Earlier this year, Room to Improve started filming across the street from RTÉ Guide journalist, Donal O’Donoghue. He gets the behind-the-scenes story from the show’s presenter, Dermot Bannon.
Last month, I walked out of my house to find Dermot Bannon blocking the driveway. Well, not the man himself exactly, but his car with its winky lights on. “Oh, is that your house?” asked the well-known architect and presenter of the popular TV series, Room to Improve.
It’s a question he’s probably asked a gazillion times before, especially in the helter-skelter final weeks of filming the RTÉ reality series. Right now, that was happening across the street from me with Deirdre and Kieran’s house, and Dermot was in a bit of a tizzy.
Ten days to the big reveal, and the pressure was on.
Hard-hatted builders and microphone-wielding TV people were everywhere. In the thick of it was conductor Bannon, ensuring that it would be alright on the night. But even then, amid the hoopla, he was looking to the big picture.
“Am I on the New Year cover of the RTÉ Guide?” asked Dermot.
“No,” says I.
“I bet it’s Tommy Tiernan,” says Dermot, fishing. “Is it Tommy, isn’t it? It’s always Tommy for the New Year.”
And yes, Dermot was right. But here we are, this week’s cover star, and while the 53-year-old says he’s not one to court the limelight (“at the end of the day it’s just a job”) Room to Improve has made him, literally, a household name.
Now Bannon’s back on the box with the 17th season of the RTÉ show that has, depending on whom you ask, (a) contributed to the boom in ‘property porn’, (b) increased one-hundred-fold the sale of glass extensions or (c) made a reality show about people realising their dream home into appointment TV.
The last has a lot to do with Dermot Bannon himself, a TV natural from his first time on the telly (a 1994 episode of Blind Date) and whose connection with the Room to Improve homeowners is deeper than I imagined, as I discovered this season.
“My daughter Sarah was just two when we first met,” Bannon reminds me of Room to Improve’s debut in 2007. Sarah (21 later this month) now has two younger siblings, James (17) and Tom (13), while Dermot, his wife, Louise and the family have relocated to a new home which he designed himself (and was the subject of a TV series).
Yet in all those years, I never really saw what happens behind the scenes until Room to Improve came to my street. People showed up, looking for selfies, Bannon was mentioned in the residents’ association minutes, and an elderly neighbour told me she had ‘advised’ Dermot on how best to renovate the chosen property (it included a two-storey build to the rear for drying clothes).
Room to Improve was telling the neighbourhood that, yes indeed, there was lots of room for improvement, and soon, there were plumbers’ and pavers’ vans clogging the road
Of course, Dermot Bannon has seen it all before. Many times. So, apart from the big money, what else gets him enthused about a new season of Room to Improve? “Hahaha!” laughs Dermot. “It’s the wrong time of the year to be asking that question because it’s so hectic now, I’m thinking ‘never again’. But I still enjoy it because you’re generally not in the office, as you’re out filming and meeting people.
Norita O’Donoghue, Dermot Bannon and Louis O’Donoghue
“However, in my day job, if something drifts over by a few weeks, it’s not a big deal usually; on Room to Improve, that cannot happen. This season started on January 4, and that date was immovable, so the last month before broadcast can be crazy.
“Everyone’s under pressure, and pressure is put on me because they all think it’s my fault!” Is it? “No, it’s not. But I must keep everyone calm and keep everything moving, because otherwise, there will be no show.”
The new season has four episodes, four stories, four themes: a retired couple downsizing to a suburban semi-d in Dublin 15; a young family “unlocking the potential” of their home in the suburb of Raheny; a 1960s bungalow revamp in Kells; and a terraced house needing a near-total rebuild in north Dublin.
Did all the projects hit their budgets? “I always hit the budget,” says Dermot.
“I have always done, ever since we have a QS (current Quantity Surveyor is Claire Irwin) on board. Now that doesn’t mean that the owners don’t splurge a bit extra. But I still get blamed if it goes over budget, don’t I?”
But what of the charge that he likes his glass and is partial to a big box-shaped extension? “What I do is contemporary architecture, and that is a lot of glass, which is triple-glazed. And the glass box charge against me is unfair because I don’t think I’ve ever done that.”
He talks about ‘casting’ the show, not just getting the right properties but also the right people to tell their story. Apart from Deirdre and Kieran in the opening episode, I also, coincidentally, knew Louis O’Donoghue, who features in this week’s episode. Louis is a big fan of Dermot, telling me how the architect and the film crew attended the funeral of his father, Al, who passed away during filming.
“On the show, I get to see people when they are very stressed, when they are very happy and all points in between,” says Bannon. “In a way, I get to go on a, and I hate this word, ‘journey’ with them, helping them to achieve their dream home. It’s not a celebrity drop-in. That celebrity thing goes out the window after the first meeting and they will ring me at all hours in a panic about whatever. That’s where the casting comes in: we find people who can tell their story very well.”
After some 18 years in the limelight, Dermot Bannon’s own story – the kid who loved Lego who grew up to be an architect – is well-known. His zest for life as well as his love of a good ding-dong conflab with homeowners, showcasing an indestructible TV personality. That is, until a brush with mortality in August 2024, when he had a pulmonary embolism.
“If I hadn’t gone to hospital then, you might not be interviewing me now,” he says. As the diagnosis was inconclusive – a blood clot had worked its way from his leg to his lung – he will be on blood thinners for life. He was advised not to engage in contact sports or anything physically high-risk. Of course, Dermot is sometimes a bold boy.
“I was zip-lining earlier this year and I walloped myself off a tree,” he says. “My entire leg turned black and all the blood pooled in my foot. I went to hospital and they said it will go away, but imagine if you walloped your head! So, no skiing, no zip-lining and the rest. It is a hard thing to come to terms with.”
It has changed how he lives his life. “Before it happened, I was someone who was always looking to the future, the Holy Grail was around the next corner,” he says. “I don’t see life like that any more. Now my thinking is that right now is as good as it is because I could be gone tomorrow.”
Isn’t that a good thing? “Well, yes. Even with all this busyness, I try to squeeze in a night out with friends or a lunch, or even during a break in filming, enjoying the craic with the gang. So, I’m finding joy in the little things which I never did before.”
We talk about the late, great Hugh Wallace: fellow architect and TV presenter. “We were not very close, but Hugh was always great company,” says Bannon. “We used to talk about what it’s like being in this business, being in the spotlight, and all that entails. Hugh never took it too seriously. I hope I don’t either.”
Dermot Bannon will continue in the spotlight for at least one more season of Room to Improve as per the current two-year contract. After 2027, who knows, but you wouldn’t bet against more for a show that continues to deliver.
“I’ll be doing this as long as they want me,” says Dermot, even if he’s busy with his own architectural company. But the show is addictive, for the presenter and the audience. I realise this at the end of the interview, when I do something I’ve never done before. I tell myself it’s OK because it’s a unique situation: Dermot Bannon has just designed a house across the street, so, maybe, the architect could offer some suggestions.
“What are your priorities?” says himself and before I can say ‘glass box extension’ he’s off, scribbling, quizzing and doing what’s in his DNA.