-listed Georgian properties.

and works closely with local planning and heritage officers

to ensure that issues like this are dealt with correctly.

Okay. Let's have a look then

Oh, look at that.

Nice bit of fungal - It's not a good sign. - No.

And also, by the looks of it...

Expanding foam.

You've have to look to gap that.

Yeah, there's a lot of fungal activity... Yeah.

obviously for a prolonged period, which probably explains why,

you know, it's going - right down here. - Yeah.

So we've had basically water ingress in this corner,

which has caused a major outbreak of fungal activity,

which has affected this area of floor

and has also affected the structure.

So that floor timber is in serious distress

and that explains the anomaly in the basement as well

with a secondary structure in that column.

- Yeah. - Obviously, they've had stress here

and they've done - remedial work in the past. - Yeah.

Not very well, by looks of it.

Anyway, shall we go and have a look at the other side?

Over the years, 'Serpula Lacrymans' fungus

has eaten the organic compounds of the oak beam, leaving it brittle and cracked,

and destroying its structural integrity.

You can literally, probably - That was a piece of wood.

Not anymore.

And then they've inserted a second one below this.

And that's one that's held - on that metal column. - Yep.

But we have some fungal activity - in that as well. - Yeah.

We need to pick this up as quickly as we can.

- Yeah. - I think. - Get it safe. - Yeah.

Yeah. I'm slightly anxious how far back this goes.

We need to open up the ceiling to work it out.

The oak beams sit on stone pillars in the basement

and support the joists on the ground floor,

and the walls of all the floors above.

To fix the original rotten beam, builders in the early 19th century

inserted a second oak beam underneath

and propped it up with a cast iron column.

But that beam has also rotted,

causing the walls and staircase above to drop.

We've found there's quite a major issue.

It looks very dramatic, it looks like a big problem, um,

and a lot of people would run quite scared from that.

We have a piece of timber which is 14 inches deep

which is big, you know, and that's all crumbling.

So if that was to totally fail,

we'd have a 14-inch cavity in the structure,

which means we could get a structural collapse

of one of the internal walls.

A few days later, Drew's returned from a buying trip

to see the damage for the first time.

Oh, my God. Yeah.

It's not pretty.

So this is... Oh, my God. ...what we sent you the photos of.

- Yeah. - And then we started to unpick it, that's what we found.

- Oh, God. - So this beam did carry right the way through.

And obviously isn't there anymore. Yeah.

But this one below has also rotted out.

So this is the 18th-century one? Yes.

So that's a 19th-century addition? We believe so, yeah.

Because of the steel post. How far does the rot go back?

Can I go in here? We know -

You can pop your head in to the other side.

We know it's completely rotted out back to at least here.

What is it? Is it oak? - Yeah. - Yeah.

Am I looking at massive costs?

- It looks like it. - It's - That looks, that looks expensive.

It's resolvable. Yeah.

I've got my head around it now, but that is quite shocking to see.

So, this here. Are you putting another piece of timber in there?

Well, no. What we would probably look at doing

is rebuilding that in masonry.

- At least we found it. - Yeah. God knows what that's going to cost.

Okay. Got no choice. Let's get stuck into it

To avoid costly delays,

a structural engineer has already been consulted

on how to rectify the problem.

The main concern that the structural engineer has now is

if you ever had a fire or something happened to that column,

then you probably don't have a house for very long.

Okay. So what's the plan?

Well, the simple solution is to help support that column

column by putting a concrete prop underneath that main beam.

So wall from here, yeah? - Yeah. - Yeah.

- - To here?Yeah. - Yeah. - Okay.

How quickly can we do this? We speak to the conservation officer

and let them know what's going on.

Already notified them that we have a problem.

It is structurally very delicate, so I want to get it done ASAP.

Obviously, the engineer's gonna have quite lot of input in this... Yeah.

...because he's going to want to say exactly how we construct it.

Don't try and butter me up, but how safe is this?

There's people living in here. I know.

It's safer than when you bought it 'cause we've identified the problem.

and we've, rather than having one column,

we've now got seven or eight effective columns holding it up.

This could have killed somebody. - Multiple people. - Yeah.

There's people living in this bit and there's people living there.

I can see it's shored up now - and it's safer than it ever was. - Hm.

It makes my teeth itch thinking about...

people living in here and us all wandering around in it.

