Original subtitles

Who, growing up,

wouldn't have wanted one of these, eh?

I have built several treehouses and I think I have enjoyed

building them as much as my kids have enjoyed playing in them.

There is something in treehouses, isn't there?

The very idea of escape, of fantasy, of living a simple,

remote dream-like existence.

The thing is, of course, growing up, you leave these things behind,

don't you? But not everybody.

I mean, given the chance

of building a permanent treehouse as your home...

Well, you would, wouldn't you?

Once upon a time, the Earth was covered in trees,

but we are losing our trees at the rate of one football pitch

of natural forest every two seconds.

We shouldn't be cutting down trees.

We should be learning to live among them.

That's amazing!

What a setting. It is. Isn't it? Absolutely beautiful.

'I am with plumber Jon Martin

'and ceramic artist Noreen Jaafar - a couple who want,

'more than anything else, to live up in the tree canopy.

'Before they start to build their own treehouse,

'we have come to Belgium, to see a treehouse that might help

'me understand what is so special about woodland living.'

Go on, touch it! No, I can't touch it. You can almost touch it.

Yeah. Look at that fantastic bark.

And you have the shadows dancing on the roof

and that branch just goes over the corner.

It's really pretty. Gorgeous. It's that relationship.

That's what we've got to try and achieve.

Here, you are up, inside, under the foliage,

in the canopy, amongst the birds and the squirrels.

Yes. I think there is that connection, when you touch the bark,

even at this distance.

What do you see when you touch the bark? What do you see when you look

a lot further and what do you see right in the distance?

On our plot, we have got those three things, but we have to make it work.

'If you are going to build a treehouse, the rules of engagement

'completely change.'

What this simply is about is lifting you

onto a platform in the trees. And getting close to the trees.

Yeah. Getting close to them, yeah. Yeah.

Jon and Noreen dream of a treehouse for themselves

just like this.

And they are going to build one,

but in a very different kind of location.

Jon knew of a little patch of woodland

in his home town of Dursley in Gloucestershire, which is hemmed in

by a supermarket car park and a Methodist chapel.

When it came up for sale,

he and Noreen were smitten.

You looked at it as a kid and loved it.

Peeped through a hole and thought, "Oh, that looks amazing!"

And it was completely overgrown. It was unloved. Yep.

And the trees. We wanted to just take care of it.

'This tiny, abandoned, half-acre of urban woodland was once as garden.'

It is in a conservation area and it has nearly 30 protected trees.

Some lovely ash and lime trees and a majestic Scots pine.

What is it, for you, that connects you trees?

What is it that matters about being in amongst them?

I think it's just that whole thing.

It gives you that, sort of, peaceful, woodland glade feeling.

You step off the high street, you walk down...

Feelings of damp, you mean(?)

LAUGHTER

Indeed! Damp! Shaded when it's 30 degrees

on a good British summer.

But sitting on a balcony, looking at the raindrops drop off the eaves,

there's something special about that. They were here before

we were here. They are going to be here when we go.

And that is brilliant, to be part of that.

You can buy a new house, you can plant a tree and it may get

to a reasonable size by the time you move on,

but I mean, to live amongst this, this is a real privilege.

How much did you pay for it?

Eh, at the end of the day, it was £85,000.

That's all right, though, isn't it? It is. With no consent?

With no consent.

It's either a very expensive garden or a very well-priced building plot.

Yeah! But it had been up for sale for at least 18 months,

before we bought it. So, did you sound out the district council?

Did you sound out the planning department and ask them what they

felt about your plan? Yes. Know what they said? Absolutely no way.

Yet you still went ahead and bought it? We did. Our sense was,

if we could make something that was truly different,

which added to the local community, that there would be a good chance.

So, it was, basically, on that basis that we pushed forward.

Jon and Noreen were proved right.

They eventually got their planning permission,

but the conditions are harsh.

They must not disturb ANY of the trees or their roots,

so fixing the house into the ground is going to be quite a challenge -

one that local architects, Millar Howard Workshop,

enthusiastically took on.

To avoid the tangle of roots, they came up with the ingenious solution

of anchoring the house with slender screw piles.

To protect the trees, they will not be using any concrete.

