Architect Dermot Bannon will take on a celebrity project in the upcoming series of RTE’s Room to Improve as he prepares to remodel the Donegal home of Daniel and Majella O’Donnell.
According to The Sunday World, the couple approached the renowned architect at a design show earlier this year to get him on board with their home renovations.
Speaking to the publication, Daniel said: “We were talking about doing some renovations to make it work a bit better for us. Majella was at a homes exhibition and Dermot was there so she approached him for some advice.
“She asked him if he’d come to Donegal to see the house, and Dermot then asked if we’d do the show. We weren’t thinking about doing that show, but now we’re doing it it’s a much bigger job than we could have done ourselves. It’s exciting because the house is going to be changed.”
The project hopes to focus on the home’s picturesque surroundings, which include views of the Atlantic.
Dermot said: “Daniel and Majella live on the wild rugged Atlantic coastline within a breathtaking landscape of lush green carpet broken by a dramatic rockscape.
“The house is a typical generic house type that you’ll find all over Ireland and that can look alien in their setting and although the house is big, there was always something missing – a soul.
“The aim of the project is to reach out and become embedded in the landscape, but more importantly, finally create a home, a refuge that shrinks and wraps around them like a blanket from their hectic lives outside of its walls.
“This project shows that having all the space you need sometimes is just not enough.”
Majella will be taking the reigns of the project, as Daniel is preparing to go on tour. Although the couple hope to be in their completed home by Christmas, they say it might be a bit of a stretch.
“They are hoping to start the work next month and they say it’ll be finished by Christmas but I think they’ll need to go to Lourdes because that’ll take a miracle,” said Daniel.
“We gave Dermot a budget and they are only getting the quotes in now. He came back with the budget spent to the last penny, so no doubt when we have our next meeting there will be drama. There has already been a wee bit of drama which you will eventually see on the show,” he said.