You can rest easy. That'll be done.

I can't rest easy with this. Look at it.

Hmm. That's holding up the house.

Don't know whether to laugh or cry. At least they found it.

In essence, basically what the engineer is saying

is that cast iron column is holding up the whole centre of the house.

And if it fails, it would bring down the centre of the building

like a pack of cards all the way through,

taking the cantilevered staircase with it.

It's water ingress again. And then, time.

How much time is this gonna add to the job?

You know, I'm gonna take Alec and John and Kieran

away from doing other things to go into this.

And lastly, obviously, it's cash.

It's going to cost a considerable amount of money to do it.

Not in materials so much, but in labour and time.

And then there's just that worry, that tiny little worry,

you know, fiddling away in the back of my head, thinking,

"What if that pillar goes one night?"

"It falls down." You know?

it would be a total loss.

Just as things were starting to look up,

with the top two floors weeks away from being finished,

Drew Pritchard's dream is under threat once again.

Oh, my goodness. Look at the size of this fungal activity.

Not one, but two oak beams

supporting the entire central wall of the house

have rotted through.

This could have killed somebody. Multiple people.

With 7 additional structural supports now in place,

the house is now safe whilst they wait

for the structural engineer to approve Rhys' planned remedial works.

It's yet another setback for Drew,

so today, local antique dealer and old friend Vickie Macintosh,

wants to remind Drew that it will all be worth it

with a visit to one of the finest examples of Grade I-listed

Georgian architecture in the UK.

I've seen Drew's house, and it is in a wonderful location,

but, my goodness, he has bitten off rather a large project.

So I'm very excited today to be bringing him to somewhere

he has never been to before,

which is No.1 Royal Crescent in Bath.

The 150-metre-long Royal Crescent is the most iconic example

of Georgian architecture in Bath.

No.1 is a fully restored, period-correct museum,

with numerous once-fashionable design cues,

which can also be found in Drew's house.

- Here we are. - No.1Royal Crescent. Great address, best address in Bath.

Second best address in Bath.

Oh, look at that. That's lovely, isn't it? Staircase.

Mine's not like that at all.

- Not like that? - No. I'm not even in the building

and I'm looking at the colour, lighting, floors,

how important they are. They're the first things that struck me.

Let's have a look - in the dining room. - Oh, yeah.

That's lovely. God, that's grand, isn't it?

That is grand. Wow!

It's just been beautifully restored, - hasn't it? - Yeah.

At night, when all the fronts of the houses were lit by candles,

it would have just been incredible.

And they would have done this every night.

Wasn't special occasions. - Yeah. No. - This was dinner.

That's what you'll do, isn't it? Every night, yeah. Formal dinner.

I'll unfold the bag of chips out...

...on the table. Undo the can of beans. Yeah.

Oh, wow. Look at that.

That's got something about it, isn't it? - That's lovely. - Yeah.

There's a duelling ground down there.

A duelling ground? Yeah.

It's right down there.

This very grand house, it's got the wow factor.

And I go, "Oh, mine's a little bit like this."

That's really exciting.

I hope my house is as warm. It's toasty.

Look at that, look at that colour. And it's fantastic.

Oh, this is a... Whoa! ...games room, isn't it? Wow.

Again, it's a lot grander than mine, but there's bits I can pick up

I do love the flock wallpaper.

See, with the brass banding, - holding it. It's a nice touch. - Yeah.

It must have been so amazing.

The fire would have been roaring all the time.

They'd have been playing poker, banging out the Bach classics

And then that view. Must have felt - like the king of the world. - I know.

This is a great example of restoration.

When you walk into the rooms, you get a real feel of

how life would have been, and it really takes you back.

- You know the best bit? - Go on. - Putting all the furniture in. - Yeah.

That makes it all worth it. - The pain is worth it. - Yeah.

Keep the faith. I know.

This is great. It's a feast for the eyes.

'cause I'm just picking up little tiny detail,

and it's those tiny details that matter when you start

to screw the place back together.

These are all things I can take back with me and look again.

Only five minute walk away, so I'll be able to

come down here, go, "Okay, fine," or walk up and go

"Oh, no, that's not gonna work. That will work."

This is what I'm good at. I'm good at picking up

this nerdy, tiny details. I'm good at that side of things.

With the urgent repair work, there's little Drew can do at the house.

