Series 7
The show, which is now in its seventh series, will start on Sunday the 17th of November at 9:30pm on RTE One and will feature six innovative new projects throughout the series.
Featuring a diverse mix of renovations, refurbishments and new builds, this series will include a new construction in Mullingar, a self build project undertaken in Clane by homeowners back from the UK, the audacious extension of an old cottage in Westport, County Mayo and an exciting new extension for a young couple in Stillorgan.
This year, with budgets tighter than ever and clients’ expectations high, Dermot evolves his role as perfectionist designer to accomodate mediation, redrafting, builder-wrangling and some extremely delicate diplomacy. In this series, he’ll be dealing with clients who know exactly what they want. Or so they think.
Quantity surveyor Patricia Power returns as the budget-conscious Jiminy Cricket to Dermot’s design Pinnochio: keeping an eye on his more elaborate design excesses, negotiating the best deals and somehow making the impossible feasible.
Bringing Dermot’s designs to life are a feisty mix of local contractors and crews. As ever, there’ll be last minute design changes, construction dilemmas, designers gone AWOL, unpredictable weather, wars of will, clashes, compromise and colour galore as the weeks pass, budgets expand, schedules slip and tempers fray.
And that’s just for starters.
Six very different projects – one architect as headstrong and self-assured as ever. Still – there’s always Room To Improve.
Episode One:
The first in the series will see Catherine Bennett and her youngest daughter Sarah Jane keen to downsize from their huge 13-bedroomed house in Mullingar. They’re planning to move down the road, where they also own a 3-bed bungalow that’s been uninhabited for the last nine years.
The bungalow – where Catherine and her late husband Tom once planned to retire – is completely derelict, boarded up and in an advanced state of disrepair.
Given the very different and quite specific needs of mother and daughter, Dermot suggests demolishing the old place to make way for an all-new build. Despite fond memories of the place where Tom grew up, Catherine and Sarah Jane agree.
With a totally cleared site to work with, Dermot gets a rare opportunity to design from the ground-up, but it quickly becomes apparent that this build will be even more challenging than usual. With a host of independent contractors hired, builder Poraig Gibbons and his crew have to fight their corner from the get-go.
As the build runs foul of building regulations, the budget creeps up, much to the disgust of Catherine – a canny deal-maker and online shopper who, along with hiring multiple contractors, has been carefully sourcing fittings and finishes from eBay, hoping to control the cost of the build.
With just 20 weeks to create an ideal home for two women with spectacularly contrasting expectations, the pressure on Dermot, quantity surveyor Patricia Power and the long suffering construction crew never seems to let up.
For press enquiries please contact:
Lindsey Holmes or Karleen Smyth @ LHP on 01 – 497 0313 | info@lhpublicity.ie
For more information on the seventh series of Room To Improve, please contact:
COCO Television on 01 – 4970817 or email info@cocotelevision.ie