Browsing though rural homes on Daft and most are grand, but every so often you come across some boom-era monstrosity with PVC windows, pinewood staircases, the same woodplank vinyl floor wrap in half the rooms, needless openplan design, beech kitchen cabinets, and a floor plan that’s twice the size as any of the surrounding houses. Without looking at the construction date you can just tell looking at it that it was built sometime between 2003-2007.
I get every era has it’s trends but that style of design had not aged well at all in my opinion and seems to be absolutely ubiquitous across the country, if I didn’t know better I’d say it was illegal to build any other kind of house.
What exactly was going on? Weird building code red tape? Conspiracy by the pine industry? Collective outbreak of bad taste among rural housewives watching too many interior design homes? Rouge architect who’s since been brought to justice? Material supply availability?
Below are a handful of examples so you can get what I’m on about
https://www.daft.ie/for-sale/detached-house-monargan-glebe-ardara-co-donegal/3817073
https://www.daft.ie/for-sale/detached-house-t-r-na-darach-tr-na-darach-drummerrill-inniskeen-co-monaghan/3566577
https://www.daft.ie/for-sale/detached-house-wigmill-farm-tullyweel-kilmainhamwood-co-meath/3813253
https://www.daft.ie/for-sale/detached-house-cartronlahan-inverin-co-galway/3911624
https://www.daft.ie/for-sale/detached-house-sentry-house-knockroe-lough-gur-kilmallock-co-limerick/3819930
23 comments
The pine, the inefficient use of space, the ugly leather furniture… Not as bad as American mcmansions but it was a hell of a ‘design’ period
Lino is good for doing bum spins.
“Sure doesn’t Tommy McNally’s son work for [insert regional company here], sure he’ll get you your [insert horrible product here]”
You mash all those connections and deals together without any thought of design, but just pure “I want it as big as possible for x number”
There was a building boom, materials and craftsmen were getting expensive. Pine is cheap, laminate flooring is affordable and you can lay it yourself. Most people broke their bollocks to get into the house, leaving little budget for extras.
While it looks dated today, many of us were coming out of 70/80s era bungalows, so it was considered an upgrade at the time. Just like anyone coming out of one of those houses today, into a well designed A rated home. (Where everything is panted some shade of grey…).
The Irish aren’t known for their design aesthetics.
Open plan or double doors in your living room.
Is it bad to say that I think the first one is lovely? Hahha
I dunno I like some of them.
Wouldn’t pay what any of them are asking. But I don’t hate it. I love big open areas with high ceilings. Great for putting up a Christmas tree. A huge big one with lots of colorful lights.
Suppose my taste is off anyway.
The reverse snobbery in these kind of posts always amuses me. Most of these homes were probably built for cheaper than it will cost your ex corpo 2 bed on the southside of Dublin.
I don’t have the first clue about interior design. I’d live in that first one blissfully ignorant that it’s appartly “bad”.
That green one looks particularly well laid out.
None of the houses there are that bad looking, minus the last one which is a bit too jagged. They’re built using modern materials because they’re modern houses. And the window placement and interior design is likely built to maximise natural light and for efficient usage of space, which makes them more pleasant to live in.
IMO they’re a sight better than those awful boring “bungalow bliss” houses that dominated the countryside in years before, with their grotty little linoleum kitchens and narrow dark hallways.
[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/32/8b/a7/328ba7d57fe45da3ada3dd16f2fbd742.gif](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/32/8b/a7/328ba7d57fe45da3ada3dd16f2fbd742.gif)
op right now.
I’d unironically more than happily live in one
it stems from a lot of things mostly due to the scattered nature of rural Ireland compared to other European countries. But I won’t go back that far, in the 1970s there was a book published by an Irish architect called ‘bungalow bliss’ (more like blitz) with a load of designs you could buy when you were building a house, so naturally lots of people did this without any consideration for the area they were building, even in the 2000s with more information it continued, as many of these homes were built with just an engineer or builder design and no real architecture taken into consideration. How they look is one thing but often they don’t even take into account the views or the landscape so it’s just looks like they were dropped in from urban Ireland and no relation to nature.
In 2001 cork council issued a guide to rural Ireland which details how things could be changed. i don’t think people paid attention to it .. unfortunately the style of homes you picked out are still being built today. A lot of people in rural Ireland want their house to be seen from the road and will destroy hedgerows and avenues of trees just to build a kitsch stone wall for all to see into their urban house. It’s something that really annoys me when i visit family, first world problem yes but its also unsustainable to have houses dotted all over the place rather then in a rural cluster. It all goes back to the poor planning seen all over Ireland rural and urban.
In terms of some of the design choices, pine was popular because it was cheap and some people think it looks nice for whatever reason, also planners tended to prefer dormer bungalows to two stories so that’s why you get those bulky looking designs, and for whatever reason a lot of rural areas planning rules forbid white windows so they have to be black or brown which just look awful most of the time.
[https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2021/1207/1265291-bungalow-bliss-jack-fitzsimons-ireland-architecture/](https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2021/1207/1265291-bungalow-bliss-jack-fitzsimons-ireland-architecture/) – Bungalow Bliss
[https://www.corkcoco.ie/sites/default/files/2017-05/planning%20enquirer.pdf](https://www.corkcoco.ie/sites/default/files/2017-05/planning%20enquirer.pdf) – cork rural design guide.
What is wrong with any of these houses?
The 2nd one and last one have either oak or ash staircases you uncultured swine.
That sounds like absolute jewels compared to the houses I’ve seen in Ireland when trying to rent.
Anything beyond a mud hut is a 10/10 in this country as far as I’m concerned.
If it has bricks, I’m already impressed
OP: Why do trends change over time?
These were considered nice, we’ve changed our minds on some aspects.
PVC Windows are, rightly, still popular as they are long lasting and very effective and come in a huge variety of styles.
My pet peeve is the complete lack of plantings or shrubbery around the houses. That’s not necessarily a Celtic tiger thing, though. The last house is an example. Grey austere gravel and not a flower or shrub or anything to blend it into the landscape. Looks like a helicopter dropped it there with no consideration for its surroundings.
I’d love that one in Ardara, I’d have to put down carpets though. Can’t be doing with all those clattery wooden floors.
Irish home design is horrendous in general. Incredibly boxy, the more walls and doors the better that’s how most architects design homes here. I tend to assume this is a heating and energy thing because big rooms are hard to heat and keep warm. However it’s not nice, your average gaf is fairly depressing. Newer builds utilize space but old homes from the 80s are incredibly bad.
All of these homes listed here were likely your local architect who didn’t give a fuck. Just took the money and did what was asked.
We bought a house recently with pine skirting boards, door frames and cladding of the ceiling in an extension. Same craic with that light brown kitchen cabinet design.
We did something absolutely wild.
We… PAINTED IT, and it looks about 10x more modern. I’m all for shitty pine cos it makes the home look much worse than it is and easier to buy.