Instead of foundations, there will be a steel frame above ground,

connected to the piles.

The lowest, and smallest, of the three wooden boxes

that make up the house will be Noreen's studio.

The middle floor box will be the living space.

It has verandas on three sides.

And the top floor will contain the bedrooms -

40 feet up, among the branches.

It will sit under a flat roof.

The top two floors will be clad in native larch

and the basement will get a skin of reflective, polished steel,

that should mirror the surroundings and help the house appear to float.

On the top floor, there will be three ensuite guest bedrooms

and the master suite.

And in the spirit of a treehouse, a 12-foot high narrow walkway

through the trees will bring you to the front door and into the large,

L-shaped living space.

Every window will be carefully placed, to capture a favourite view

and the verandas will take Jon and Noreen within touching distance

of the higher branches.

Landscaping will be by Mother Nature herself.

The point of this building being to place you in intimate contact

with the rawness and energy of the natural world.

'Jon and Noreen met 24 years ago. They recently sold their big, old,

'draughty five-bedroomed house,

'bought this plot and moved in to an on-site cabin.'

'Whiling away evenings in the cabin,

'Jon has lovingly built his own model of their house-to-be.'

I love your trees. Yeah, they are all to scale.

It's a series of three step boxes

and each layer doesn't...conform.

There is no....

There are no contiguous walls all the way up, are there? No.

Every box is slipped. Yep. And that's what the structural engineer

is struggling with, at the moment. And who does this? Who builds this?

Well, I will be helping doing a lot of it.

I will be project managing it, or we'll be project managing it.

And how much is that, then...? At this stage, with the piling,

if there aren't any unforeseen instances, depth-wise...

268.

LAUGHTER

At the moment! At the moment. That has gone up, from 250.

Is that for everything? 268? Yeah.

268,000, all-in, done? Yes. We have already been making cuts,

to hold it at that.

Can you afford that? Yes. Yes.

That was part of our contingency in budget is just that we are...

We really do not want a mortgage at the end of this.

How long will it take you to do?

I'm hoping about nine months.

That's what the target is.

So, as soon as the piles go in the ground, then we'll know!

Yeah, nine months from the piles!

When is that scheduled for, then?

Either side of this Christmas. OK. It was going to be before,

but I think we are looking at just after now. OK.

So, just nine months to build the home they want

in the town they love.

'Jon was brought up here and is as deeply-rooted as his trees.'

Is this your school? Yep. This Church of England school? It is.

When I was, oh, five, six, seven - that sort of age -

I used to go to that school.

I could understand, by circumstance, that you would be born here

and go to school here. But why stay? Contentment or happiness

is an internal thing.

I think you can, sort of, wander around, looking for it,

but I think you can make that where you live.

And trying to create a slightly better environment

and improve where you live and do a bit for where you live,

I think, that gives you a certain sense of satisfaction.

And it is beautiful.

This little patch of land has a lot to live up to.

Invested here are the dreams of two passionate people.

In buying this site for £85,000,

Jon and Noreen...were making a decision purely from the heart.

They had been told they wouldn't get planning permission and, yet,

they carried on.

They were determined that this

would, should, was going to, work.

Amazing, isn't it?

Jon grew up with this site.

He knew that he was going to be able to live here.

In a way...

..it was always his, this place.

Right from the start, however, Jon and Noreen

meet trouble. They were hoping to sink their pile foundations

around Christmas. They didn't.

They can't do any construction until they have

the structural engineering drawings for the whole house.

All Jon and his old friend Stuart can do

is prepare the ground, by laying down a mat,

to protect the tree roots. As you can see from this diagram,

done by the arboriculturalist, the Scots pine, for instance,

closest to the cabin where we are living,

the crown is that wide but the tree roots area that you have to protect

is, sort of, one and a half twice as wide.

So, as the pathway, which is at the top of the picture here,

comes across, that entire area that will have vehicles going across it

has to be protected, so we don't damage the roots.

The difficulties of building on this plot

shouldn't be underestimated.

First of all, they can't use any concrete to form foundations.

They have to avoid all the tree roots.

And, then, there is the anti-gravity design of the house itself.

So...a timely memorial, really.

People have built tall structures

by doing this, with bits of building.

