Room to Improve review: See revamped family home complete with garden gym
After: The kitchen. Pictures: Coco Content
Ann Brannigan and David Mooney have always adored their Dublin home despite its imperfections.
They would never dream of living anywhere else but have wanted to renovate their space in Santry for years. As David says: “There’s not a room in this house that doesn’t need to be improved."
And like many television viewers over the past decade and a half, Ann has often imagined what it would be like to have Dermot Bannon set to work on their cluttered rooms and layouts, reveals her husband. “She has been saying for years, ‘I would love Dermot Bannon to come to our house’,” says David.
Fast-forward six months and the architect has transformed the semi-detached dwelling, lived in and loved by the same family for three-quarters of a century.
Ann and David found love later in life and set up home in the house Ann had bought 25 years before from her grandfather.
It’s Ann’s former family residence and they share it with their son, Desmond.
“My mother grew up in this house, she moved in here when she was 12, and my grandmother always thought this was a very lucky house,” says Ann during the finale of the 2024 series of RTÉ One’s .
Ann’s sister Emer bought the house next door. “One of the fences in the back garden is taken down so the children can come and go,” adds Ann. “On top of that, we have a green outside our house. There’s no point in us going to a bigger house. I just can’t see why I would ever want to move from this house.”
The location is all about community for Ann, a colorectal surgeon at the Mater Hospital, and David who works for an international tech company.
Two separate extensions were added to the mid-1950s-built house in the 1990s.
They have always felt that the layout doesn't work and that the family lacks sufficient space.
Ann also wants to future-proof the house for her family’s needs, including creating an area that can be turned into a bedroom and living space for her mother in years to come.
David would like the house to feel more like a home, and to include a workspace for him.
“We need space, we need light, we need heat," he says.
As Dermot surveys the front room/office space, with two workstations, he says: “It's like a call centre in this room.”
The couple have a budget of €400,000 but need to decide which is more important, their wish list or the budget.
“They value the street and they value the community and the green and her sister far more than the appreciation of the house," says Dermot.
“It’s a really difficult thing to swallow — they are going to pump so much money into the house knowing they’ll never get it back but they don’t have any value on that, they have a value on here [the area].”
Dermot’s design aims to “maximise the magic of the garden”, and remove the side extension, replacing it with a new building to the north-facing front of the house, which will be pulled forward to line up with the building next door.
The existing sitting room office will become a flexible space that in time will become a sitting room and bedroom for Ann’s mum.
On the other side will be a large family dining space located between a west-facing terrace and a new courtyard.
Two bedrooms upstairs will now become one large bedroom with a new ensuite and off the new spacious landing a guest room and bathroom with another bedroom.
“I think you need this house to breathe,” says Dermot.
Quantity surveyor Claire Irwin had priced the original plans the couple had for a build at €781,000.
The couple describe Dermot’s design, with build estimates at €596,000, as “perfect”.
Enter building contractor Denis McGlynn.
The couple move in with Ann’s family for the duration of the build, during which what Dermot describes as “appendages” and what David calls the “carbuncle” disappear.
As the layout becomes less “higgledy-piggledy”, adds David, “the house is happy again”.
During the six-month build, there are some discussions as to the storage area for David’s two motorcycles as well as the kitchen island space and the placing of the hob and sink.
“I want a clean island,” says Ann. “I don’t want a sink or a hob on the island.” David clarifies: “Operating-theatre-flat.” In addition, towards the end, the couple seek a small garden room to be designed, for fitness equipment, including a bicycle, rowing machine, weights and punch bag.
Dermot has his doubts at first, thinking it may be too large for the garden.
Ann is firm: “I don’t think it’ll be an eyesore."
As Dermot leaves to come up with his super-fast solution, he says: “The garden is a nice size now and it’ll be a great space and it’s like parking a bus in your back garden.”
Builder Denis is worried. “This job from day one has got bigger and bigger. I’m at the point now where I’m about to panic.
"If you look around there’s a serious amount of work to do and we’ve only got about seven weeks; I don’t know if we’ll get it across the line or not.”
But Dermot, Denis and the team come through to deliver the couple’s “massive ambition” for the “dream house on a relatively small plot”, as the architect describes it.
“They wanted generous spaces; what I did was to make every space as big as possible,” adds Dermot.
The result is a living space connected from the front to the open-plan living and dining area, imbued with light.
The dining/hangout space features between two courtyards.
“I had this mantra going most of the time — calm, easy, restful,” says Dermot.
“But I don’t think they trusted me — they were expecting 'wows' all the way. In keeping the house calm it needs to be really simple and the big problem with simple is they are just lines. Every time I showed them a drawing they were underwhelmed. Simple designs make really boring drawings.”
The design also moved the stairs to the side and amplified the volume of the interiors.
“They invested in things that would make a massive difference to their lives, so we don’t have lots of unused rooms, we have really nice rooms, lots of volume, and tall ceilings.
“Space and light are the two biggest things in architecture and they’ve really invested in that everywhere,” he adds.
The project went to site with a contract value of €600,000, says QS Claire Irwin.
“They spent money on things that meant a lot to them; they didn’t rush into anything extra without due consideration,” adds Claire.
Considering various additions the closing account for the house build, excluding the landscaping and the garden room, comes to €628,000.
- RTÉ One’s is on RTÉ Player
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