The Great House Revival

How it went from a functioning business to a complete wreck was never explained. I suspect there's family drama there!

From experience, a lot of houses and businesses operate from buildings like that.
As long as there is heat and occupation they can function away, with potentially serious problems treated superficially and superficial problems masked with paint and wallpaper.

Leave them vacant/unheated for a winter cycle or two and the deterioration can be rapid and stark.

Once again the opening episode just set the bar too high for possibly the rest of the series. I don't understand how the man in this episode had to buy his childhood family home at auction (correct me if I'm wrong). He seemed to me to have spent a year arsing about the house doing bits and pieces. I know nothing about house restorations and I can imagine things come up as you get into it but he didn't seem to have a plan in place for what to do. Maybe it was just the editing but it was like a door here, a window there, pull down more rotten woodwork, dither over the bay window for months. He spent time and effort restoring the oratory which was a great find BTW but should have been at the bottom of his to-do list. In the end it was very clear that there was a rush to pull together some semblance of a house, the paintwork was atrocious! There was no heating on in the house.

Neither Hugh nor the homeowners were honest in the discussions at the end of the show which was disappointing. It was all, everything is grand, it will work out, etc. As another poster said here - they have rose tinted glasses on because it was his childhood home.

A quick bit of googling shows me mother died in 2009 having been sick for 4 yrs, father died in 2013, obviously house unlived in since then. 5 kids in family so maybe will maybe not but either way probably 5 way split. Be hard to agree on a price and especially if some thought going to auction was best bet, there is always the possibility a developer would snap it up on one acre for multiple properties so could see why beneficiaries wanted to get best for all or most of them!

It seems to have gone on sale at 275k reserve but obviously went higher at auction because probably some developer was interested, who knows! Either way he let his heart rule his head, they do not have the funds to do what is needed to a house like that and you'd be a long time getting it to the level of comfort needed for B&B with today's standards that guests expect.

Was in something of a similar situation many years ago with family business being sold, I would have liked to keep it but best price was needed so went up for general sale. In hindsight I am of course better off without it as it was sentiment rather than sense!

It was obvious the house was empty for years before they bought it roof in bad condition dry rot in the walls and floors they finished a few rooms I presume the plan is to do a few rooms every year it's a massive house he's doing most of the work only employing professionals to do specific jobs maybe the mother did not make a will before she passed away it'll be cold with old single pane windows only allowed

What a money pit! The only room finished was the chapel. That’s so they can all go in there and pray for a lottery win or some other divine intervention, probably on a daily basis. .

He did some amount of work for less than 150k (I think he said only 75% of that original budget spent?)

Priorities all over the shop though. Should have spent on the steels for bay window and done roof first thing, make structure good before you go sanding doors and doing some gardening!

The parts of the house that were done looked well though, not a white wall or floor to ceiling window pane in sight.

He took a year off work. Unless he has an extremely generous employer that's a year salary gone.

He's an engineer, I remember the starting rate for engineers straight from college (yes I'm aware there's different disciplines in engineering) and it was eye watering 20 yrs ago, so I imagine him with decades of experience is on a fairly decent wage.

I know you get the buzz from doing it yourself but when I look at a task I think "this is going to take me X amount of time, I earn X amount per hour, if I get someone in to do it the bill will be X amount" unless I'm saving a massive amount of money I'd probably leave it to the professionals and let them have the headache.

So when you take his loss of earnings into account I wonder how much he actually saved.

Couldn't believe the gardening bit…Fair play to him but he looked at the end of the program as if he'd been off on holiday for a few weeks, well rested….I wonder though did he address half the problems, the place was rotten to the core……Mad Ted…!!

I think he mentioned at the start he fixes machines - a mechanical engineer so really knows very little about buildings. His approach was very DIY, no programme of works, no plan. His approach was all over the place - a guy that likes DIY but took on too much. Not putting under floor heating in was a huge mistake. I laughed at the end when he said the house didnt need underfloor heating or double glazed windows. He could very well end up living there all by himself because wife and kids wont move into the ice box that they cant afford to heat. I get the emotional attachment but they cant afford that house sadly.

I believe he said that quotes for restoring(?) windows for the house were close to 70k

That alone would have certainly been more than his years income after tax

Hiring people to fit the steel, or replace rotten timber floors would have easily eclipsed his post-tax earnings for the year.

The fact that hes married means the wife can use his tax credits during his year out of work also. Definitely works out better financially to do it yourself on a project like this, the loss of earnings are completely mitigated by the savings.

The big issue is that the budget simply wasn't big enough regardless of the amount of DIY to get the house fixed up in a timely fashion.

Well it's more when it's mentioned that he only spent X amount of the budget.....well no he's also down his salary.

Also paying ( one would assume) 2 mortgages.

I'm not even sure what he finished and what was staged.

I do think he was trying to be Dick Strawbridge, but even Dick has his "builder mate Steve" .

I do think fair play to him but I feel for the wife as she looked thoroughly fed up. You could see their breath when talking so the house must be Baltic.

Kinda subjective though and case specific if you don't mind me saying.
Some people will do it and others won't.
You don't know what this man has done for others in his time either.

There are people I'd move heaven and earth for and others not so much.

I agree with you! The first house seemed very much project manged by the dad (who seemed to know a man for every job)

Generally speaking alot of trades guys know other trades guys and they kinda operate on a barter system, he was a chippy so I'd say he'll probably owe the plumber or sparks a favour when they are doing their houses etc.

But like that my dad was a trades man and some people have a brass neck on the amount of free favours they look for, then run to the hills if you ask them for anything.

I would often call in favours as I am absolutely brutal at DIY but I will always return the favour with something I can do .. not sure if it’s just a country thing.. I often remember my dad doing gardening for people with no payment but he would always receive a loaf of turf or manure in return. I even remember getting grinds from a local teacher in return for odd jobs my dad did..

How did the school go for sale with all that red tape not already sorted?

I have seen some great renovations of these old school houses. But I have seen some really terrible ones too......

AsA a building, they're not amazing, apart from the high ceilings. Usually a nice bit of land around them though

Where is the fridge? The cupboards? Where is their stuff???

another half finished effort, again that house looks freezing. That house isn’t liveable and just dressed for final program.
This season is turning into a disaster apart from first program. One finished house out of 4

They spent ages in the empty kitchen then a quick flick into the bedrooms and bathroom.

Again I don't think it fits the brief of " great house revival" it was much more "build your own home"

I think the finish of the house was very much "them" it wouldn't be for me but I did like it. There's obviously still more to be done.

However she looked abit defeated, the optimism she had 3 years ago certainly wasn't there in the end.

I ve never seen an old school for sale on daft ie or myhome.ie

Again not a great show. A lot of air time given over to the red tape of them trying to buy the old school house - maybe that's a good thing - I'd no idea it was so difficult to buy one.

The finishes in the house weren't for me. Looked quite cold and unfinished, concrete, plaster, stainless steel etc. They did get quite a bit of work done in a short time frame to be fair to them.

237k paid 137k for the building, shame it's miles from anywhere apart from school and church (as far as I can tell you would have to drive miles for a pint of milk)

Reminds me of my house when we moved in, couldn't afford any more work tipped away at it ever since

You don't have to have PVC windows, you can get wooden double-glazed reproductions of the existing windows. I've a family member who specialises in windows from that period, and he works on a lot of listed buildings. But it is NOT cheap and especially not for a property that size.