Duplex apartment up for Home Of The Year this week

A DUPLEX apartment in Kildare, a renovated village home in Mayo, and a modern new build in Dublin are all in the running as Home Of The Year continues next week.

Only one of the properties will make it to the final, as judges Hugh Wallace, Amanda Bone, and Sara Cosgrove cast a critical eye over them.

The episode airs on RTÉ1 on Tuesday at 8.30pm.

The property in Dublin is owned by Jean and John Farrell, who have lived in the Victorian house for 26 years. It had been perfect for them and their growing family, but as their children moved out, the couple had a dream to build a contemporary house in the garden of their old home.

The home has been designed to capture the light and spectacular views. Jean and John worked closely with their architect and builder to overcome the difficult sloping site and to make sure the home was sympathetic to its surroundings.

Spread out over four floors to maximise the site, the house is ‘upside down’, with the living areas at the top of the house and the bedrooms on the bottom.

María Alcazar and Michael Swan live in the duplex apartment in Kildare along with their daughter, Sofia. They bought it in 2001 when it was still very much a shell, so set about putting their own stamp on it. Over the years they have done lots of work to the home, including extending the footprint of the kitchen, installing floor to ceiling bookshelves for their reading corner, redesigning the layout of the mezzanine level and installing crittall style doors to increase the amount of light in the space and redesigning the layout of the bedrooms.

María loves that their apartment is full of natural light, space and colour.

Jacqui and Rob Naughton live in a renovated village home in Mayo with their two sons.

The home had been in Robert’s family when they purchased it in 2020. Originally built in the early 1900s, it had seen many uses over the years, including formerly being a girls secondary school. The home had been vacant for a few years before they moved in, so they completely renovated it to make it to warm family home.

Jacqui, an interior decorator, describes it as having a traditional country style and is proud that they have been able to bring back some of the character of this historical building which had been lost over the years.

The couple love the transformation they have brought to the original building, and how they’ve retained its uniqueness but also made it cosy.