My Bungalow Bliss

That was another annoying thing where did this "Boom!" Thing come from, every time they did anything the architects went "Boom" , this must be the new trendy jargon out of Silicon valley, you will hear Varadker and the politicians at it next, except for Sinn Fein they could never go "Boom"

I sold cars for about 2 months in my youth.

Lesson number one in my training was this.

Ask the client what is their budget.

Client says €5000.

You write that down and as you are writing you say "Up to?"

Client 9 times out of 10 will say a higher number when put on the spot like that.

That is now your starting budget.

Pretty sure thats how they all work.

660k+ seems crazy but the views are amazing.

The house felt a bit cold to me but hey guess they will make it more feel like a home when they settle in.

Nice couple I have to say, fair play to the guy for working so hard to try and pay the bills just as well he has the skillset to pickup extra work.

After these two episodes, you can really see the appeal of a new build!

The design wasn't to my taste either

Privacy wise the massive window won't help, funny that wasn't enough natural light they had to tear up the ceiling too. And I'd much prefer a sensor in the hall for light than for the semi-transparent glass bathroom wall.....

The vast majority of normal people wouldn't accept/afford architects notions/ideas, even Daniel O' Donnell put Bannon in his place

Regarding the appeal of a new build.

I don't think there was much wrong with the bungalows to begin with. Both bungalows ended up costing at least double what they originally paid for, however they made extremely expensive choices.

They don't need full length windows, as windows go, a full length one is the most expensive option. They all had doors too again running up the cost. With children putting external doors in bedrooms is an absolutely bonkers idea but yet that's what they did for both!

Getting bespoke hall doors etc all run up the cost.

How much extra did the internal bathroom window cost instead of just leaving it as a wall.

While underfloor heating is nice to have I don't think I'd be arsed digging up the floor to get it. Is it even necessary if you are putting in triple glaze windows and upgrading insulation. I get that radiators are not the prettiest things in the world there are some nice options on the market now.

There's an awful lot of "frilly extras" that are unnecessary.

Buying an older house you will have some sunk costs, upgrading electrics, plumbing and insulation for example, but you don't need to go down the bespoke route for everything else.

House number three is a 1990s bungalow in Donegal overlooking the sea, which will become a weekend home.

650k for 7 rooms, two being a bathroom/toilet.

Thats 93k per room !🤬

Wheres the utility room, home office, second living room, garage ?

For 650k I'd be expecting a minimum of 14 rooms.

Lunatics

I thought the house from week 1 is great. Total spend by the couple was 480K (150k for the house and 330k for the renovation). Possibly some better value could have been got in some areas but overall it looked like a very well put together house. Also to flag, there is a bath in that house. You can see it in the photos linked in older posts.

On the other hand, the house from week 2 is a big misstep in my opinion. Total spend by the couple was 637k (325k for the house and 312k for the renovation). I really hope that the purchase price of 325k included the field to the front of it. Crazy money to have spent if the field is not included. As others have pointed out the house is missing some real needed functionality to align with the real world of day-to-day living, and stepping straight into Kitchen/Lounge is a disaster.

I cannot understand what the Architect was thinking? Such poor decisions and solutions.

Overall, the key professions (Architect/PM/Structural Eng/Builder) who worked on the house should be embarrassed with the end result. Did they not lean on their professional experience, and work together to maximise the couples return on investment? Maybe unfair to say? But to some extent, it comes across that the couple were taken advantage of.

Yeah Id agree it seemed like they were taken advantage of. I found the final scenes with Wallace and the architects going on about what a great house it was a bit uncomfortable when it was set against the 637k it cost for just 7 rooms. Im familiar with that area the house is in (Ballyknockan) and they could have bought a house locally that was almost twice the size for similar money. They actually got royally ripped off here and they had to endure a ton of stress in doing so.

Yeah this one, it is also in the village of Ballyknockan and was put up for sale last summer.

4 bed, 3 baths, 334sqm which includes a granny flat and is sitting on 0.3 of an acre. Completely modernsed and in move in condition. Sold in October this year for 690k. Also has great lake views and is about three times the size of the uninhabitable bungalow that they bought. Compared to them spending 637k on what they got there is no comparison.

If they had of known that the end cost to them was going to be 637k for a small bungalow with no porch, no utility room, no home office and so on they would have been much better just going out and buying something on the market that was much bigger and in move in condition. The above has triple the space, a big garden and doesnt need any significant work and also has the lake views they wanted.

I think what they did was complete folly, they overpaid for the house in the first place, perhaps due to getting sucked into a bidding war. But that was only the start of their problems, the build went way, way beyond their budget. For what they got compared to what they could have got I think they got a very poor deal.

Yeah it is really nice and while 690k is a fair wedge of cash it doesnt need any work and has loads of space.

Just as a comparison I think theirs was 120sqm at 637k so the cost per square metre was 5,309

With the above house it is 344sqm for 690k so the cost per square metre was 2,005. And thats for a finished house you can move into straight away without the 18 months of trouble that they had.