Room to Improve viewers were impressed by Dermot Bannon's modern revamp of an 1950s home in Lucan on last night's show, with some hailing him a "genius" for the unique design layout.
Dermot worked with couple Ross and Caitriona Boxshall from Lucan in Dublin, who bought their dream 1950s former council home in 2017 and they had plans for a massive and modern extension to accommodate their young family. The family's budget was a strict €195,500, and they sought help from Dermot to expand the home for their family and to do so on the tight spending limit.
On the show, Catriona explained how the couple fell in love with their house the moment they saw it. She said: "We decided 2012 was the right year to go house hunting and we came across this one and fell in love with it immediately. The asking price for the house was €217,000, we built up around €180,000 but we were willing to go up. We thought this is our house.
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"Unfortunately the seller took it off the market and it spoiled us. We couldn't manage to fall in love with any other property after we saw this," she added. But while they loved the home, the Boxshalls wanted to modernise it and make it larger to suit their family's needs.
Dermot quickly came up with a plan that would facilitate the old style of the home, and he also added a rear extension with cost of construction came in just on budget. Unfortunately, the budget was thrown into chaos due to Covid lockdown delays, construction costs and costs of material.
But the Boxshalls refused to give up on their dream home, and thankfully with only a few compromises Dermot managed to deliver the family's dream home and they finished the project with at a total cost of, €260,000. While the final amount €19,000 over budget, the home comes with an en suite and walk in wardrobe into the master bedroom and elegant new floors in the kitchen.
In the end, Dermot was delighted with the home, and he praised the "truly amazing" couple for their hard work. He said: "I'm so proud of them, I think they've done amazingly well and I really hope that this is their happiest forever home ever."
One person commented: "Another genius home by@DermotBannon, wishing the family great joy in their forever home."
A second added: "I loved this episode as the family were great and the end product looked really good especially the kitchen and utility pod #RoomToImprove." A third said: "Gonna make a bold statement here. This is my favourite #RoomToImprove house of all time."
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