Ziggurats and pyramids. It's very, very solid,

it centres the building.

It works with gravity. Whereas, of course, Jon and Noreen

are doing something entirely different.

They are doing the opposite of this. They are starting with

Noreen's workshop at the bottom

and then there is an overhanging bit, right, like that.

And then, there is a top floor, which goes there.

I mean...they have got to try and keep this

structure up, in amongst the trees, on pile foundations.

It is a real caramel shortbread conundrum.

How on Earth do you make sure the top floors are properly supported

and connected to the piles below?

Months go by and Jon and Noreen

still haven't got their structural drawings.

The timber company who hired their structural engineer has pulled out

and, now, they are waiting for a second structural engineer

to deliver.

Well, we have been waiting for his calculations

for over eight months now. We have been promised them

for over two months

and they have never arrived, so... It's really frustrating,

cos you are so keen to get on and you are so keen...

We desperately want to start.

It's not just the waiting. The costs are going up.

Jon and Noreen's new structural engineer thinks they need

to double the amount of steel to anchor the house into the ground.

It did get to the point,

two or three weeks ago, when we actually thought,

"Can we continue?" If this is actually the costs

that are coming in now, I actually thought, "Can we continue?"

They may love them,

but their trees seem to be biting back.

To look at, you wouldn't know that Jon and Noreen's plot

is bang in the centre of a town.

Even so, they want to be as self-sufficient as possible.

While waiting for the structural drawings to materialise,

Jon has found his own water supply in the non-orthodox way.

You got this source of yours, your borehole,

you got that to the right depth in the right place? Yep.

I dowsed it, but I had another top water-dowser check it just before

I paid the money for the rig to come in, and it was spot on.

You do this quite a lot, don't you, though? You're a... Erm...

An official dowser, as it were.

It's like playing basketball.

You might not get every ball through the hoop, but you get better at it.

The more you practise, the more you're in tune.

I want to have a go at finding the underground spring.

First, purge your demons.

What we want to get you to do is programming the brain,

connecting with the body. Because it's the body's response...

Because the whole point about dowsing is it's not this

that's doing anything at all, it's your... Absolutely. It's the body.

Your body and your head which is detecting something.

And this is just an amplifier.

Perhaps a little bit more upright.

That's it, that's good.

So just thinking about that underground stream.

Thinking about that underground stream. Yeah.

Oh, I'm going to have to... Oh!

If it's anywhere, it's right here.

I think that's about it, yeah. Is it?

Yeah, it's curving round gently down towards there. Seriously?

Exactly, yeah. Spot on. I can do it! A natural.

Look, two bits of wire, look!

In the height of summer comes a breakthrough.

It's taken eight months to get here, but today, they can sink

the 16 screw piles that will anchor their treehouse into the ground.

It's...been a long old haul to get to this stage,

so it's nice something's starting.

The way these screw piles work is surprisingly simple.

They rely on a thread - just like these rely on

a tiny, tiny thread - in order to hold the house in place.

Now, it is best demonstrated if I screw this into the wood.

And if I then represent the forces of nature...

..by tying a sling to that.

OK?

Right, Jon, when you're ready. OK? Yeah, yeah.

Oh!

Great, I'm flying.

Hey, hang on! Hey!

Today was great.

It's more than the foundations going in,

it's like literally putting your mark in the ground,

connecting with it.

I think we're on our way now.

But Jon's optimism is misplaced.

A full eight months since the piling,

there is still little to see.

Jon and Noreen have just endured their second winter here,

waiting for the detailed structural drawings.

This is not where we wanted to be in any shape or form.

They've never had a generous budget -

a carefully balanced 268,000.

So every estimate and every bill is a worry.

It's that continual haggling, that continual hassle.

Not just haggling for the sake of it,

just to stay exactly where you are,

otherwise you're slipping backwards all the time.

That's the real challenge. It's that continual,

unrelenting pressure and trying to earn a living at the same time.

Just a few weeks later, at last, the steel frame is springing into life.

Their third and hopefully last structural engineer

has devised his own clever solution

for keeping this top-heavy building stable and rooted.

So that's where we've introduced the diagonal bracing.

And then the same on the other side.

Like that.

So that gives you... That stops the whole thing from swaying.

And he's saving money.

