Room to Improve (v2)

The En suite is a dream.

Lovely job

It's lovely

nice house.

that kitchen cost a nice few pound. savvy is not cheap for kitchens. we spent 30 k on a kitchen last year and its only half the size of that and i fitted it and did loads of work in other areas .

I have to say I really enjoyed last night's episode and some of it resonated with me. My parents are empty nesters, and built their own house in the 80s. They have been doing bits and pieces over the last few years to update it and change it for the next stage of their lives.

I wasn't impressed though at Dermot laughing when they said their initial budget, €140k is still a lot of money.

It’s like you have to fork out for multiple new homes in your life time. Will upgrades always end required? Unless I win the lotto, I’ll never have access to that kind of money.

The energy refurb was nonsense. It doesn't cost near to €140,000 to do a retro fit of that. There was probably a lot spent on the underfloor heating. It makes no financial sense to do it in a building like that, far better off with electric rads, or just bigger rads running off solar water heater or air source heat pump. You need to work out annual savings against outlay and take it from there. This is the 3rd or 4th house where they've spent enormous amounts of money on an energy upgrade and it will put many people off. I find it disingenious at best.

Apart from that, the garden was initially €6K-€8K and ended up at either €21K or €41K. I don't think they got value for it. It looked too sterile whereas the older garden looked used and loved.

I doubt they'll use the front room much if they weren't using it in the past, they'll spend a lot of their time in the new kitchen-dining-living room as it will retain heat a lot more.

I actually loved the room from the other house that they visited. A mate of mine in Asturia has the exact same set up with the sliding windows and bench and it works incredibly well. I also love the corrugated roof, I love the sound of rain on it. I also get what they were doing with the rain falling onto the garden and although some said it doesn't work, it actually does. As long as the garden is sloped away from the house very slightly. It doesn't always work, but on certain days in the year it's all worthwhile.

I know they are very attached to the house and I'm not in their shoes with all the memories they have. But the house was probably worth €350K. Add in €200K for the renovation and it's over €550K. I know that at their age I'd buy something smaller and use the savings for travel.

That cost would have been much more expensive for the average Joe/Josephine Soap.

The lady of the house is related to the owners of biggest hardware store in Thurles, I'm sure there were decent discounts!

To be honest losing interest in this more and more .. loved the finished house but with no extension and that with that cost it seems its not a show for the average joe soap .

When you have a couple with 140,000 to spend and that didn’t even cover it and they probably doubled that budget last night.

I can see why a young couple with young family might spend big for a dream house but for a couple nearing retirement I could probably think of better things to spend my money on … by all means make the house more comfortable and warmer.

I honestly can’t see how that garden cost as much as it did 😬

They didn't need to spend €140K. They have several systems running in there. It would make far more financial sense to spend a lot less and get a proper return on their investment, no matter how long they'll live there.

No need to rip up all floors for underfloor heating for starters. They'll never get the return on that. I'm a huge fan of it since living abroad in the 90's, but there's a time and place for retro fitting it. Insulate it well, and upgrade the glazing where needed. Then decide on one system; heat pump or solar and take it from there.

It's hard to specify it as we have no data, or prices, but it sounds ridiculously high and will put off a huge amount of people from looking into it.

??

Could they not just turn up the heat a bit? A lot cheaper than 140K!

Nope! I want an architect! I do want it to look nice and make use of sunlight. It’s early days but so far mine are wonderful and seem very attuned to costs. If it all goes south I’ll consider an engineer though.

If I'm being blunt she was a herbalist and he seemed to be into the the whole retro fitting the house house thing. I think it was partially a green thing.