Get 2 for 1 tickets for Grand Designs Live with Kevin McCloud

The Grand Designs Live exhibition is coming – from 5-13 May, Excel London will be full to the brim with over 500 exhibitors, hundreds of talks and workshops and top industry experts giving free advice.

Grand Designs Live 2012

mydeco.com have teamed up with Grand Designs Live to offer you a 2 for 1 discount on tickets – just visit the Grand Designs Live website or call 0844 854 1348 and quote MDEC12. With this code you will be able to get two weekday tickets for £16, and two weekend tickets for £19.*

Last year's Grand Designs Live

The ambassador for the show is Kevin McCloud – we caught up with him and asked him a few questions about Grand Designs, his passion for interiors, and what makes him tick…

Did you envisage how successful Grand Designs would be when it launched?

Not at all. Before Grand Designs I had one business which spectacularly failed very quickly. Then I had a maufacturing and design company which flourished for 20 years. After that, I started doing television. Miraculously Grand Designs succeeded.

Kevin McCloud opens Grand Designs Live

How naturally did you adapt to presenting?

There is that terrible moment in every presenter’s life when they realise they are going to have to give up a proper job and put the words ‘television presenter’ on their passport. But I wouldn’t knock it for a second. It has opened a huge number of doors and been helpful and influential in many ways.

You are always thinking of innovative ways to restore and repair buildings. Is there an object you are most proud of fixing?

One of my most proudest achievents was dissembling my daughter’s iPod and inserting a new battery which I bought online. Also, I had two Blackberries that didn’t work. One had a smashed screen and the other had a broken mouse. I managed to take them apart and make a new Blackberry out of both. I was really impressed with that.

At mydeco.com we love to bring brave design into the home. Would you say you’re brave?

Well, for my job I have leapt off buildings, jumped into holes and climed off crevasses. That didn’t feel brave or stupid at the time. But I suppose I was.

Who do you admire?

I admired my father and I still admire his memory. I feel the need to mark his presence and influence quite a lot. He was a delightful, gentle man and not one ever to force his opinion. He was an electronics engineer and would even make his own televisions.

Describe a dream day off…

I am bit of a workaholic so I would probably go and look at a building. My great hobby is woodland and tree management. Anybody who is busy relishes a bit of time. So what I would really like to do is buy the paper, read it cover to cover, do the crossword and have a relaxed lunch.

Grand Designs Live 2011

Grand Designs Live runs between 5th and 13th May 2012.

*Transaction fee applies, offer ends 12th May 2012, must be booked in advance, discount is off standard admission tickets.