This design has ten tonnes of steel compared to the previous design

that had 18 tonnes of steel.

It will save I think around about ?2,000 a tonne, so that's,

you know, ?16,000.

And the steel frame is on its way to site

on a friend's tractor and trailer.

The treehouse is, at last, growing.

And the frame...

Thank goodness!

Oh, at last! So we're above the ground.

Right up against the tree, too. Yeah.

There is a small steel to come out yet on that side. Good heavens.

Yeah. That is impressive. Yeah.

To be able to work within the trees, as you've done.

And there's more yet to come?

There's quite a big pile of steel over there.

Yeah, we're coming right out to that pile there.

Oh, what, this one? This one here.

Even with the protective mat,

a conventional crane would crush the tree roots,

but an old school friend is helping Jon with his own

state-of-the-art mini telehandler that he's designed himself,

with intriguing triangular tracked wheels.

Everything that you see here has been lifted into place with this.

And we've been working on this uneven slope.

You know, you have to be careful, but, it's...

In terms of getting your centre of balance? Yeah. Yeah.

It surprised us as to how stable

and how little damage is done to the ground.

So is this a prototype piece?

It's the second one in the country.

There are two very, very important technical tools

used to manoeuvre steel on-site.

One is a crane like this and the other

is a five-metre length of string.

They're both really important as each other.

This steel frame is doing what it should -

bolting together as designed.

Until we get to a plate that has had to be offset to avoid a tree root,

which means trying to fit a bent leg.

Very slowly once it's been tucked under.

Attach this corner when it's touching...

You could almost grind a couple of mil off this joint here.

But with a bit of elbow grease, power tools

and careful manipulation, the cranked leg gets sorted.

The steel frame at ?15,000 is their biggest ticket item so far.

Its complexity and delicacy has cost Jon and Noreen

?14,000 in engineering fees alone.

So far, with all the bills in,

they've spent one-third of their modest ?268,000 budget.

The next challenge for their wallet will be the timber frame.

So, when it comes to the timber frame, are you outsourcing that?

Well, after going here, there and everywhere

and the convoluted design journey we've been on with it,

it's designed to be made on site so that's what we are going to do.

So I'm going to probably step into the breach. By you.

We do not have any room for manoeuvre financially. No.

We cannot get that money from anywhere else.

For various reasons, that is it.

It has to be built for that.

We're not going to magic some money from somewhere. That is it.

This is a dangerous decision.

The timber frame will be complicated.

It's going to be over 12 metres up in the air

and Jon's a plumber, not a carpenter.

But there is one secret weapon local boy Jon has up his sleeve.

If Jon hadn't been able to find his bespoke mini telehandler,

of which there are only two in the country, then he'd have had to

instead hire a much larger six-wheel crane that he'd park just there...

Oh, no, he couldn't have done that,

because they couldn't have got onto site. There's no access.

They'd have had to park an even bigger crane than that

behind the Methodist chapel over there

or even over in the supermarket car park, and that's the point.

You see, all the problems to do with this site are to do with access,

slope, and the trees.

And all the solutions are thanks to Jon having grown up in this area

and knowing anybody who's anybody.

Thank God for schoolmates.

POWER TOOL WHIRS

20 months in, Jon has turned into Tarzan.

And with yet one more old school friend, Julian,

he's building his frame from slices of tree up IN the trees.

They're now ready for the glulam beams

which will support the cantilevered top floor.

One, two, three.

But there's no crane here to help them.

They cannot damage the tree roots.

25 kilos a man for lifting.

Er, this is 225 kilos,

and there's... well, a couple of us lifting it!

I had Weetabix this morning!

Jon's been lucky to add another willing volunteer to his team

for this heavy lifting.

Another old friend, who's a yacht engineer,

is taking his holiday here.

No, it's been very interesting. It's probably been one of the better holidays I've ever had, I think.

OK. Ready?

One, two, three...

40 feet high up in the canopy,

Jon and friends are turning into heroes of the forest.

It's on my shoulder. I've got it as well. I've got it. It's easy.

Only if it's a British-standard milk crate.

I need about another 20mm to get in line here.

So 20mm. Down.

Perfect!

Timber by timber, floor by floor,

Jon, Julian, Noreen and friends put the house together.

