A man spent 16 years building an idyllic countryside bungalow in his father's field before selling it for a £230,000 profit.
Aidan Daly, 42, carried out the construction work in his spare time, forking out £170,000 on building materials, furnishings and other costs.
His wife and dad also chipped in and helped transform the site in Kells, County Meath, Ireland, from a field of oats into a magnificent home.
He started the project in 2002 and finally finished the landscaping in 2018, selling the property for £400,000 last year.
Aidan told The Mirror: “People have said it’s an absolute paradise. I enjoyed every minute of building it.
“It was something I built up from nothing. I’d recommend building your own house to anyone. I more than doubled my money.
“You also get to make your own decisions on the house, if you don’t like a wall you can just move it. We repainted one of the rooms three times in one week.
“It’s very rewarding if you are brave enough. But it has become more expensive since I did it as material prices have gone through the roof in the past two years.”
Aidan started work on the three-quarter acre plot in December 2002.
He said: "There were crops in the field at the time, it was a field of oats. It was my parents' land so the plot was free."
His first step was to lay a concrete slab foundation, before erecting the walls and putting the roof on.
The rafters were up by March 2003 and he covered the roof in tiles in the summer.
Aidan’s dad Michael, 72, had taught him how to roof in his early teens and he was working as a self-employed roofer at the time so the work went off without a hitch.
He also installed windows, the wiring and plumbing – skills he picked up over the years from being on work sites.
“It turns out it’s not that complicated. The plumbing was straight forward. With the electrics I had to get certified by the regulatory authority,” he said.
“It’s even easier to do now you have YouTube videos, I could have done with some of them back then.”
However, Aidan did not feel confident plastering the property himself so he brought in some outside help in 2004.
He then painted the home and moved in at the end of the year.
Aidan added: “I thought I was finished. Then I met my future wife (Fiona) and she thought the finishes could be improved so over the following year we re-did the house room by room.
“I also built a garage in 2005 to store my parents’ stuff when they were moving homes.
"Then in 2010 we did the upstairs of the house. I had a man cave in the attic but Fiona thought it had more potential.
“We put a master bedroom up there and had a window fitted looking out onto the lawn.
"We also put in a walk-in wardrobe/dressing room and two en-suite bathrooms.
“Fiona did a lot of the design and most of the painting and shopping. I was doing the hands-on stuff like the panelling, flooring, skirting boards, tiling and plumbing.
“We carried out the work bit by bit and it was finished in 2013.”
Although the house was complete Aidan and Fiona, 38, who works as a primary school principal, had still not finished landscaping outside.
They first started work on the garden in 2007.
Aidan, who now runs his own business Woodbury Custom Homes & Carpentry, said: “We created a decking area for an outdoor kitchen and put a roof over it. It had a BBQ and a TV there.
“We also made a pathway to a fire basket and a circular seating area. We planted all these shrubs and tall grasses around the paths.
“We had some construction mesh on the decking and bent it so it formed an arch. We then put two hanging chairs, creeping plants and fairy lights all around.”
The couple finally finished landscaping in 2018 and decided to put the property on the market the following year.
When Covid hit in 2020 they were worried it could thwart their plans– and their first potential buyer fell through due to the pandemic.
Dad-of-two Aidan said: “We received an offer in March 2020 just before the lockdown. But the bank turned them down for a mortgage because of uncertainty from Covid.”
The couple were initially disappointed but soon found themselves swamped with viewing bookings.
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“A lot of people wanted to get out of Dublin and into the country, we had loads of viewings over the summer,” Aidan added.
They sold their home for the asking price of £400,000 in August.
The couple used the cash to pay off the mortgage for their new home, which they bought in 2019.
