Clifftop

Over in Jersey, Paul Cook had an even more ambitious dream - an upside-down house three feet from the edge of a cliff on the site of a former tearooms.

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The sheer weight of a traditional house would have made it almost physically impossible to prevent it from sliding down into the sea.

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A flat-pack, timber-framed home meant the foundations only had to be sunk six inches into the rock instead of the eight metres a far heavier house would have demanded.

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Because the site faces north, Paul decided to install a glazed double-height corridor that would bring light flooding into the house, whatever the weather and the time of year.

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The open-plan living, dining and kitchen area is bounded by a 20-metre wall of glass: "We wanted the best views allocated to the living rooms, that's why we've gone for the upside-down house."

After spending 18 months deciding exactly what to have built, the 50 panels - each costing £4,000 each - arrive from Devon and it takes just 15 minutes per panel for three men and a crane to install.

Although Paul went with flat-pack it took a good few months before the interiors were finished because of his perfectionism.

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"The details make the building, we want it to be the best it can be," he says as he strokes a curved kitchen cabinet that was such a complex undertaking that the veneer had to be applied in situ, proving that while flat-pack homes can provide somewhere spectacular to live in within just a few days, it can still take years before you realise your interior design dreams.

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Flat Pack Mansions is available to view on demand on the Channel 4 website.