I just caught up. Imo, the Donegal house is absolutely hideous — it looks as if it was designed by a committee of expensive architects and interior designers with no brief other than ‘spend whatever you want, short of 24 carat gold leaf on all surfaces — square footage no issue’. You learn nothing whatsoever about the people who live there, other than that they have money and no particular taste of their own. I think the judges all thought it was awful, but were being tactful, because you can’t just say ‘Eww’ about a house on tv when you’re a national Design Legend. That’s why they kept determinedly talking about how spacious it was, and how high-spec the finishes were, because both were true.
And as someone who lived for a year in a very glass-heavy house on a windswept bit of Galway coast, the window-cleaning bill will be hefty and very frequent with all that salt spray flying about! I frequently could barely see through my glass balconies…
And yes, I’m astonished it got planning permission for a Hamptons-y blot on the landscape.
I can absolutely appreciate different tastes, but that house didn’t have any other than ‘neutral bling’.
I quite liked the house with the redhaired architect owner (the one with the bath under the skylight). Always interesting to see Amanda saying ‘This is the only room I’ve seen in 100 houses where I wouldn’t change a thing. But my favourite house out of every season I’ve seen was the west Cork converted schoolhouse from a year or two ago.