Neil & Amanda

Can you build a family home for just £50k? Well Neil and Amanda are giving it their best shot.

With a brand new baby and a lively toddler, they have decided to knock down their dilapidated small house in East Anglia and try and build a larger one. But they don't want a typical new home with plasterboard walls and conventional rooms - they dream of something inspired by medieval timber frame homes.

Kieran Long's first concern is that it could end up looking like a naff Tudor-theme pub, but Piers Taylor has even bigger concerns. Their current plans are for a modern home with fake decorative timbers stuck on the outside, so he rips up the plans and begins to redesign the entire home from scratch. He begs them to invest their money in a handmade timber frame with traditional joints and handmade dowels, but in order to afford it, Neil will have to scavenge almost every other building material from the old house he has knocked down.

Kieran must give them the skills to avoid the home feeling fake. He manages to uncover a beautiful barn conversion which is furnished in such a way that it looks fashionable but also has a real sense of character. It is full of ideas and tricks that Neil and Amanda could use in their home even though their budget is almost all spent.

With much of their budget gone and the house still a shell, can Neil the novice builder possibly complete their entire home for less than what most people spend on a fitted kitchen?