Summer turns to autumn, the weather takes a turn,

and the strain begins to show.

It's taken nearly two years to get this far.

Sometimes I think I've taken on too much, it's, er...

I could do with a break now but we've got to get it watertight,

so those extra hours make the difference now.

When Jon's up here late, I do worry, especially when it's now dark,

and so long as I can hear banging and noises I know

he hasn't fallen off the side, but, yeah, it's not good, and I do worry.

Jon's dedication is amazing. He just keeps going. He...

He just keeps going. I don't how he does it sometimes.

Neither do I.

This building is turning into a monster that threatens to

devour them, and the consequences are plain to see.

It's almost shocking to hear Noreen talking about how this project

has depleted them physically and emotionally.

Buildings do that.

They have a habit of draining every ounce of reserve out of you,

and at the same time they play this game, they can also inspire you.

At this stage this building is leading them on,

it's giving them some hope, it's suggesting that actually

things are going to be all right in the end.

But they are absolutely on the knife edge here.

You know? It's like playing with the building a game of daredevil.

With heroic persistence, working seven-day weeks,

Jon hits a key target and the house is ready for the windows

before the end of the year.

I've got it. OK? Yeah.

And with the windows in, Jon and Noreen now have

a weatherproof shell to work in over the winter.

For the first time, there are proper rooms to see.

So you'll walk in, there's an entrance hall, stairs up to the...

up to the first floor, and then a door into the living area.

So one big sort of L-shaped... Exactly.

..living room, kitchen/diner.

'And the whole point of this house being up in the trees

'is at last revealed.'

Mmm. Great view. Great view.

And this balcony is genius. Thank you.

OK, well, it's quite...

it's moderately good genius,

but the point about the balcony for me is that it's the moment at which

the building stops being a house and becomes a treehouse, where

all those childhood stories that involve trees suddenly come true.

And when you have this...either the early-morning or the evening sun,

in particular, it lights up that hill and you get layers of

a view, and that's a rare thing, to get those.

It's almost like in one of those

fake 3-D pictures where you...dnk-dnk-dnk-dnk.

No, it's lovely, yeah.

This is brilliant, this is proper architecture, isn't it, eh?

You know? Joy.

NOREEN SIGHS

'Proper architecture doesn't come cheap.'

So how are the finances? Erm, not bad.

I mean, only because I'm doing it myself with one other guy,

we're about...we've just gone over the ?200,000 mark to get to

where we are, so...

We're being very careful but we are just about on track.

So, to finish the house and keep within the 268,000 budget,

Jon has been out on the scavenge.

I had a great find. I was looking for this for ages,

I wanted a sort of green to add to the greenery that's around it.

This is, erm, green honed Cumbrian slate. Ooh, beautiful.

So... Yeah, it's magnificent. This is a real find.

Which looks like it's been laid somewhere before.

It has. It came from a Rolls-Royce garage. Seriously?

It did. Tell you what, if it's good enough for Rolls-Royce...

It's good enough for my treehouse. Is this going in your sitting room?

Yeah, this is going on in the basement

and across the whole middle floor, everywhere's covered in this.

OK.

And my other find, and I bought a basketball court. What?

A basketball court. What?

You don't just go out and buy a basketball court.

I mean, is it the...? It was being ripped up, so hopefully...

I can see some of that. So it's still got the rings on it.

What is it, is it beech? Beech, yeah.

Where's that going, top floor? Top floor. With the rings and the marks?

And the tape? I want to. There's a bit of...

A bit of tension there, I imagine. Bit of tension there, yes! What, Noreen doesn't want it?

She doesn't want the lines, but we'll see what it looks like.

It could be kind of quite graphic in a way. I think so.

Jon seems at home on a building site. He is after all a plumber.

But he has hidden depths.

I'm going to drag him away from the site for a quick break.

His aim is to do less plumbing and more painting in the future.

I also paint, so I see a chance for a bit of a sketch-off.

I think of you as a sort of polymath, really.

You're a plumber, heating engineer, builder-engineer, artist,

all these things.

Which of them are you looking forward to enjoying,

as it were, when you...? Do you know what I mean? When you...

Even, I think, building a house is a desire to create something.

