Students at Northampton College have played a key role in helping transform the homes of two county families and will see their work featured on primetime BBC show DIY SOS.
Construction students from the Booth Lane campus will star on the show, working alongside kind-hearted volunteers to assist two families who desperately needed to have their properties renovated.
On Tuesday, May 10 the show will feature Lindsey McAuley’s family home in Kettering go from being “uninhabitable” to “beautiful”. Lindsey and her four children were left devastated when her husband Shaun fell ill and died of a rare and aggressive cancer. He had been intending to renovate the property before his diagnosis.
The following week’s episode will feature the story of the Hutchison family in Corby who had been left with an empty shell of a home. Teams of builders, gardeners and volunteers transformed the family home so that teenager Jordan Hutchison could have as much independence as possible and his own space.
Mark Bradshaw, the curriculum manager for construction at Northampton College who has recently been nominated for a UK Construction Week ‘Role Model’ award, said: “Being invited to work on DIY SOS is a real feather in the cap for our students and gives them the chance to showcase their skills to prospective employers who are at the top of their trade.
“The stories are hugely emotional and spur you on to do to best job you possibly can for these families, ultimately making a real difference to their lives.”
Filming for the two shows has taken place over the past three years but delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic meant they have taken longer than usual to come to screen.
Carpentry co-ordinator and lecturer Tim Chisholm said: “In Kettering we were asked to build a bespoke bunk bed that needed to comply with certain regulations. All the timbers were machined at college to a final design by the carpentry students and assembled in a modular form. The painting and decorating team had primed the timbers so that the on-site decorators could add the finishing coats to match the designer’s requirements.
“For the Corby project we were asked to build a shelving unit that included some flower pot holders. It was finished in blackboard paint so they could write their shopping lists on it.”
