Home of the Year winners share secrets to creating a dream dwelling

Cork couple Amy and Eoin Martin tell Eve Kelliher how they renovated a 1970s Limerick property to become a family home they love 

The winner of the 2025 Home of the Year on RTÉ One was the Limerick residence of Cork couple Amy and Eoin Martin, centre. Pictures: Joe McCallion

Hugh Wallace is rhapsodising about a bathroom in the final of the 2025 Home of the Year.

It’s just before Cork couple Amy and Eoin Martin get to raise the sought-after trophy for their 1970s dream dwelling in Limerick once first-time judge Siobhan Lam announces the duo as the winners on the 11th of the RTÉ One series.

The bathroom in question is located in the Victorian residence in Dublin, one of the seven finalists. That property’s “sumptuousness” of materials impresses Siobhan, while its living room is judge Amanda Bone's favourite ever. 

Amy and Eoin Martin with judges Siobhan Lam, Hugh Wallace and Amanda Bone. Pictures: Joe McCallion

But its bathroom, says longtime judge Hugh, is “to die for — it’s the best bathroom I’ve seen, the sheer scale and size and the joy, beautiful materials; just a tour de force and joy”.

The camera cuts to the homeowners, Mary Phelan and Aiden Fitzpatrick. They’re discussing their tour-de-force tub with fellow finalist Jenny-Anne Corkery. “This actually came from Mary’s family’s farm — it’s a bath that the cows were drinking out of for 50 years,” says Aiden.

Mary interrupts briskly: “Fifty-plus years. It’s an old rolltop cast-iron. We nearly broke the stairs bringing it up….our house is a home. We don’t always look at it as a beautiful home.”

Mary Phelan and Aiden Fitzpatrick's Victorian Dublin home, with its 'bathroom to die for', top right, was runner-up.

And those words sum up why we tune in. We want to get a feel for how other people live. In the event, Mary and Aiden’s quality quarters win runner-up honours, as does Jenny-Anne’s compact Dublin family home, after interior design consultant Sioban and her fellow judges, architects Amanda and Hugh, have deliberated over the seven stunning finalists, located in Limerick, Tipperary, Dublin, Wicklow, and Kildare.

Jenny-Anne Corkery's compact Dublin home was runner-up.

And for winners Amy, an interior designer, and Eoin, a radiologist, a sense of home is key.

They’ve lived in Australia, where they had their own residence in Brisbane for a decade, and between rentals and student digs, would have hung their hats in up to 30 houses over the years.

Amy, from Passage West, and radiologist Eoin, from Glasheen, share their Limerick home with their sons Ben, 16, and Sam, 12, their dog, Ozzie, and three cats, Percy, Kitty and Daisy.

The kitchen-living room in Amy and Eoin Martin's Limerick 1970s house, Home of the Year 2025 winner.

So, is this the fabled “forever home”? “Well, coming back from Australia, I talked about the forever home,” says Amy. “And, I suppose life has become, you know, unpredictable, parents who’ve died (Eoin’s dad Noel passed away in 2023 and my mum Kathleen in January this year), and it’s been a difficult couple of years. Moving into this house, you know, I suppose I tried to stop saying ‘forever home’ to the boys because who knows what can happen and where you go? But I absolutely love home. I can’t imagine being anywhere else. We’ve made it just exactly what we wanted. We’re very happy in Limerick.”

Eoin adds: “Cork is an hour and a half down the road. We’re both there quite often. So yeah, I would like to imagine if there is such a thing as a forever home, then…if they build the motorway, it’ll definitely be. Yeah.”

The 2025 Home of the Year offers “upside-down” accommodation, with the main living space and kitchen on the first floor, making the most of their garden and the natural light.

As we chat over Zoom, I’m fascinated not only by the Technicolor fabulousness — the fact that Amy is a longtime fan of colour expert and renowned British interior designer Sophie Robinson is clear — but by the light and also the ease with which the family share their luxe living space with their four-legged members.

Any advice on maintaining a heavenly Home of the Year with furries in the mix, I ask as their pooch slips on and off the sofa, welcoming the postman at one point. “Ozzie is a non-shed cavachon …. but we’ve learned to get up a half hour or 20 minutes extra in the morning to feed the animals and all! But the boys are older now, so we all just chip in,” says Amy.

“Sealing” their outdoor space and adding extra fencing and gates in the garden helped. “We can just leave the back door open and then they’re all in and out without us having to worry about keeping an eye on them .... so from a practical point of view, that was a good adaptation,” adds Amy.

And echoing fellow finalist Mary Phelan, not being “precious” is important. “I clean and tidy, but I’d rather have all of the mess [that goes with] the normal home life than not have the animals, you know,” she says. Eoin adds: “It’s a compromise as well. You’ve got to accept there’s a lot more cleaning and you will have scratches on the paintwork and you will be opening and closing the doors a lot.”

Conversations with Amy’s idol Sophie Robinson and Home of the Year presenter Hugh Wallace had galvanised Amy, a longtime fan of both the RTÉ One series and TV interior design shows featuring Sophie, to follow her dream. Amy says: “I’m a nurse by trade, but I suppose since after covid, when the boys were young, I sort of stepped out of nursing for a while. I was looking after my mom and then really went: ‘Right, this is my time to study interior design,’” she says.

“A couple of [years ago] during the Ideal Home exhibition, I knew Hugh Wallace was going to be speaking [at the event] and….Sophie Robinson. I went and I met Hugh Wallace and Sophie Robinson. At the time, I had just been doing sort of bits and pieces of interior design, little things for friends. And Sophie said to me: ‘Just go for it. You should absolutely if it’s what you’re interested in.’”

Following the fortunes of interior design consultant and Home of the Year contestant-turned-judge Siobhan Lam also motivated Amy, who enjoys browsing in Siobhan’s furniture and design store, April and the Bear: “It’s quite close to where we have relatives living in Dublin, so they literally have to do a drive-by, and I jump out of the car and run in. So it was very exciting to hear that she was to be a judge as well.”

The couple confess to being delighted and bemused to see passersby taking a look at what they have done with their 1970s retrofit. “I love a sticky-beak in people’s homes, whether it’s on the TV or walking past looking at the outside — just love it,” says Amy.

Falling in love with their own property was their starting point. They gutted and renovated the building, sweeping its BER from a D3 to an impressive A3.

What’s their top tip for others? “Research,” is the answer from both. On the subject of grants, Eoin adds: “A lot of planning has to go into it. And it’s still very expensive. 

"But if you know you can cover the cost, it is worth it in the long run. And you don’t have to do everything at once.” He credits his interior designer wife for “99% of the work” when it comes to creativity.

A bedroom in the 2025 Home of the Year.

• See the Home of the Year final and previous episodes on RTÉ Player, Rte.ie/player