I think most people, whether it's decorating a room or painting

a picture, there's a desire to create, and I just think...

That's why I'm building a house and that's why I paint.

But it would be nice to not have the stress

that goes with the building-the-house part.

During this drawn-out two-year construction period, Noreen's been

keeping the family finances afloat with her ceramics business.

But she has found time to design tiles

for their kitchen and bathroom.

I was standing washing-up in the caravan and I was surrounded by

all these gorgeous native birds,

just two feet in front of me they were all over the place,

just eating and flying about, and I thought, that's what I need to do.

So I've started to go for the more native angle,

and as soon as I did them they started coming out of the kiln fine,

so I think that the kiln god spoke to me and said,

"This is what you need to do."

It's just as well Noreen is happy in her work.

She's facing her third winter working in the garage.

On just about the shortest day of the year,

the treehouse is ready for some spray-foam insulation,

developed to keep the homes of Canada warm.

At ?13,000 it's a big investment for Jon and Noreen,

but it will make this building airtight and super insulated

to the highest standards, and it's done in a day.

Now there are actual rooms in the treehouse,

Noreen's mind is turning to what they're going to put in it.

When they moved into the cabin they asked a friend to look after their furniture for them.

So it's all in here, all your stuff? Pretty much, it's all in there, yes.

And out of the goodness of your heart, then,

you lent these people some space in your barn, yeah? Well, yes.

How long did you negotiate for initially?

I think you thought about a year, didn't you? Yes, I think we said it will probably be about a year.

And it's been...? It's been almost four.

I think after a year had passed, not only were you not nearly finished,

I don't think you'd quite started, so at that point we knew

we were in for the long haul, but... Right. Right.

So is any of the stuff worth keeping? I hope so. I do hope so.

Definitely there are some bits and pieces that I'm looking forward

to seeing again after all this time.

I have to say that those Ercol Windsor-backed chairs, which

are covered in paint, are actually worth quite a bit these days.

Oh, yes. They WOULD be. They would be, I know,

and, again, they need a bit of love and attention.

'So this is what Jon and Noreen's house is going to look like.

'We're talking mid-century Scandi sleek.

'Not a knobbly wooden elfin chair in sight.'

Now, this, I really would like to have it in our hallway

when we get in.

Bet you can't wait to get this back, can you?

Well, I suppose so. We've...

We've written it off, really, but, yes, we'll have to have

a family argument about what to do with it next, I suppose.

Yeah, yeah.

February is devoted to cladding the building.

The top two floors are being done in native larch but they want to

camouflage the lowest floor.

They're sampling some mirror-like stainless steel that they

hope will suggest that the rest of the building is floating.

From back here, the one that is least brushed is that one.

That one, yeah. Yeah.

But you still get the reflection,

a sort of milky reflection of the trees and bushes and the branches.

But maybe that's just milky enough to tell a bird that it's...

Yeah, "Don't fly into it, Mr Bird." A line of dead blackbirds...

I know, yeah. Because this is much softer.

That's beautiful, it gives a lovely milky coating. I think that's it.

You're very beautiful.

If Jon and Noreen want to avoid another winter in the caravan,

they'll have to enlist the help of woodland sprites.

So when do you think you're going to get this all ready,

ready for final inspection?

I've got various friends that should come and help.

I've got the guy that I normally work with and I've got another guy, so we'll have four plus the tiler.

Leading to the answer that it will be ready for inspection...?

Summertime. Summertime.

Sometime. Summertime! Sometime summertime.

It is only March. Perhaps they'll do it, if Jon has the energy.

It means him devoting himself seven days a week

to every corner of the house, inside and out.

This is more than a labour of love.

So, the last time I was here, the house was just there.

I mean, it was... It's gone.

Obviously it's behind the trees but it is completely invisible.

The thick summer foliage is hiding Jon and Noreen's house

from the prying eyes of downtown shoppers,

but just take a few more steps,

look up and you see... well, something truly magical.

A house so hidden within the trees

that it's become what it promised to be,

a treehouse, a big, proper, grown-up treehouse.

Oh, heavens. This is good. This is like the ramp from ET's spaceship.

Hello, you two! Hi, Kevin!

What an arrival. Thank you. What an arrival!