So he's on the road again, looking for fixtures and fittings for his top-floor bathroom.

And as with everything else on the restoration,

period-correctness is paramount.

Today, I'm on the long drive over to Norfolk

and I'm going to see a mate of mine, long-term trade contact and friend Sam Koster at Mongers.

I only want to use reclaimed

sanitaryware throughout the whole house.

It's just way better than anything being produced today.

It's not just ordering out of a catalogue,

which is a thousand times ease with what I'm doing.

But it hasn't got any soul.

On the edge of the market town of Hingham is Mongers,

a sprawling, appointment-only architectural salvage business.

For over a quarter of a century, it's been a one-stop shop

for everything from reclaimed flooring

to Victorian bathrooms.

It's owned by veteran dealer Sam Koster.

We've always been a reclamation yard

and we want reclamation to be at the forefront of what we do.

But our ethos has always been that we need to restore items

to get them back to a usable condition.

So many plumbers would say

they can't get the parts for the old taps.

So what we thought was we will restore all the items for them.

We will create bathrooms that are usable in this century

for modern-day living.

- - Sam. - Drew! - Hello, mate. How are you?

Haven't seen you for ages. - Good to see you. - Yeah.

How are you? I'm very well. Yourself?

I'm good. What brings you to Norfolk?

Well, a lot. This is part of a list. That's a tiny bit of what I need.

Let me have a look. - I need a lot of stuff. - Yeah.

So you've bought a period property. Period property.

It was built in 1790. No bathrooms. - - Right. - At all. - Yeah.

The Victorians have put two pillars on either side of the back of the house.

Right....with small bathrooms extending all the way up - on each floor. - Okay, okay.

What you get when you buy reclaimed sanitary ware is absolute quality.

The Victorians and the Edwardians in their way,

particularly the Victorians, really went for it, you know.

They thought, "Here's this new thing.

Inside-working, flushing loos, hot running water,

we're going to engineer the hell out of this."

And I've got the opportunity to put... these back in.

- A few bits on display. - Oh. That looks great. Oh, I love that.

So very elegant.

So we've done some - restoration work to that. - Okay.

But it's a nice object. This is about 1900, 1905, Edwardian.

But, you know, when you're putting bathrooms into a Georgian house

uh, they would have evolved.

The Victorians would have only had enough hot water for one bathroom anyway.

So a bit later on, they would have added extra bathrooms.

So it's not a period thing, it's more of a stylistic thing.

The evolution is something that you've hit on there...

Yeah....which is exactly my point with the whole thing.

So, we get from 1790 when it was built,

so the carcass of the building is going back to that... Yes.

And then it's the evolution. - Yes. - After that.

So trying to hit on what would have been in there.

In the roof, I need a bath.

- Taps. Mixer. Shower. Sink. - Okay. - - Loo. - Mm-hm. - Seat. I need the lot.

A lot to go to go there. Okay.

Sounds like it's gonna be expensive, Drew.

Yeah, it's gonna be expensive.

What finish are you thinking of all of these bits and pieces?

I really like worn nickel finishes.

I really like the marble, worn marble finishes.

So that's one fit. How much is that one?

It's got a price tag on it, Drew. 950 quid.

And I'll need a waste. Yeah.

But I'll need taps as well. And you like old nickel.

I like old nickel. Yeah.

I have a pretty pair of solid nickel taps that might suit that,

but they're in my little tap store. Okay.

I'm looking for things that really speak to me,

but also, they have to work.

The bathroom is one of the hardest working rooms in your house.

You want it to be beautiful and to be quality.

You're gonna get both of those things with antique,

but you also want it to work. And that's where Sam comes in.

- Your toilet pans. - Yeah. A good selection of them are here.

Hmm. You can see the evolution

of these loos through as well, - can't you? - Yeah.

'Cause they are a mechanical

engineering marvel. Aren't they, this stuff?

They really are. Absolutely.

Well, there's a few pieces here which might work.

That one possibly as a closed couple cistern.

That's a more 30's deco toilet pan.

really like that, sort of - It's almost brutalist, that style.

I have up in my store

a cistern that might work very nicely with that.

How much is that one? How much are we looking?

So that's 300 quid. It's good value.

I think what we need to do is look - at stuff in your storeroom. - Yeah.

This is the workshop and store.

