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'Grand Designs' Fans Think A Couple Broke Up After A Flat Pack Disaster

'Grand Designs' Fans Think A Couple Broke Up After A Flat Pack Disaster

The strain of their £300,000 house took its toll.

Marianne Eloise

Marianne Eloise

Undertaking any form of DIY with your other half is always going to be a major stress, whether it's putting up a shelf or painting the walls. What's even more stressful is going on Channel 4's 'Grand Designs: The Streets', as was proven by couple Chris Haines and Roxie Ford.

Now, fans are panicking that the pair have broken up entirely...

Chris and Roxie fought, allegedly to breaking point, as they attempted to build a home entirely from scratch using flatpacks. The pair were just 24 when they started the project, but one half was notably missing when it came to the big reveal at the end.
Channel 4
Channel 4

The couple were two of the youngest people to ever embark on a self build project on the show, and that inexperience started to show.

Channel 4
Channel 4

Chris and Roxie's flat pack project took six entire months to complete and ending up costing the pair £300,000 - a whopping £80,000 over budget.

But only Chris was there wen Kevin McCloud came to see their finished projects, which left fans questioning what had happened. Chris said Roxie was busy at work, but viewers took to Twitter in search of answers.

Grand designs couple
Grand designs couple

One viewer wrote: "Everyone watching #GrandDesignsStreet right now: searching for evidence that two people are actually living in this house."

Another said "Ahh, come on #granddesignsthestreet don't leave me hanging. Answer the big questions...are Chris and Roxie still together??"

Channel 4
Channel 4

Rosie and Chris weren't newly together - the pair had been dating for nine years since meeting in a drama class at school, and they got engaged while still living with their parents. Roxie worked hard in a supermarket from the age of 18, enabling the couple to save £220,000, enough to fund their self-build and its plot in Oxfordshire.

They decided to build their home from a flat pack design using plywood boxes bolted together, which was previously untested on this scale.

They built their two-bed, two-bath home from 5,000 pieces of timber, 6,000 bolts and 28,000 screws.

The couple chose to do this as they were priced out of the housing market, but it was only possible when a team of young architectural students did a ton of the work for free.

Channel 4 commented on their hardships while building, saying: "a home with real architectural merit starts to emerge, so do cracks in a once concrete relationship."

Channel 4
Channel 4

After a month, Chris was positive, saying: "This building process is incredibly easy, it's all flatpack. It is just repetitive, but there's that element of excitement which never switches off, for Rox and I."

But after the students left, their relationship started to suffer, with the major stress taking a toll on them both.

They kept having to borrow money, with Roxie saying: "I don't really know what's going on. I don't know if it's because we're quite young and doing it, or dunno, just things haven't been going to plan."

Channel 4
Channel 4

Chris started to keep secrets to keep things going: "I haven't been telling Rox certain things, that's really starting to show, because I think she's become more aware that I'm keeping things from her."

However, Roxie said that she's aware that Chris "likes to keep it to himself". Chris was upfront about their struggles, saying "Yes we could probably get the job done but are we going to survive as a couple out of this?

It takes the pleasure out of what you've had for nine years as a relationship, and starts to break things apart, and dissect who you are as people and can you work together. It casts loads of doubts in your relationship, looking to the future, it's hard."

Channel 4
Channel 4

Roxie, too, admitted that it was difficult: "Everything is about the house, it's been on my mind every day."

Six months after they began building their dream home it was finally finished and the couple could move out of their parents' houses.

Chris tried to reassure viewers about their relationship, saying "We always say we couldn't have done it without each other." The house is built, but the jury is currently out on whether or not they managed to keep themselves together in the end.

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