That is magnificent. Lovely to see you. Yeah, yeah.

What a magnificent approach. This grill you put down...

It works well, doesn't it? It is, and it's made from what?

These are what used to support the old Lister's diesel engines.

From the factory here?

Yes, the one on the hill, when they were putting it down.

And you had them re-galvanised? Absolutely. Cut, trimmed to size.

Doesn't it look magnificent? It is.

What's amazing is that you can't see the house

from the beginning of the path. Only, it only emerges at the end.

It is amazing, it is amazing. It's a miracle.

You wouldn't know it was here. Good!

And it looks fantastic.

The larch, of course, suggests a children's treehouse

knocked together from fallen logs,

except it ain't.

It's a high-performing, engineered, trapeze house

that reaches way up into the canopy.

What's inside? Come in and have a look. Can't wait.

Oh, big, big, slow, sharp intake of breath. Whoa!

If the outside enthrals, the inside doesn't disappoint either.

There's a big open-plan room for everyday living

up at squirrel level.

Very beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. We're very pleased with that.

The kitchen's in. I do like this, this is what? Is it recycled?

This is iroko, out of an old science lab.

What, from a chemistry lab? Yeah.

I'm looking for the blue Biro graffiti.

There's a little bit of graffiti behind.

There is a bit, you don't want to look too closely.

1972, Dunstable grammar school.

Where's the chewing gum? We scraped that off.

Wow. What a thing.

Are you going to leave it? It's pre-distressed.

Yeah, a little bit of work needs doing to it.

Do you think so? I think you should leave it as is. What do you think?

Yeah, I like it, I like it.

I don't want anything too precious because it's going to get beaten up.

It's fantastic. It's got character, so, yeah. I recognise these. Yeah!

These are yours? Yes, they are.

What a lovely thing to be able to bring into a home,

your own ceramics, you know, your own work.

It wasn't ever going to be a surprise

to find Noreen's hand-painted tiles in the kitchen.

But on the opposite wall is something quite unexpected.

Is that one of your paintings? It is indeed, yeah. I'm glad you noticed.

They're all yours, are they? They are, all the landscapes are mine.

They're more than accomplished,

they're really very beautiful. Thank you very much. They are local views.

They're all just within a mile or so. I mean, look. Like that, look.

Although I have to say, that does not look like Gloucestershire,

that does look like Belize. It does a bit, doesn't it?

I expect to see a macaque monkey running up that tree.

Or a grey squirrel.

The success of this house was always going to be measured in trees.

The trees brought Jon and Noreen here,

and they were lucky to find humans who cherished them.

And all this is your Rolls-Royce floor? It is, indeed.

Beautiful green marble which is absolutely in keeping,

in period with all the furniture.

Rolls-Royce floor, Reliant Robin budget. Absolutely.

That is our budget.

That looks like pretty Rolls-Royce wallpaper, actually.

Yeah, that is a bit Rolls-Royce. We're very pleased with that.

That was a little... That was our one bit of luxury.

It was. A treat for us.

Weird, a CinemaScope screen.

Oh, no, it's a window!

Looking out onto more trees. It's up close and personal with trees.

It's great, isn't it? I mean, the windows are, all of them,

so abstract in terms of what they give. You know, what they provide.

The close-up views, it's that thing, and the layers going out.

You don't feel hemmed in, do you?

No, no. You don't miss the horizons.

Having seen some of these pieces in Nick's garage,

I should perhaps have been prepared

for the extra layer of distinctive Jon and Noreen style.

This is a tree top take on retro vintage,

a lifetime's reimagining of junk shop finds assembled at altitude

and populated with wildlife.

Ooh, nice sliding doors. They're lovely to use, really light.

Triple glazed. Absolutely, yeah. Keep all the sound out.

But the sound of the rain is one of the best things.

You're right, absolutely, because the sound of buildings

is never really fully appreciated. Yeah, it's lovely.

And...for that matter,

this building has something really, really precious which is this deck.

There has to be something special about a house

that is as lovely in the rain as it is in the sunshine.

Oh, to the undercroft. Yeah. Look at that!

It's...it's like a fairground hall of mirrors. It is, isn't it?

So that is stainless steel. It is. Not quite mirror finish.

