My favourite room: ‘I was worse than any client’ – Room to Improve’s Claire Irwin on revamping her Donegal home

RTÉ’s Claire Irwin and her husband Declan modernised their home in Donegal in 2019 – and now she knows exactly how hard renovation is, even though she’s an expert

Quantity surveyor and Room to Improve regular Claire Irwin outside her stunningly renovated period home in Buncrana on the Inishowen Peninsula. Photo: Tony Gavin

Mary O'Sullivan

Devoted fans of Room to Improve will know, homeowners who appear very positive and upbeat at the beginning of a build can, as time goes on, suddenly lose their nerve, start vacillating, back track on their original wishlist, add extras without adding to the budget itself, then dither about them and in general start messing around, often at very crucial points in the project.

Quite naturally, the star of the show, architect Dermot Bannon, gets a bit heated at this point and his frustration can be seen in his pieces to camera, and even in exchanges between him and the homeowners themselves.