The Great House Revival

I live quite near Drum but it is so out of the way and on the way to nowhere, I have only been in it a handful of times. Knew all those interviewed from the village though.

Still think if they do the restaurant right they will do well. People would be used to going to places that are not in ideal locations here, like The Olde Post & the one in Glaslough (equally out of the way).

Loved the work they did, fair play to them.

It was a good job last night and the couple were lovely. But jesus these programs really show you just what a money pit old buildings like that can be. The 170k budget doesnt go far when you have to do things like replace the entire roof and chimneys. Plus one of them took a year off work just to get the place cleared out and ready for contractors to start work, there is a serous cost to that too all while paying rent/a mortgage elsewhere.

I think at the end they had a 3 bed house so maybe about 120sqm done up and complete but still around another 280sqm with the rest of the place out the back. Id wonder will they ever complete the whole lot, aside from it needing several hundred thousand more spent on it they both looked exhausted after two years of hard slog doing up the section they did.

Its no wonder there are derelict houses similar to last nights in every town and village across the country, most of the time they are just not financially viable to do up. For those that do there is absolutely no certainty on how much the budget is going to get exceeded by or how long it is going to take. The romanticism and nostalgia of doing up these old buildings is all very well and the phrase 'labour of love' gets bandied about a lot. But the time and money needed to actually do it means you'll likely end up with a house that cost more to do up than it is actually worth when its done.

The idea of taking a year off work to clear out the house was the craziest part of it all.

She would have been earning say 40k plus.

A demolition / clearance team in there would have left nothing but bare bones after a week or 2.

A few days should have been enough for her and husband to go through it searching for what they wanted to keep.

I got stressed just watching it, 40 minute drive from their rental location, lucky they dont have any kids, marriages have collapsed under less pressure. Theres good margin in coffee shops but you need consistent footfall, they'd need ALOT of custom to replace even one of the 40K plus job a year with pension etc. I know its not just about money but even the most enthusiastic of people are going to struggle maintaining that enthusiasm with only a small amount of custom coming through the door.

Yeah overall I wonder about the viability of the project, looking on street view the commercial aspect is a non runner, only a handful of houses in the village, one business thats probably on the brink of closing. The Airbnb aspect is again very limited.

Can't see them ever recovering their investment by trying to sell it tbh.

Something like that might work outside Killarney or the Burren, but not where they are.

Iirc they bought it for 40k, that was cracking value Imo - it's the price of a new Passat these days!

Dunno about the footfall for a coffee shop, might be a nice spot out the back for a farmers market, craft fairs etc - people would go for a Sunday spin to it.

They are young and full of beans so they will be ok. What was all that fuss about the removable timber batten behind the diamond shaped glass window. ?

As usual we got a glimpse but no explanation.

This one definitely looks like a money sink!

I wonder will they take the advice about the french windows? For once I agree with Hugh, what they had planned would look very odd on the front of the house.

I thought the same, but I must say I like their attitude and approach!

Maybe to make it more like a hotel suite? Although they don't seem like the kind to have those "notions"! I thought calling a bathroom a room away from the bedroom an en suite was a bit odd alright.

Didn't notice the utility room or where it was.

This reminds me so much of my father's and mother's home places in Mayo and Galway!

Mother of God, that was some restoration job done in the house Hugh brought them to!! A pile of stones is basically what it was.

As much as I love natural stone, I can't say that hallway does much for me - I know they said it was warm but it looked too much like the outdoors to me.

Are the floors cement? Can't really make it out

I loved it inside, but not so much outside - those windows just looked.... odd, somehow. Especially the one where the door would have been on the cottage (I know it would be redundant, but I'd have kept a door there anyway).

I think from an insulation/watertightness POV they'd have had to render over the cottage - at least they did it with the right materials!

Kudos also for not putting in a fitted kitchen - and there was no feeling of the place having been staged from Homebase and DFS for Hugh's walkthrough this time.

And I loved the steel beams, especially the ones melting into the "wonky walls"! In the kitchen/dining area, it gave a look of a church or cathedral. Fabulous!

I never figured out where those outside stairs were on the barn exactly - I'm a total sucker for those corn stores (as I think they were). But since they removed the internal floor and made a double-height space, even if they kept the stairs they'd only lead to fresh air!

Great job all round, and by some margin the least traumatic so far unless they've left out a whole lot in the editing. I think they said they'd hoped for a 12-month project, and it took 14 months? With Covid, that's a minor miracle!

Hugh wasn't taking the jacket off inside. You could see the mist when he was chatting. I'm guessing they moved in with a lot of jobs left to complete. 14 months during all that disruption was impressive. Nice family and builders.

I think I would have focused on restoring the barn and building a modern, better proportioned extension off it, rather than restoring the cottage. The layout just wouldn't work for me and for that money, you would want more than two bedrooms.

I think it would have looked a lot better with the same roof on the barn and cottage as per the original plans.