No, not quite. Deliberately so.

We don't want bird strike and I think this is perfect because

it's reflecting the vegetation which is what we always wanted.

As you stand back from it, you get that lovely green waviness. Yeah.

It's giving that floating feeling that were always aiming for.

And doesn't it just?

This treehouse looks like it could take off at any minute,

as though tethered down by those elegant slender piles.

It's interesting, isn't it? Because you could unscrew this building.

And put it somewhere else. And you wouldn't know we'd been here.

Absolutely. And for both of you, that's...

It's really important, it's how we started off this build

and the site dictated it to us as well.

We loved the site and we thought, how do we work with it,

not on it or through it, but how do we work with it?

And I hope, I think we have achieved that, I hope we have.

And this is your workshop?

Yes, that's going to be my lovely workshop, studio and kiln room.

Oh, wow.

Not as finished. Not as finished, very soon, very soon. Yes.

Upstairs, high up in the trees on the bedroom level,

there is yet more inventiveness.

Oh, oh, hang on, is this what I think it is?

This is, this is the...

Yes. This is the gymnasium floor.

It is indeed. Slightly controversial.

In what sense? I think it's safe to say we all like it now. Yes.

Wasn't sure about the stripes at first.

But now I'm convinced.

So, yeah, they are to stay. Come on! I know, yeah. You're an artist.

There'll be companies offering this for sale within five years,

and they'll be faking it. Yes, you're right.

You know what, what though? You can't fake the finish

because this has been polished

by generations of plimsolls and adolescent knees.

Yeah.

Hello, cat. You've taken it through the bedroom?

I love it.

Jon and Noreen at last have their master bedroom

and can move out of the caravan.

But there's still work to be done

in all the three other bedrooms up here.

There's no arguing the quality of life,

rare beauty and unusual experiences this place offers.

But I wonder if they've spent beyond their means?

They wanted to build it for a modest ?1,400 per square metre.

So when we met for the first time three years ago,

you said you wanted to spend ?268,000 building this. Yeah.

Which is how much you had, and that was it, there was no more.

That's right. That was it. Yes. So how much, have you added it up yet?

Yes. Oh, yeah. And it is? We spent just over that, we spent about 270.

That's shocking! But we haven't finished.

Reality is we finished a good chunk of the building, most of it,

we've probably got another... To finish it off, I guess 12. 10, 12.

So, all in all, you'll have spent roundabout ?280,000.

Yeah, basically. On the project. That's remarkable.

It's amazing value for a house that flies. That's probably it, yet!

Bearing in mind what it has cost you personally, in terms of energy,

time and commitment, all that kind of stuff, is it worth all of that?

Is it worth having done all of that, gone that route?

If you'd have asked me at several points along the way,

I'd have said no.

Absolutely not. It has been really tough. It has been tough.

It has been really, really tough. You just have to keep going.

We did have a vision and we stuck to it.

I can understand that the physical hours required is enormous

but doing your own place, it's sort of emotionally,

spiritually, utterly draining, isn't it? It is.

It is, because it is a place of safety, of sanctuary.

And it reflects your own personality, doesn't it?

And your character and your dreams and desires.

Everything's invested. Yeah.

This house responds so delicately to where it is.

It could only have been built right here in this town,

and for that matter, by this couple.

I appreciate the view every time I look at it and I'm grateful

to have been born where I've been born.

I'm very, very thankful to live here. Very thankful.

HE SIGHS DEEPLY

Not bad, is it?

Actually, I'll revise that. This place is flipping brilliant.

It's a great credit to the architect for designing

such a really low impact treehouse.

It's a great example of how you can build putting nature first

before human nature.

And of course it's fantastic testament to the stamina and the

passion and the vision and the resilience of Jon and Noreen.

These are qualities for which I will always salute self-builders,

because without the examples and inspiration they provide,

the rest of us would just be living in grim little grey boxes.

With no trees!

We're trying to make it something that makes us laugh.

Spin it around. We give the dog walkers a bit of a shock.

Each child has a little den which they get to via

a ladder that's hidden.

It'll be great, I would have loved that when I was little.

You tell me what you'd like.

The question is whether all of those wonderful playful ideas in the end

gel into a coherent building.