Craig Phillips came to the end of an emotional construction project recently in Shropshire as he put the finishing touches to development work at Crane Cottage. Its renovation is of sentimental value to Craig for the fact that, before he found fame on Big Brother back in 2000, he lived and worked there for a number of years.
The property served as both a home to Craig and as the site of his old construction company and its workshop. The location of a number of photo and television shoots, you will perhaps have seen publicity shots of Craig, promoting all manner of power tools, or sequences showing him working away on one of his many TV appearances over the years. Yet time stands still for no man and Craig has always harboured ambitions for the plot.
When he first bought the property, it was comprised of the workshop and a detached, five bedroom house set in ample gardens with a well-proportioned drive and yard. However, the back two bedrooms had never really been to his liking. Dormer in style, they looked a little antiquated with their wooden tile cladding and, if truth were told, Craig wasn’t overly impressed with the original workmanship he estimates took place in the 1960s.
Having used it before, during and after his rise to fame, the workshop holds special memories for him but he has always felt it could be something more. Used for little more than storage in recent years, Craig toyed with one idea and another until he settled on the best solution. While he would modernise and extend the rear of the house, he decided to end an era by demolishing the workshop and building a detached bungalow in its place from scratch. This sizeable plot has now become two.
The project took the best of a year, with Craig struggling to find time between his many media and brand ambassadorial commitments, but he is made up by the end result. Down came the two back bedrooms and in their place is now an extension that fits like a glove with the rest of the house. The old flat roof was replaced with pitched roof and, being a five bedroom house, one bathroom just wasn’t enough, so Craig built a wonderful new one to service the newly modernised rear bedrooms.
The 105m2 workshop offered Craig the opportunity to build a lovely bungalow very much in keeping with other buildings in the vicinity and, with the project now complete, he has spoken of his satisfaction and seeing another job well done. He drove up the site recently and was really pleased to see that finally, where the workshop once stood, someone had a place they could call home.
Craig won’t be resting on his laurels, though, and plans are already afoot for next year. 2014 has been extremely busy for him so naturally he plans to spend with his family over Christmas. He has his eyes set on a skiing trip in the New Year too but then it is time to get serious.
For years he has been planning to build his own dream home and he has found the perfect location in the North West. He spotted a derelict house with large grounds at an auction and it all suddenly became clear.
It is looking like a nine month project as these days, when you level an existing structure there is a lot of compulsory recycling to be done. Craig plans to recover as many of the bricks for the new dream home as he possibly can but that process will take over a month in itself before it is full steam ahead on construction.
Yet Craig has been here before, turning paper plans bricks and mortar reality, and if everything goes to schedule, this time next year he will be preparing to move into the home he has always fantasised about and getting things ready for a wonderful, family Christmas 2015.