Quite straightforward. Top of the house

would've been servant's quarters. No one ornamentation to the doors.

Door casings. Nothing. Right.

So you want the bathrooms to go with that sort of mentality.

That look, that feel.

That deco pan you're looking at... Yeah.

...this cistern will go nicely with that. It's the Bristol.

Okay, so I can see you've already - renewed all of this. - Yeah.

This is all ready to go.

That's nice.

So, price for that one. How much did you say?

- Uh, it's, it's about 300. - And then - the loo itself is 300. - Yeah.

So what are we talking? 500 quid? No, we're talking 600.

600 quid. What about the pipe? I'll throw that in.

Throw the pipe in. Right, okay. The pipes are £80.

So 600 quid, I'm knocking 80 quid off.

That's a good deal, okay.

I think that one is perfect for the upstairs bathroom.

So he pulls out cistern and loo.

Yes. Done. Very straightforward, but very plain. Perfect.

So we're ticking them off. At the moment, I'm thinking,

"Right, bar the shower sections, I've got everything

for the servant's quarters bathrooms, right?"

I think the whole aesthetic I'm doing the house to,

they're gonna add to it and they feel authentic as well. It feels right.

So we'll do a couple of pairs of mixer taps for you.

And then the biggest shower head you can get.

Yeah, well, they work out about, uh, 800.

- - Done. - Done. - Finished. Yeah, something like that.

- Brilliant. Thank you. - Very good. Much appreciated. Right.

We'd better go and do some paperwork.

With a toilet and cistern for £600, a basin for £950,

and two sets of nickel taps and a shower riser for £800,

the reclaimed Victorian sanitaryware

for the top floor bathroom is almost complete.

We've got the raw materials now.

We're not going to get to a finished product today.

A lot of emails backwards and forwards,

a lot of photographs, a lot of sizes.

We're on our way and we've really broken the back of it.

- Thanks, Sam. - Very good. - Nice seeing you. - Take care. Bye-bye.

While Drew's been on the road...

...back in Bath, work is underway in the basement,

on a permanent solution to the structural problems

that threaten the entire house.

The plan is to build a wall that will sit under the lower beam,

which has now been reinforced with three 200mm-wide steel joists.

What we've been doing over the last few days

is we've inserted the additional steels

that are needed to support this spine wall,

which is taking basically the staircase

and a big chunk of the house, all the way up through the building.

We're now gonna carefully lift the slabs that we've got down here.

That is where the new wall has got to go,

to pick up and take off some of the load from the steel column

and the additional steelwork we've put in.

So we're gonna dig down to hopefully find

some solid ground that we can cast a footing onto.

This has already been dug once, years ago.

So it's all loose. So we've gotta go down till we find hard ground.

It could be 300 mil, it could be 900 mil.

We're looking for ground that's been undisturbed,

hadn't been dug before, touched. So it'll be a clay base, hopefully.

So then the concrete will have a firm ground to sit on.

As the wall will be taking such a huge load,

they need to find a solid foundation to build a footing on.

And that means they need to dig...

...and dig...

...and dig.

So, so far, we're down to 800 below floor level,

and we still haven't hit really solid ground.

So we've stopped digging at that point,

'cause there's only so far you can safely dig down

without undermining what's around.

If Keiran can't find solid ground soon,

then Drew's house may be faced with yet another issue.

In Bath, Keiran and John are still looking for solid ground.

That is where the new wall has got to go.

So we're gonna dig down to hopefully find

some solid ground that we can cast a footing onto.

So, so far, we're down to 800 below floor level.

But after a lot of digging, there's no sign of anything suitable.

So now we're gonna do some drill testing

and see if we can find some, hopefully,

solid stone or virgin soil down below,

er, and see what we can do there.

That's a good start.

That's not.

That is...

We've got some...

...hard and soft.

That's pretty soaked all the way through there.

Ah. We're finally down to something

certainly more solid than we've come across so far.

And, hopefully, it will be solid enough

for the structural engineer to allow us to then cast a footing.

Yeah, that's definitely clay.

Which basically means it's down to, hopefully, virgin soil,

er, which means it hasn't been dug out before.

I think we're all good.

While Drew is still on the road,

he's now on the hunt for original radiators,

like the ones the house would have had

when internal heating pipes were added in the early 20th century,

more than 100 years after the house was built.

