See inside Harrison Gardner's family home in Co Clare

Eve Kelliher talks to the master eco-builder and presenter of  RTÉ One's 'Build Your Own Home' 

Harrison Gardner, and right, exterior of the home he shares with his family in Co Clare.

Harrison Gardner is interested in solutions, not problems.

His is a practical response to the housing crisis — unsurprising for a man who built his own home and now teaches others to do likewise.

You don’t think you could take on a self-build job? How about this for a pep talk from the eco-builder extraordinaire: “For a lot of people, whether they feel useless or not, they’re running out of options. 

"We can sit all day and talk about it; there are people out there who are finding solutions, and they are not conventional.

Seizing the keys to our own front doors should be “achievable, not aspirational”, he believes. “Start gathering skills,” is Harrison’s advice. “Money isn’t the only commodity when it comes to building a house. Gather a team. 

Harrison Gardiner at his kitchen table, where he originally started his Build School. Picture: Shantanu Starick

"What skills could you learn that could really help you? Don’t be scared of not being amazing at it, don’t be scared of getting it wrong at the beginning — that’s all part of the process. We need to take more agency and control of more elements in our lives.”

Our conversation takes place during a week that the master builder, broadcaster and author’s second TV series Build Your Own Home starts airing on RTÉ One. In it, he works with everyday people taking on the challenge of creating “the homes they need with the budgets they’ve got”, as Harrison describes it.

In this season’s first episode, on Wednesday, viewers watched newly married homeowners Aoife NicChraith and Louis Brennan save over €200,000 by building their own home in Tuam, Co Galway, with Harrison’s guidance, in comparison to quotes from contractors/builders.

Harrison Gardner with homeowners Aoife NicChraith and Louis Brennan and their daughter Caoime on RTÉ's Build Your Own Home.

Before: The exterior of the house in Tuam, Co Galway, on RTÉ's Build Your Own Home.

They essentially attached a brand-new three-bedroom residence to an existing 200-year-old house to cater to their growing family. Aoife is a practising corporate lawyer, and while Louis had done some labouring before, he had no construction experience of a project on this scale. Harrison adds, “I’m a builder, so to me, building my own house isn’t so impressive. My parents built their own house, and for me, that was what I knew.”

When his mother and father relocated to Australia from South Africa, they set about crafting their own home just north of Sydney. It was still under construction as Harrison and his parents moved in. “My only toys growing up were tools and building materials,” he says.

After: The house in Tuam, Co Galway, on RTÉ's Build Your Own Home.

Since tipping away at his childhood home, Harrison has notched over 15 years of experience designing and building conventional, sustainable and alternative dwellings all around the world and in recent years co-founded Common Knowledge ( Ourcommonknowledge.org), a non-profit social enterprise in Co Clare, to help people develop the skills and confidence to live more sustainably. “We teach everything from home building and DIY to growing food, making furniture, and mending clothes,” he says.

Harrison had worked for sustainable building company Earthship Biotecture for several years as an international foreman, teaching what he describes as “a very niche off-grid type of building”. “What I realised was that of the hundreds of students coming through, none of them had picked up a tool before, and they were just excited to do that,” says Harrison.

The house that Harrison and Erin built. Picture: Shantanu Starick

He met his wife, Erin McClure, a textile and graphic designer from Co Clare, in Dublin at the Fumbally Café. “I had been on the road for 10 years, and my friend told me about Ireland. Ireland wasn’t on my radar — and now we both live here and we both have Irish wives,” he says. 

Harrison and Erin bought, revamped and sold a property together, which proved to be a bonding experience. “Erin had been living in London for years and had grown up in East Clare. We went halves on a small townhouse in Ennistymon. We tore it apart and rebuilt it. 

"It really was a crash course in each other,” says Harrison.

They then fell in love with an old cottage near Ennistymon, in west Clare, that they have renovated to become their dream home. Fortunately, they discovered their aesthetic styles “weave well together”, he says.

The comfortable living space in Harrison Gardiner's Co Clare home. Picture: Shantanu Starick

Harrison adored learning to work with stone. “I came to Ireland for the stone ruins. Our property is an old stone ruin that I’m very proud to have contributed to, along with the builders from hundreds of years ago,” he says.

His and Erin’s children, Inari, five, and Isla, two, will grow up as confident around construction as he did, adds their dad: “We have two more little minds in the mix — with very strong opinions! 

It gives me great peace knowing my daughters will never worry about housing because they can build when they need to. 

"Other kids feel freedom when they can paint their bedroom another colour, whereas they will say, ‘That wall should get  knocked down!’ The way their minds work just feels bigger.”

The light-filled bathroom at the home Harrison Gardiner shares with his wife and two daughters. Picture: Shantanu Starick

And Harrison would like them to live in an Ireland where we all feel a sense of agency and community: “We’ve got to have a culture that encourages people to give it a go. 

"Like I said, people are running out of options. I just really believe in people, and I believe in our ability to learn these skills, rather than waiting for someone to do it for us, or worse, waiting for someone to sell it to us. We are more than just consumers. We’ve lost confidence in ourselves. If you’re sitting in the pub and someone says they want to build their own house, encourage them, don’t laugh at them.”

A bedroom at Erin and Harrison's home in West Clare. Picture: Shantanu Starick

West Clare’s community as well as its drystone walls, inspire his work.

When he and Erin were expecting their elder daughter, they were also renovating the then-derelict cottage. Knocks arrived at their door. “All of these people were contacting me about their own projects,” says Harrison. 

And so Build School was also born that year. “We had a brand-new baby, and we had six people come to that first Build School. We sat around my breakfast table, talked about everything, and we went out and did it.”

• Build Your Own Home airs on Wednesdays on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player, 9.35pm

• Harrison Gardner’s second book, Our Homes: Other Ways to Solve the Housing Crisis, published by Mayo Book Press, can be preordered at Harrisongardner.net

Harrison Gardner’s top advice

• Forget about the resale value. Build a home, not a house. Think about a favourite nook for coffee if you enjoy a cup of coffee, with a little shelf for your coffee cups. That’s what makes a space feel like it recharges you and allows you to go out into the world.

• Money isn't the only commodity — gather skills. 

• Self-build isn’t as lonely as it sounds, you need a team of people to get it over the line, whether that’s your friends and family, your electrician, plumber or your engineer.
  
  Would you like to feature in Changing Spaces? Email [e-mail]