Room to Improve.

Lot of hate for the clients. I don't know if its entirely justified but they'd definitely wreck my head if they were my clients and I think they've made some questionable choices. Banon is well known for his fondness for open plan - he's got a style (in my humble opinion he's a bit of a one-trick pony aetehtics-wise) so I dont really know why the clients expected something entirely different from him.

juneg wrote: »

Going against the general trend here but I think Dermot is a right diva himself and wouldn't let anything go with her either. Kept harking back to how many points did I get?, Sneering at her love for all things vintage and girly. Producing the window sample with all the writing on it was petty. She only asked for a separate room for goodness sake.

If she was a male client everyone would be saying how assertive she was. Because she's a woman she's more likely to be labelled bossy and rude and overbearing. And of course being rural is the kiss of death.
Incidentally, why do we have a programme in RTI which is essentially a one trick pony? Open plan big glass box? Yes it's lovely don't get me wrong it's always lovely but surely there are other styles of home design out there? That's why I like the programme home of the year because you see very different very quirky homes on it which are prased and valued for being unique and different. I'd be afraid to go on RTI to have the nation sneering at me.

nothing to do with her being a woman.... she was rude and obnoxious at times and people would say the same if it were a man

juneg wrote: »

Going against the general trend here but I think Dermot is a right diva himself and wouldn't let anything go with her either. Kept harking back to how many points did I get?, Sneering at her love for all things vintage and girly. Producing the window sample with all the writing on it was petty. She only asked for a separate room for goodness sake.

If she was a male client everyone would be saying how assertive she was. Because she's a woman she's more likely to be labelled bossy and rude and overbearing. And of course being rural is the kiss of death.
Incidentally, why do we have a programme in RTI which is essentially a one trick pony? Open plan big glass box? Yes it's lovely don't get me wrong it's always lovely but surely there are other styles of home design out there? That's why I like the programme home of the year because you see very different very quirky homes on it which are prased and valued for being unique and different. I'd be afraid to go on RTI to have the nation sneering at me.

Give over it has nothing to do with her being female. That's just a cop out.

The rural thing is also without merit.

Deleted User wrote: »

She seemed determined to go against his ideas and advice at every single turn -just to be right .

I think she actually admitted straight out, twice, that she wouldn't like something because Dermot does.

It's clear that collaborative work is something she is just no good at. It's not just that "she has assertiveness and strong ideas", but she cannot comprehend a scenario where she is not calling all the shots. So even if Dermot comes up with a good idea, she has to shoot it down to give the illusion that she's in charge. If she agrees with him, then in her eyes she has relinquished some control.
She literally should have drawn what she wants on a piece of paper, given it to a builder and told them to build it. Because that's actually what she wanted.

I wouldn't say it's a teacher thing. You get lots of people like this. They often end up in middle-management positions stumbling their way through mediocrity, with staff who absolutely hate their guts, because no work gets done unless it was her idea.

Cheshire Cat wrote: »

What I was wondering, with all that space, dressing room and so on, does she have a desk somewhere? Does she do her corrections, lesson prep at the kichen table?
Hubby has a desk in the boot/mud room, but what about her?
Seems strange that she didn't seem to think of that.

I got the impression from the husband's one and only monologue that she had given up the teaching to pursue housewifery as a full-time career just like her mother before her.

Disappointed Dermot didn't investigate the downstairs bedroom thing in more depth. Understandable if they have a sick relative that will likely move in with them inside 2 years. But two people in their 20s worrying about the day someone might not be able to make it up the stairs? Wtf. The husband gave the impression that he genuinely wanted it in case he injured himself on the farm.

Maybe it's one of those things his father or uncle had been drilling into him for years, "Always have somewhere to sleep downshtairs, so even if you've two broken legs you can drag yourself out to help with the calving".

Altogether a bizarre pair. Your man would have lived in the barn with a telly and been happy. The house wasn't just old, it was a complete tiphead and he was like, "Ah sure, it's grand".

seamus wrote: »

I think she actually admitted straight out, twice, that she wouldn't like something because Dermot does.

It's clear that collaborative work is something she is just no good at. It's not just that "she has assertiveness and strong ideas", but she cannot comprehend a scenario where she is not calling all the shots. So even if Dermot comes up with a good idea, she has to shoot it down to give the illusion that she's in charge. If she agrees with him, then in her eyes she has relinquished some control.
She literally should have drawn what she wants on a piece of paper, given it to a builder and told them to build it. Because that's actually what she wanted.

I wouldn't say it's a teacher thing. You get lots of people like this. They often end up in middle-management positions stumbling their way through mediocrity, with staff who absolutely hate their guts, because no work gets done unless it was her idea.
I got the impression from the husband's one and only monologue that she had given up the teaching to pursue housewifery as a full-time career just like her mother before her.