The house was never designed to have radiators,

but there are spaces which fit radiators perfectly.

So what I'm doing is, I'm gonna try and find

reclaimed radiators that fit that space,

stylistically that I like, and there's one particular type that I want,

erm, but also may have been the first time

cast iron radiators were ever used in that house.

Thirty-five minutes from the house,

down near Frome, reclaimed radiator specialist.

He's been over to the house, he's measured up,

and I'm hoping I can now go and pick the first eight radiators.

So I have to get this bit absolutely right

and stick to my principles.

Reuse, salvage, period-correct.

At the eastern end of the Mendip Hills in Somerset

is the town of Frome.

Just two miles from the town centre

are the warehouses of Reclaimed Radiators,

a family-run business specialising in the supply and restoration

of original cast iron radiators dating from the early 20th century.

Showing Drew what's on offer is owner, David Lucas.

- Hello. How are you doing? - Hello.

- - Drew. - Drew, hi. - How you doing? Nice to meet you, I'm David.

Right. So, erm, you know why I'm here?

- - Yeah. Radiators. - Radiators. - Yeah.

Cast iron radiators. Why would you want to use them?

Number one, for me, it's really green.

They were designed like an engine, to come apart

and be taken apart, and fix it, and then it works again.

You don't have to buy another one.

Secondary, they look great.

They look really cool.

Number three, they're very efficient.

You're doing a good thing.

You're reclaiming something, you're reusing it,

and you're employing craftsmen to do it.

It's a win-win all round. This is what I'm after.

Right. Yeah. That is exactly what I want.

- Yeah. - That's exactly what I want.

- Yeah. - Lovely. So you like the treble Princess.

- That's lovely. - There's another one. There's a matching one.

- - Oh, really? - There as well. - Okay.

The Princess is a style. It's, like, a generic style.

And, for me, it's the best-looking of all the cast iron radiators.

These ones, I think, fit the building stylistically.

Because you have to remember, this building was built,

radiators weren't a thing. They didn't exist in the world.

Nobody thought it up yet.

That's got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine sections.

Will that one fit?

Yeah. Width-wise... Plus the valve.

Is this the same? Looks smaller. One, two, three...

- I think... Eight, eight. - Yeah.

Have you got another section you can add on?

I'm assuming you take these apart and...

We can take them apart, yeah,

or we can make the bigger one a section shorter.

I'm trying to put into the house

the first iteration of a cast iron radiator

that would have gone in there in 1900,

early 20th century, somewhere around there.

So we've got a set up here. 12, 12 and 12.

- Those three would do. - Yeah.

So, yeah, shall I put your name on them?

- Yes, please. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

These things, I love 'em.

I can probably find a home for this as well.

It's nice, that, isn't it? - That is really nice. - Yeah.

I think it's a nickel plate - on there. - Perfect.

Well, what I like about it is it's wearing off.

- Yeah. - Which is great. - Yeah. - That's great.

At a cost of £300,

this nickel-plated towel rail would match the nickel taps

that Drew's having for his top floor bathroom,

and could be an ideal and affordable addition to his house.

It's just the right height, - that one. - Yeah.

- Just a nice height. - Yeah.

That one'll do. I'm over the moon.

Thank you very much. Thanks, Drew.

Much appreciated. Yeah. - Thank you. - Exciting.

In total, Drew's bought eight radiators

and a nickel-plated towel rail for the top two floors of the house

at a cost of around £5,400,

which includes full restoration, testing and refinishing.

It's a lot of money, but they are period-perfect

and the price includes a lot of added value.

I owned an architectural salvage yard.

I have been buying and selling cast iron radiators

my entire career as a dealer.

I completely understand what I'm paying for.

Yes, I'm paying for the radiator,

but what I'm paying for, really, is the service after that.

So David is going to strip it,

clean it,

take the old fittings off,

put new cast iron reducing bushes to the end,

so that modern central heating pipes will fit to it

with the valves that we haven't got yet.

He will then pressure test them.

They'll go and be sandblasted and then primered.

And then he delivers them into the building.

It's a good service. That's what I'm paying for.

All in all, a great day. In any rebuild of any house,

if you're starting to get the nice bits that make it home

and put those back in, that's a good day.

Back in Bath...

...in the basement, John and Al are building the wall

that will add the final bit of support to the rotten beams.

