Room to Improve (v2)

As if you wouldn’t be tired and stressed out having to do a 3 hour commute in the morning with 3 boys, one of whom is autistic, and bring them to their various schools, while at the same time doing a self-build which just happens to to be filmed for TV during a pandemic, with costs rising all the time. Give it a rest, ffs!

As an aside, how did they manage to build a massive house on a €400k budget. That seems very cheap, no?

What type of kitchen doors did they fit in the end, I switched channels when he was showing them the stained plywood they didn't like, for the second time.

In the end they went for black stained wood ( think it was plywood). It looked ok in fairness but not sure how practical it would be longterm.

I think Dermot always does bad designs for kitchens - he certainly isnt a cook. Some of his kitchens arent practical at all for heavy use - wood countertops and bad layouts etc. I would imagine his kitchens get worn out very quickly.

Home Rescue is good for this.

Roisin irritates me abit but as an architect she is very good, she does seem to listen to her clients.

Most stuff comes from Ikea who do sponsor the show so is affordable.

Peter seems on the ball and able to turn his hand to anything she suggests.

Home Rescue could be great but they spend far too much focus on how great the (usually hoarder) client is for throwing out some of their crap (or on their sob-story) and not near enough focus on the design and build. I've also noticed a severe lack of storage in a lot of the end results: the houses look great because they've just thrown out half their stuff, but they no longer have anywhere obvious to keep the kids bikes / the bins / the lawnmower etc.

Agree - Home rescue is about decluttering and less about design . Roisins designs/plans are awful in my opinion ( admittedly though the last series the designs did improve). Roisins pushes her taste on people - tacky, cheap and off the wall. The rooms only look good because they were such a mess before and the owners are clueless re interior design. Most of the time the rooms dont even look finished.

The furnishing, pictures etc all really nice I agree.

I agree about the front, I didn't really catch why they decided to do it...I think he said something about replicating more bespoke windows? Didn't work for me either

They went to tender in late 2020. A lot (but not all) of the price rises happened before that. They agreed to leave out some things, like the zinc roof, too.

Very fortunate to have friends who can loan them a house. A bloody house! I can barely get a lift when I need it...

Like others I didnt like the front facade and the windows with no reveals, its like what youd see on an Ibis or Travelodge hotel near a motorway.

One thing not mentioned on thread, how would people here feel if they bought a 3 bed semi for circa 600k only to find out after the sale that the owners you bought it from are now building a house of twice the size next door for 400k? The newer house goes back about twice as far as the one that was sold so there would be light lost and a sense of being overlooked. If planning permission was granted before the sale the purchasers wouldnt have had a chance to express their views. I wonder if the purchasers even knew a house was to be built right next to theirs when buying it? It cant be nice to move into your new house and you're barely getting settled in and a construction site pops up next door with all that entails. Not sure about others here but a scenario like that would stop me buying the house in that situation.

That's where due diligence comes in.

If you are buying a property with "free land" beside it , it will be up to you to find out who owns it. When you realise it's the people that are currently selling the house that you are buying alarm bells should be ringing.

It's hard to tell from the editing but it did look like the site was partitioned off before the house sold...so it is likely that the new owners were aware of the plan.

Also I don't think they got what the asking price they wanted but they never said what it did sell for.

yeah - it's gone up its own hole in the last few years

I'd imagine planning permission for a new build was already granted before they sold their primary house, as in bog standard 4 bed detached house....otherwise they'd just convert/ extend the old house.

I think they wanted to release the capital of the primary house to pay for the new build.....they are probably mortgage free or fairly close to it now......if they went conversion route they'd have 200-300k extra expense so would need a larger mortgage.

That said as it was an inheritance property they probably always had a small enough mortgage, depending on how many siblings were needed to be bought out.

I'd say the issues to planning permission, if there were any were Dermot's proposed plan, as there's never anything bog standard about his plan.

they mentioned the fact that pv panels were taken off the list in the cost cutting I think. like you say I think I'd cut elsewhere these days rather than leave those out. hopefully the cabling is there for them in future.