Grand Designs: Mayo

Lovely – one thing that really gets me though with church conversions, something that was done in this project, is the mess made of the windows. I have yet to see a decent treatment of slender gothic windows in any church conversion. They always have bulky chunky opening parts either in the middle of the window or lumped in at the bottom, as was the case here.

Otherwise a great project, the treatment of the stonework was meticulous – the tower looked amazing when restored, and the view of it from inside was a good idea, reminded me of the lovely view of Connolly Station’s cupola through the terminal roof 🙂
Would have liked a bit of background and history of the place, it was surprising virtually nothing was mentioned.

I thought it was great, but unfortunatly It lacked some detail, especially in the wooden structures & joinery which was a major feature. The internal wooden balcony with the built in bench was poorly executed. The stairs and banisters were of standard (3 bed semi) stock. The furnishishing is slightly immature and unfinnished looking, even though I love their L-shaped couch (coz I have something similar). I understand the budget was tight, but it really shows in the final product.

I still really like it & it would be difficult to justify spending much more on a holiday home. However, €1,500 for a week sounds like quite a bit and would be justified only by a really top class luxurious house (in my opinion – & I am not aware of current rates).

would be interested to know how the high ceiling rooms perform from a heating point of view

Will the heat from the under floor heating not gather at ceiling level forcing cold air down to the room space.

Think the fact the heat is coming from underneath will warm the air around you on its way up anyway. I was glad to see they used a sustainable method of heating – these geothermal systems should be in much more widespread use, not least considering the amount of one-offs in this country on large plots of land.
I thought the balustrade passing over the window upstairs was awful, even if it was a building reg it could have been done better.

I would have stained all of the wood a deep brown – just a personal preference. The natural look on such a scale is so B&Q 🙂