Disappointed Dermot didn't investigate the downstairs bedroom thing in more depth. Understandable if they have a sick relative that will likely move in with them inside 2 years. But two people in their 20s worrying about the day someone might not be able to make it up the stairs? Wtf. The husband gave the impression that he genuinely wanted it in case he injured himself on the farm.

Maybe it's one of those things his father or uncle had been drilling into him for years, "Always have somewhere to sleep downshtairs, so even if you've two broken legs you can drag yourself out to help with the calving".

Altogether a bizarre pair. Your man would have lived in the barn with a telly and been happy. The house wasn't just old, it was a complete tiphead and he was like, "Ah sure, it's grand".

The husband didn't genuinely want anything- he did (and wanted) what he was told

lawred2 wrote: »

what is a parlour room anyway?

a good room where people used to bring the priest in for a cup of tea ! No one else could use it

evolving_doors wrote: »

Why does Dermot always do renovations or bitty extensions.

If he's so passionate about showing off his style, why isn't there a RTI client with a plot asking him to build from scratch?

I know builders around the tipp. area who would have easily levelled that house and built a better and bigger house for 200k. 3 tiny bedrooms was a joke. The lad had acres of space, Dermot treated it like a terraced house in Dublin with feck all options

The show is called Room To Improve. It's specifically aimed at extending and renovating existing houses. Knocking an existing house to build a new one or just starting from a greenfield site would be antithetical to the premise of the show.

Also, you wouldn't have built a better and bigger house for 200k. Taking the SCSI House Rebuilding Calculator as a guide and using Waterford as the nearest comparative area (and lowest rates for the purposes of this example), for 200k at €1,458/m² you'd be able to build 137m². That'd just about be enough for the ground floor only with no first floor and that's with pretty standard/basic level of finishes. Plus those figures are August 2017. Rates have risen probably by almost 5% since then too.

https://www.scsi.ie/documents/get_lob?id=56&field=file

iamwhoiam wrote: »

a good room where people used to bring the priest in for a cup of tea ! No one else could use it

ah my Nan had one of those

was bleedin baltic in there... it also had a china cabinet

If the home owner could have shown the graciousness about the house he delivered that he showed for the china cabinets then we all could have lived happily ever after.

She wasn't very gracious and seemed to need to 'win'.

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

No, I'd say he just doesn't care much about what's in the house. He would have been quite content living in the unimproved house and I reckon he just sees it as a functional space to sleep and eat in. Especially as he would be spending most of his time outside the house anyway.

I don't get the 'hate' for either person, tbh. They have a relationship that works to their satisfaction and they are perfectly content with it. More power to them and I hope they enjoy their refurbished house for many long years.

Disliking someone’s attitude when they show themselves to be obnoxious, petty and aggressive is not being a ‘hater’- it’s being, relatively, normal.

I don’t hate the woman at all- I just really disliked her attitude

If I was in a restaurant/shop and someone was behaving like that towards staff then if not be too happy

The lengths some lads will take "happy wife, quiet life" to are incredible... Katie was a typical bully and I'm glad she's not teaching my kids. Would feel very sorry for the husband, he's going to have a *long* life or end up losing the family farm if he ever stands up to her. The comments on the mother seemed a little unfair though, sure, she was a total throwback to an earlier time of china cabinets and dressing up to the nine's for the priest's visit but she seemed perfectly friendly and polite. The daughter may have picked up a few of her tastes but clearly missed out on her manners.

What can you say about the house? The kitchen was nice. though I'd have solid doors on the "china" cabinets - they made her home look like a tourist trap gift shop.

A "broken plan" solution with quadruple width bi-folding doors would have worked much better than the pokey sliding ones in the infamous "wall".

Penn wrote: »

But ultimately, you don't know what design Dermot (or any architect) is going to come up with. They asked him for certain things and in his initial design, he didn't include them. He didn't fully follow the brief he was given, which he likely could have even as part of his initial design. He had a huge rooflight over the side extension and a different type of cladding on the rear extension. Had he taken those out, he may have been able to build the additional bedroom on the first floor and included a wall to close off the living room and still remained within budget (or close enough that they may have been okay with it). It seems like that is what they ended up going with in the end (as the rooflight was gone and they didn't show the rear of the house so it's likely the finish/design of it was very plain).

But considering they're not the experts in how much the project would cost, Dermot sacrificed things from their brief to enhance his design. They couldn't have known he would do that before hiring him, because they were hoping he could meet their brief, with his design features, within budget.



It wasn't the style of Dermot's design they were unhappy with, it was losing things they had wanted in their brief.

I think at the end of the day it is a reality show .. so the more controversy the best . Who knows what part the bossy teacher was expected to play in the latest RTI.. .I know other reality TV shows are largely scripted. so I don't pay a lot of attention to the actual show.

That said that woman seemed to be very antagonistic, the husband a door mat and Dermot a know it all .