Since you were last here, we've put in a footing

with reinforced steel coming in, tying it into here and here.

And then we've just taken the blockwork up,

and it's gonna take the strength...

...on the underside of the steel

to help relieve some of the weight

of the walls coming down through the house.

As the wall will be supporting such a huge load,

it's crucial that it joins the rolled steel joist

in exactly the right place.

Just plumbing up the wall as we go.

You have to make sure everything's going upright,

so... we're hitting the steel.

Once complete, the wall will mark the end

of yet another huge unforeseen problem

that Drew and the team have had to deal with.

That's it, that's all done here now. All we got left

is to put some slate up in here tomorrow

once the wall's gone off, and muck it over,

and then put the ceiling back in

and this'll be all rendered up and over and finished.

With the walls of Drew's Bath house now safe and stabilised,

work can continue on the upper floors.

Having been fully restored, the radiators for the top two floors

are being delivered, and as the pipework is complete,

they can be fitted straightaway.

In the bathroom on the top floor, the tiling has been finished

and the flooring has been laid, so the reclaimed pieces

Drew sourced from Mongers can be installed.

All the components for the top bathroom have arrived

and I couldn't be more pleased with all the bits I've put together there.

It takes a lot more time to use architectural salvage in this way.

But when it's in, it's worth it. It really is.

I've got the best quality of materials,

and, er, when all these pieces are put together in that room...

...it should work. Should work. So, it's exciting.

Move your bum a bit, we've got the toilet.

But combining fixtures and fittings that are over 100 years old

with modern day plumbing requires a lot more work.

The main difficultly with using reclaimed stuff

is that the fitting sizes aren't standard modern ones.

So you have to make sure

that we get exactly the right fittings that are gonna fit.

At times, we have to fabricate our own fittings to make them work.

Done that before, but yeah,

it's all coming together quite nicely.

Just...

- Mind your fingers. - Yeah.

There you go. Beautiful.

With the taps fitted, and the bath, sink and toilet in position,

Drew's new bathroom is taking shape.

I think the bath works really well in there.

It's nice, it's quite compact.

Old cast bath, and that goes really well with the floor.

And the choice of the wall colour.

It is all coming together nicely, it's gonna look good when it's done.

Yeah. We're not far off now.

With everything plumbed in and connected

to the pumps in the plant room, it's the moment of truth.

There we go. We've got water there.

This is the sort of sharp end, as it were,

and Guy's basically testing all the fittings that he's used.

Any issues will come to light, but it's looking good so far.

It's definitely better to have any issues now

and they get dealt with, rather than six months down the line.

The clients phoning you up and saying

that they've got a leak in their bathroom

that's come down through the house.

Touch wood. We've never had that, er,

but we know people that have.

It's 17 months into the restoration, and after weeks on the road

buying stock and items for the house,

Drew's returning to see the final two milestones

which, now complete, means he's a step closer

to finally moving in to the upper floors.

This first is the issue with the rotten beams

which threatened the structural integrity of the entire building.

At a cost of just £6,000,

it's been approved by the building regulations officer,

thanks to some relatively cheap materials

and a lot of hard work from Keiran, John and Alec.

So talk me through this. This looks a lot better.

Obviously, they've had to strengthen the whole spine of the staircase.

And as we discussed previously, they were gonna put some steel in,

which they've done, and they've now supported

the end of the steel on this quite ugly...

- Very ugly. - Very ugly, but very, very necessary supporting wall,

which obviously's got new footings.

Looking at it now, it's pretty unsightly,

but that will obviously be lime-plastered over

so we'll actually lose this concrete block,

but as we discussed, the load coming through here is so massive

that we have to be absolutely sure it's doing the job.

The bare bones of this building now are as good as they're ever gonna be

and, in some respects, better than when they were new.

More structurally sound, insulated.

So I think I've done very right by this house.

But it's not just in the basement where jobs have been finished.

The house has been made better than ever before,

as the bathroom on the top floor is also complete.

When Drew bought the house, the bathrooms were dilapidated,

with cheap and mass-produced fixtures and fittings throughout.

Ah, it looks great!

This is fab. What do you think? Yeah, I like it.

But now, the first bathroom is complete,

with reclaimed and restored period-correct

fixtures and fittings of the highest quality

which have already survived over 100 years of use.

