Sara Cosgrove: From Home of the Year fan to show star

The award-winning interior designer talks to Eve Kelliher about giving 'side-eye' on TV and judging homes with Amanda and Hugh

Tue, 20 Feb, 2024 - 18:55

Eve Kelliher

Let's imagine we can go back in time, I tell Sara Cosgrove. Just a couple of years or so. How would she react to the iconic image we now have of her strolling down driveways, arm in arm with Hugh Wallace and Amanda Bone?

The interior designer considers the notion during our conversation ahead of the 10th series of Home of the Year. “I would have laughed you out the door,” she says.

“Three or four years ago I was watching the show on the sofa, like every other TV viewer. I'd be wondering, how did Hugh give that a seven or I would have been commenting on flouncy curtains!”

But as the ratings winner returns to RTÉ One this Tuesday, February 20, it will be Sara’s third time awarding scores of her own to send homeowners through to the final.

“Suddenly I was on the show, I was thinking: ‘Oh my God, this is a parallel universe!” she says.

How did it all come to pass? “I had started doing Instagram lives with my designers and creatives — and a producer on the series saw them and called me. A judging slot had become vacant.”

Sara was reluctant to take the calls at first. “Funnily enough, I thought at first she was ringing me to say wanted my house to be on the show,” says Sara.

Interior designer Sara Cosgrove, right, with architects Amanda Bone and Hugh Wallace.

But when it transpired it was Sara herself the producers wanted to audition, she reconsidered. “On a fateful day I went in and met Hugh and Amanda for the first time,” she says. “We did a mock ‘Home of the Year’.”

Within two weeks, the trio were “on the road”, she adds, visiting the 21 houses that take part in the contest. “I never had time to think about it. Three seasons later and I am still here,” she says.

Did she click with Amanda and Hugh straight away?

“Yes, I think it was the balance of personalities that worked. If we were all the same it wouldn’t. I would describe us [Sara and architects Amanda and Hugh] as a seesaw and I am in the middle trying to keep equilibrium,” she says.

“There are tussles. Sometimes it’s like the three of us are standing in three different rooms. Hugh loves it. It’s so rare there’s consensus — and when there is it’s so lovely. And it’s quite exciting.”

The Clare eco self-build will be a port of call for the judges in the first episode of 2024.

Sara and her fellow TV judges’ comments are “completely unscripted” she adds.

“We are given so little information beforehand,” she says.

“They give you just enough so that if you knew the person [who owns the house] you could flag it. We’ve all been in our various industries for a long time so we’ve got a good handle on what works and what doesn’t work.

“My wants and needs are, as far as possible, of the equation, because ultimately you would do it differently [if it was your own home].

“As a judge, I believe I need to really understand, one why the homeowner has put it on Home of the Year; then get a handle on why the home works as a whole; and finally, how the homeowner’s personality works in the space.

“Sometimes it might be too perfect and you can’t see why and then other times the personality is so overwhelming.”

Do all the judges work out their scores on a similar basis? “No, not at all,” says Sara.

“I think we all operate completely differently. I mean, you’d have to ask the guys — Hugh has been on 10 series and has seen something like 230 main bedrooms. Weird! But it means he’s got so much context as a judge, and also with his other TV shows and his other work.”

Their quirks are as apparent to the judges as to the viewers, she believes.

“Amanda will get fixated on something. And as for me, I think there’s quite a bit of side-eye. And I never knew until I saw myself on the show that I did it.

“Hugh will do something or say something and I will think,’ What’s he going on about, Hugh’s angry!’

“And he will ask me to have an opinion. He and Amanda will go toe to toe on something and Hugh will try to drag me in and I will refuse — because I don’t know what they’re going on about!”

Sara has a clear-eyed take on the show as light entertainment. “You can’t take it too seriously,” she says.

“There’s a crisis on out there. ‘Home of the Year’ is what it is: It is for people championing their own homes for lots of different reasons and often there’s a really fascinating story behind that — whether it’s a young couple who have bought an absolute heap of a place and have done something wonderful with it, or whether it’s focusing on people who have moved back from overseas, or the authenticity of that first home.

“The series shows every type of homeowner and home and that’s what it represents.

“There were homeowners who had rented for over 10 years, with six children, it was their first house and they were so proud of what they’d created, that’s what Home of the Year is championing. And there’s such

an array of homes, from teeny-tiny jewel boxes to vast stately properties.”

As well as that, it’s not always the one that we expect to win that necessarily comes out on top, she adds. “Amanda says it very well: It’s how you feel on the day in the home. Is it working for you? Are there too many things?”

The appeal of the series to fans of all ages is what Sara loves about the production.

“It’s the fun of it,” she says. “I have friends with children of eight and nine years old and they do their own markings and have various WhatsApp groups.

“‘Home of the Year’ either is your show or it’s not. People are into it or they’re not.

“Irish people are so lovely, but often people might come up to you and the odd time will ask: Do you remember that house, and why did you give it that score?”

A bedroom by interior designer Sara Cosgrove.

Doing mileage across Ireland with Hugh and Amanda is “super, super-intense”, she adds. “We could be in four or five different counties in one week,” says Sara.

“What’s fascinating is for me you’re taking a litmus test of the market and seeing the latest in interior design and architecture.

“I still love the feeling of walking into a home and being taken aback by the imagination of a homeowner and seeing what they’ve done to turn a house into a home,” she says.

She hints at “fireworks’ in episode two (“I haven’t seen it yet — but I reckon there will be fireworks in that episode”).

The show is “completely unscripted”, according to Sara.

“The day before we arrive, we get a photo,” she says .”We get a little information, whether it’s a new build or was constructed in the 19th century, how many people live there, but what the viewer at home is seeing is pretty much what we see. I think it is really clever.”

But she adds, at times “it doesn’t translate”. “Sometimes we might be in a room that seems very dark [to us] and we comment on it — and then on the TV screen it might look bright, so we sound really mad!”

Sara, a native of Westport, Co Mayo, has been based in London and Dublin for much of her adult life and now lives in Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin.

Sea swimming is a passion for the mum of two, a young son and a daughter. “I like to quote the joke I heard [celebrity gardener] Diarmuid Gavin tell: ‘How do you know a sea swimmer? Don’t worry! They’ll tell you!’ “My work can be quite stressful and intense and I find sea swimming is a godsend. I’m from Westport, and also swim at home, and I just adore it.

“And Killiney Beach is so massive — there’s always space. I think we’re so lucky in Ireland, being an island.

“When I was young I used to think I wanted to live in a city by the sea — so I used to tell myself I’d have to move somewhere like Sydney! Not thinking of places like Cork and Dublin!”

Having graduated with a degree from Trinity, Sara originally planned to work in fashion but realised it ‘did not suit my personality”.

This Dublin home is one of the three the judges will visit on the opening episode.

She completed a master’s degree in interior design in London where she worked for 13 years.

“I had amazing years in London and then met my husband who was based in Dublin,” she says.

Years of commuting followed. “I moved back to Dublin when I was due to have my son,” she says The award-winning designer is the founder of two design businesses, Sara Cosgrove Studio and Grove & Co.

Before setting up her own business in 2014 she worked at several top design houses including Helen Green Design and Candy & Candy and was the head of design at Harrods London.

“I think there’s a lot of fantasy around interior design but I am a businesswoman at the end of the day.

“My advice to people who want to work in interior design is ideally to work for someone else when starting out, to work for the best company out there. I’m 20-odd years in the business and I can tell you, I’m learning stuff every day.”