‘This truck is gonna change your life!’
Nick Grimshaw and Emma Willis unite to help families whose homes are working against them in The Great Home Transformation. Gemma Dunn finds out more about the innovative format. A “life-changing truck” may sound like a bold concept, but it’s one presenters Nick Grimshaw and Emma Willis stand by when it comes to their new allnew Channel 4 show.
The duo teamed up to front The Great Home Transformation, a six-part series which sees them renovate homes across the country in just three days. All with the help of said revolutionary truck.
Their aim: to give families a functional home that works for them, as opposed to against them.
“It’s quite a bold statement, that, isn’t it? ‘This truck is gonna change your life!’” mimics Willis, 46.
“(It is), but it’s not like one of them shows where we’ve gone in and been like, ‘Pink is in, so we’re just going to paint your lounge pink and give you a big couch’,” points out Grimshaw, 37. “I do love those as well…” he quickly adds. “But this show was about solving problems and remodelling houses that weren’t working for families.
“So actually, it has been lifechanging, because we made their houses work for them, from dinner time to family time and working from home. It completely changed how they felt about being in their house, and hopefully that led to them all feeling happier and having a better way of life.”
It does sound dramatic, notes the former radio host, “but your surroundings and your house are so important to how you feel and how you behave to one another. We saw really emotional reactions from people who felt like this huge problem, which they didn’t know how to tackle, had been
solved by the truck!”
So what’s so special about it? Inside the vehicle is an immersive mobile mood board where each family (there are six, one per episode) has the chance to experience a bespoke vision of their new home, with zero structural changes required, based simply on their own activities and needs.
Informed by specialist technology and interior design intelligence, the work itself will mostly be realised by Grimshaw, Willis, and the family themselves, showing just how achievable it is to radically change your home for the better through smart, yet accessible, design.
With additional and unexpected secret room reveals for one family member in every episode too, it’s fair to say the unveilings make for an emotional watch.
“There’s a couple of stories that are quite traumatic, and those people were incredibly deserving and needing of the change to happen in their house to help change their mindset, to shift themselves forward,” reveals Willis.
“Swansea, for me, was a really emotional one,” Grimshaw shares. “It was a family of four that had gone through various hardships (and) they just felt so much lighter and happier and relieved when we left. It actually felt like a transformation of
them as a family, which is mad to say because it was only three days, but they just felt so different.”
“It’s incredible how in such a short amount of time, you can make such a massive difference,” Willis realises.
It makes you realise what’s important. “But the past two years have really drummed that home as well, haven’t they?” she muses. “Because every day you kind of woke up thinking: ‘I’ve got a roof over my head, there is outdoor space around me, and I’ve got my health.’
“And then you go into these homes, and you see what a difference it can make if you’re happy where you are.”
Across the six episodes, the famous pair – along with interior design expert Alex and craftsman Tim – will showcase innovative and sustainable design solutions for families of all shapes and sizes, from homeowners to renters.
It’s an opportunity that arose after the presenters both enjoyed working on their own homes.
“We decorated in lockdown,” begins Grimshaw. “Being home (a lot more), there’s more time to pay attention to stuff. So I thought I really liked the lounge being really dark, but I’d come in here in the day, and as soon as I sat down to do any work,
I’d be falling asleep! So I had to change that.
“And then my bedroom, we did a renovation,” he goes on. “When I moved in, I always felt like everything was the wrong way round in that room. So in lockdown, we got a builder and we literally drew him the plans on Post-It notes, and thankfully he understood it and did it!”
Meanwhile Willis’ country home renovations have been on a somewhat larger scale.
“I’d like to say I did it all myself, but obviously it involved builders!” she quips, having bought a new house and “ripped it apart” some eight years ago.
“We tried to inject a little bit of something into it, that it felt like it was lacking,” she reasons. “So we did the first phase of it, and that took about nine months. And we had loads of problems with it. And we were like: ‘Maybe we’ll not do that again!’
“And then we had this garage that we never used, it was like a makeshift gym for Matt (Willis’ husband of Busted fame), and we were like: ‘Maybe we could do something with it?’ So we flattened that and rebuilt it, and we’re just finishing it now!
“I always say: ‘I’ll never do it again’. And then I go: ‘I really want to do it again’!”
The DIY takeout is one of the appeals of a show like this, they agree.
“You get so many tips from it,” Willis says excitedly. “We both wanted to do a show where we could get our hands dirty and actually get involved because we love this area anyway, outside of watching on telly.” The Great Home Transformation starts on Channel 4 on Wednesday April 6.