Trading up: Goresbridge, Kilkenny Price: €200,000

Size: Sq m 170 (1,845 sq ft)

Is it a boat? Is it a plane? A cottage? An ark? When it came to renovating and extending this Goresbridge, Co Kilkenny property, the owner pushed the boat out, fashioning a ship’s bridge-like rear extension in steel, timber and glass.

As a result, the once-modest single storey cottage now is very much a home of two halves, one modern, open and airy done in glass, wood and steel, the other section quainter, retaining faint traces of a distant past, and anchored with stout stone walls.