Dermot Bannon: 'Home offices are the new utility room'
Dermot Bannon: "Having the perfect-looking house became irrelevant." Photograph Moya Nolan
Dermot Bannon has been giving a sneak peak of the houses that feature on the new series of Room to Improve on his Instagram account. I’m glued to them, imagining how extra stressed everyone must have been trying to design and build during a pandemic.
As thrilled as I am to be getting a look at the new houses, I do wonder if he’s supposed to be doing it.
“Once I post it there’s very little they can do. They can’t make me take it away because people screenshot stuff nowadays. I’m one of those people who ask for forgiveness rather than consent. That goes to every aspect of my life,” he laughs.
“I just want to share them. I try not to give too much away. I’m only giving a little snippet and it’s really just out of pride.”
It’s clear from the show and from talking to Bannon that he’s really passionate about what he does. You know that the small disagreements he has with homeowners on Room to Improve are born out of a desire to give them the best home he possibly can. However, it does leave him open to people freely telling him what they think of his work.
“I suppose I’m laying bare what I do and I’m leaving it up there for public criticism. It’s a lot of pressure, but I’ve been doing it for a while and at the end day, it’s the opinion of the people who live in the houses that matters to me. If they turn around at the end and they say, ‘It’s really worked for us, we didn’t think it would. We didn’t think you’d solve this, but you have,’ that’s all I really need.
“I do hope the public and the audience like it, but it’s not the be all and end all. And it’s fine, it’s okay if things are divisive and people say, ‘I wouldn’t have done that.’ That’s okay because if I was doing your house, I wouldn’t do that for you.”
The list of things people wanted from a Bannon design have definitely changed for this series. Homeowners were less concerned with design elements and more with storage and the practicalities of life.
“Home offices are the new utility rooms,” he tells me.
Bannon says that what we want and need for our homes has changed and one word that has disappeared from the wish lists is ‘entertaining’. People want a home that works for them and their family and are far less concerned with big spaces for people coming over.
“The pandemic was like putting a magnifying glass over people’s heads, so things that never really
bothered them before, like clutter, became a big issue. They were looking around their house and thinking, ‘I have no storage. I’ve nowhere to put the shoes or the hurls and the stuff that I’m looking at all day, every day.’ The amount of Zoom calls I had where people had their knickers drying behind them!
“For people working from home, style suddenly went out the window really. Having the perfect-looking house became irrelevant because the house had to work for them, and it had to work for them on so many levels.
“Storage suddenly became hugely important but people were also questioning all the stuff they had that was lying around and started getting rid of it.
“I’m not actually a big fan of creating masses and masses of storage space because I think there’s a certain limit to the amount of stuff that everybody needs. There is so much stuff that is never worn or never played with or never used, and you’re spending money and giving over valuable floor space to storing that stuff.
“Wardrobes have got massive. Walk-in wardrobes are huge now.
“Surely you can’t wear all those clothes. I’m one of the worst offenders because I’m a huge hoarder; I hate throwing out anything. But I’m clearing it bit by bit. I did my jumpers the other night. I had already done my shirts because I had Covid, and I did them during quarantine. I only got as far as the shirts though, not any further.
“I was working in the bedroom. I brought a little desk in, 10 days in there was horrendous, but look, people went through worse. I was able to work and I was just isolating. I wasn’t very sick. I did lose my taste and my smell, and I was exhausted for about three or four weeks afterwards. I got my taste back and actually I think the smell has come back worse. I can smell stuff I never smelled before and it’s not good.”
It’s just as well Bannon got his taste back.
One of the homeowners this year has been feeding him for months. He says he tries not to have preferences when filming but this one definitely stands out.
“I have a client this year, I shouldn’t have favourites and they’re all great this year, but she is just an amazing cook. She’s a herbalist and her house is all about the garden and the connection to outdoor space.
“I go down there for food all the time. Sometimes I will drive down with no agenda whatsoever but to just get a bit of quiche.
“She taught me how to make juices, really taught me about food a good bit throughout the year because I’ve spent so much time with her.
“She’s just so generous to everybody. She makes the most delicious chocolates with dates and peanut butter and they’re for all the crew, but I try and get in first and rob half of them.
“Whenever we’re coming down, she’ll say, ‘Will you just call into me first. I have made lunch.’ And I’m thinking, do not realise Mary I told you I’d be down at one o’clock — what do you think I’m there for?”
Everyone will remember the Room to Improve special that featured Bannon’s own Dublin home and I ask how well it worked for the family over the last two years.
“It’s been brilliant and the open-plan space works really well.
“People say they don’t like open-plan anymore but because it’s L-shaped, it meant that we had two ends so the kids could be playing X-Box or doing their homework and we could cook the dinner.
“It was really nice because it was the one space where we were all together.
“It’s the way you design open-plan with corners and window seats and little spaces people can get themselves into that’s important. I think a lot of people felt lonely during the pandemic, even though they were living in a house full of people. Kids tend to squat in their rooms or people were trying to find their own little bit of solace somewhere and as a result of that a lot of people spent an awful lot of time by themselves.”
The most contentious bit of his home design was his famous bath in the back garden, but Bannon has gone even further with his outdoor ablutions.
“I’ve put a kit sauna into the shed, which has been brilliant. I took up sea swimming during lockdown too, but I won’t go on about it because I know they say, how do you know if somebody is a sea swimmer? They’ll tell you. So, I’m just saying I took it up and I loved it and it rescued me from my own thoughts a lot of the time. That and then coming home to the sauna.
“It’s a really cheap, inexpensive one, but it is at the end of the garden, so it became a bit of a process. You have to go down there to use it and then I put in one of those cheap showers you get in gyms, where you have to press the button and it gives you 30 seconds of amazing cold water.
“I love it and the kids love it and we did sauna nights where we’d all go down. The sauna was one thing but hearing them squeal under the cold shower was brilliant.
“I’m still sea swimming, only at the weekends now that the kids are back doing sport and everyone is busy.. Sometimes I’ll miss it and it’s once every two weeks but if I can I’ll do it once a week. It’s not that difficult. It’s just cold and I got a nice layer of fat during lockdown so that helps!”
- ‘Room to Improve’ begins on February 20 at 9.30pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player.
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