At a total cost of just under £2,500,

they are more expensive than the modern equivalents,

but will last Drew for many years to come,

and are exactly like the ones that would have first been added

to the house, over a century ago.

It's good, isn't it? - Yeah. - I'm pleased.

Best use of the space as well. Yeah, exactly.

You've got a lot in here for a medium-sized bathroom

and lots of your reclaimed items, which is nice.

Yeah. I love the taps.

Yeah. I really, really love the taps.

I'm so pleased with those. And your lovely towel rail.

Really like that an awful lot.

And saves the need for a radiator in the room as well.

- Yeah. - Ideal.

So nothing matches... Eclectic.

...at all. But what have we bought that's new?

The pipes and the trap - underneath there? - Yep.

The loo seat, 'cause I wanted sort of a Bakelite-looking loo seat.

- Yep. - And...

- - Wastes on the bath. - That's it? - Yeah.

I'm really pleased because we've got top-quality stuff

that you could've just bought, could just buy new versions - of it. - Hmm.

But to use the reclaimed stuff just feels a bit better.

It's superb. I'm really, really pleased.

- Good. - And you can lie in the bath...

You can....and stare - out the window. - Exactly.

Which is what you always wanna do. Yeah.

I've got a few bits, I can start decorating.

Put lighting, mirrors, - stuff like that. - Exactly, yeah.

Love it. It's fab.

Well, yeah. You've got a fully-functioning working bathroom.

I know we've got more to do down through the house,

but at least now it's good to go.

- That's it, yeah. - Yeah.

- It's great. - Excellent. Very, very good.

And all reclaimed materials. Pretty damn good.

A few days later, the final radiator has gone in,

which means the top two floors are ready for Drew to move into.

After it was converted into five flats,

the heating in the house was provided

by combi boilers and storage heaters,

without a central boiler or distribution system.

Look at that. It's great.

But at a cost of around £5,000,

period-correct radiators have been fitted

on the top two floors, and look just as they would have

when central heating was first invented and installed

in the early 20th century.

Although radiators were a later addition

over a century after the house was built,

Drew has maintained the design principles of the Georgians,

opting for simpler designs on the top floor,

with the more regal Princess radiators on the second floor

in his master bedroom and dressing room.

- They're nice, aren't they? - Yeah.

- Happy? - Very.

Very, very, very, very happy.

The colour is perfect. - It is nice. - It just works.

They sort of fit the aesthetic - up here as well. - Yeah.

For me, using original radiators just makes so much more sense.

There's no need to buy a new one.

The quality, the finish of them, is so much better.

We've done both.

We've fitted the new, good quality, cast iron ones,

and the quality of the metalwork is just nowhere near.

You always find it slightly pitted. Hmm.

Er, these, the detail that comes out of them is just lovely.

- It's lovely. - Yeah. It was explained to me

by an old plumber one day about, these will retain heat longer...

- Yeah....as well. - Yeah.

And they give out heat for longer.

- Excellent. - Superb.

They'll keep you warm. Very, very happy. Yeah.

The radiators are perfect.

It's part of a system that is nowadays hidden.

So it has to be pleasing to the eye.

The trick they did was make it beautiful.

They made it aesthetically pleasing.

With this house, it never had radiators,

so when they decided to put radiators into here for the first time,

that's what I've tried to go through from this floor down.

They're really beautiful, really, really beautiful things.

They're just a beautiful object.

Also, my ethos on this entire project, antique salvage.

You know, let's just reuse everything.

Let's just fix these things and put them back.

Yes, it takes longer, but it's worth it

'cause that end result is ten times better than you'll buy new.

With a working bathroom, central heating system,

and several bedrooms,

he's a step closer to finally moving in to the upper floors.

Despite the many challenges he's had to overcome,

he hasn't compromised on the core principles he started out with.

The one big thing I've always tried to do,

and I was determined to really do on this one

was use reclaimed, antique, salvaged,

and ethical materials and timber and everything on this job.

And that's been hard. And it takes a hell of a lot longer

and an awful lot more effort to do it this way.

And then, all of a sudden, it all comes together

and there's no better feeling. It's a great feeling.

Next time...

Drew teaches Rhys about the world of antiques

with a buying trip to a flea market.

They would fit quite well in the Georgian building, strangely.

And after over 18 months of work,

Drew finally moves in to his new home.

I love it. That's just so good.

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