
On last week's Grand Designs, builder Paul Rimmer went £200,000 over budget while building his dream eco-home.

So it seems that he could have learned a think or two from Simon and Jasmine Dale who started their building project with a meagre £500 in the bank.

This week's episode sees the couple embark on the ambitious task of constructing a sustainable three-bedroom family house in the hills of rural Wales.

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Simon and Jasmine Dale, who feature in this week's Grand Designs, embarked on an ambitious project to build a sustainable family home in Pembrokshire with a starting budget of just £500

The finished home, set in a seven acre plot, where the couple hoped to live off the land

The couple had a dream of living off the land with their children Elfie and Cosmo, in the sustainable Lammas community in Pembrokeshire.

The pioneering, government-backed, sustainable village came with a stringent fierce planning condition attached.

In return for the right to build on open farmland, they had to prove that they had become self-sufficient on their seven acre plot within five years, or be forced to move on.

Undeterred by the enormity of the task ahead, Simon shared his plans with presenter Kevin McCloud explaining they wanted to live an outdoor lifestyle and live off the land.

On top of their south facing plot, he planned to excavate 12 feet into the hillside and build a retaining wall along the back, made from sandbags filled with the excavated earth.

Floors would be made from rammed earth, polished and hardened with linseed oil and the structure from round timber poles, using wood grown, felled, prepared and sawn by Simon.

The same poles were set to make up the roof, covered by a damp proof membrane and a sheep's wool insulation with grass on top for further insulation.

It may look like a hobbit home, but the house is surprisingly spacious inside with three bedrooms and a study on a mezzanine level

The couple's daughter Elfie's bedroom. The timber beams were all grown, felled, prepared and sawn by Simon

The mezzanine level features a small study with reclaimed wooden units

Windows were set to be reclaimed glass and the exterior timber framed walls filled with straw bales.

Wrapping around front they planned a greenhouse to pre-heat air for the house and grow food, while they intended to source kitchen fixtures and appliances from car boot sales and eBay.

'This won't be a cramped hobbit house, but a spacious, solid, three bed, low impact family home,' Kevin said.

Pumpkins growing outside the house in the smallholding, which Jasmine set up to earn money and feed the family

The couple wanted an open plan house with underfloor heating and an inside flushing toilet, but it was a big ask given the extremely modest amount they had to work with.

'At the moment we've not got very much,' Simon explained.

'How much is not much - £500, £5,000, £50,000?' Kevin asked.

'At the moment in the bank we've got five hundred-ish. We've got a few bits to come in along the way. But I think with a will we're going to get there.

Simon and Jasmine's son Cosmo's bedroom, decorated in red. The walls have been insulated with bales of straw to keep the heat in

'As far as I can tell, Simon and Jasmine are starting to build their family home with just £500 in the bank. That is adventurous, as is the design and scope of what they want to do.'

Indeed the project got off to a faltering start in October 2012 when a wet and miserable winter meant that Simon was unable to start building work for the first six months.

Finally, when spring arrived he stet to work on the retaining wall by buying hundreds of yellow sacks from eBay that cost seven pence each and filling them with clay sand and fine stone.

The couple with Kevin McCloud who was initially sceptical about their meagre £500 starting budget

'I'm not sure that this is much more labour intensive than if we'd set up shuttering and poured and cast concrete. It's certainly much more fun,' Simon said.

To help with the task were dozens of volunteers who come to Lammas to stay for periods of time and offer their labour in return for food.

However, the job still takes three months to complete.

By October 2013, Simon was hoping to have the house in a condition to move the family in, if not complete, by the following winter.

Simon and Jasmine managed to add to their funds throughout the project but still ended up spending only £27,000

However, part of the conditions of staying at Lammas is to set up some kind of small business and the building was holding up Jasmine's efforts to establish a smallholding growing vegetables.

So they put the house on hold to focus on building the greenhouses and by Spring they were almost complete - at the expense of the family home.

But by August 2014, they were making progress.

Through Jasmine running horticultural courses and selling produce and Simon doing occasional consultancy work on low impact building they were able to add to their £500 fund.

Windows were made from reclaimed glass and all the timber was grown, dried and cut by Simon

Simon explained they had spent around £5,500 on sheep's wool insulation and damp proof sheeting for the house.

Four years on the family were at last settled into their new home.

The couple estimated they had spent a modest £27,000 which Kevin described as 'the cheapest house ever built in the Western Hemisphere'.

Kevin McCloud said the Dales' new three bedroom house was probably the cheapest constructed in the western hemisphere

That included the retail value of £5,000 worth of vegetables used to feed the 277 volunteers who helped out.

When asked if it was all worth it, Simon replied: 'I don't think I could quantify it, but I can feel it in my heart when I walk around at the end of the day and see the bats flying round and hear the birds sing.

'It's been hard and I wasn't asking for an easy life. I like challenge. To put in a hard day's graft and be tired at the end of the day. That exhaustion is a nice feeling.'