Grand designs at home and abroad

It's hardly surprising that designer and TV presenter's Kevin McCloud's home is full of character.

What's amazing is actually finding him in it. His hugely successful TV series, Channel 4's Grand Designs, where people create their dream homes, means long periods away from his own dream house near Glastonbury.

Recently, he's been busy filming the fifth series - scheduled for next year - and a new series, Grand Designs Abroad, starting today, which is a guide to renovating or creating a dream home in the sun.

But Kevin looks tanned and relaxed after returning from Malaga, where he was filming the finishing touches to a glass and steel modernist retreat.

"It's wonderful to be home," he says. "But it's been tremendous fun making Grand Designs Abroad. It seemed a logical follow on from the original concept as it's increasingly difficult to find sites or buildings in the UK. Also it reflects a pattern of emigration that's becoming a real trend."

The series follows the whole process including the emotional ups and downs of creating eight homes including a stunning church renovation in Ireland, a chalet in France and a castle restoration in Tuscany.

Kevin confesses it's given him itchy feet: "I am considering moving abroad, just for a year or two, to give my children a chance to learn another culture and language. And I may well build my own house there. It's something I've never done."

Currently, he's blissfully happy with both life and the family home - a 500-year-old farmhouse nestling in the Mendip Hills in Somerset.

The 45-year-old and his wife Zani, an interior designer, have transformed the once dilapidated property into a light, airy seven-bedroomed home with a sleek, practical interior for their four children and Kevin's 18-year-old niece who lives with them.

"A surveyor who looked at this house when we bought it said, 'You've got a good shell, just rip out everything and start again'.

"Needless to say we didn't. We've preserved nearly everything including a superb inglenook fireplace."

It's this passion and enthusiasm which has inspired more than five million TV viewers watch paint dry and concrete set.

Kevin said: "We're not doing makeover shows. What we're doing is proper, old-fashioned story telling, and we have heroes and villains, dragons and dreams.

"You don't know who's going to end up a king or a pauper.

"We've seen couples marry, babies born, friends fall out and partnerships fail.

"Why do people do it? I think a lot of them think, `There's got to be more to life than 2.1 kids and a nice car and job'. There has to be some way of making a mark. Building your own home is exactly that."

Bedfordshire-born Kevin, who studied history of art and architecture at Cambridge, started as a theatre designer, has done masses of TV and one of his latest projects is a homeware range for Debenhams.

He says: "I'm a jack of all trades. Television seems the perfect place for me.

"I feel finally at 45 that life has worked out. I feel I've spent my life in preparation for now.

"Every day is an adventure."

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