Home of the Year episode 6: Business at the front, party at the back… but can a house like a mullet make the cut?

The latest series of The Great House Revival started on RTÉ on Sunday, with a fantastic Cork couple who possessed no building strategy whatsoever. The longer running time gave Hugh, as the sole presenter, more time to gaze in wonder at Mary Claire and Sully as they winged their way through demolishing and rebuilding a pretty 19th century house in Churchtown, north Cork.

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They had chosen to live there because they support rival GAA teams and Churchtown was a neutral parish. There were toddlers in hard hats. There was Mary Claire’s eagle eye on the budget; she should be running the country. There was Mary Claire’s mother, Augusta, hanging wallpaper. Health and safety did not feature, because most of the workers were friends or family. It was television bliss.

Back on Home of the Year, things aren’t so dramatic. Obviously all the homes on Home of the Year are finished — and so finished — and that leaves you walking through minute after minute of perfection. There is no Sully cheerfully saying that if the ceiling falls down it’ll be grand, because he has his hard hat on. In stark contrast to this relaxed attitude, Marty and Shane already had the brackets for their soap dispensers firmly nailed to the wall. Soap dispensers!

You knew that Marty and Shane were winners when you saw that their dining room chairs were upholstered in corduroy. So on trend.

But their home was refreshing for dedicated Home of the Year viewers because it was quite small. Not as small as an apartment where you’re sharing a bedroom and a bathroom and making some vulture fund or landlord even fatter — but pretty bijou all the same.

And it was finished. In dark colours and with clever windows. Even the courtyard — or yard, as we used to say in a previous century — was thought-through and decorated. Plus, I saw some books.

Hugh had only one criticism: the TV was hung too high. On Sunday, Hugh had had the same criticism of Mary Claire and Sully’s TV. It is a generational thing, probably. Tellies used to be taboo objects in the design world but now of course they have grown so enormous and literally so central that nobody under 60 is going to hide them away. Unfortunately.

Marty and Shane have a luxury coffee station off their bedroom, which reminded Sara of luxury hotels. But this was really the worst thing that anyone could say about this clever home.

Mike and Lorraine have a newbuild in Co Mayo which is by any standards enormous. Mike — for once a straight man who seems to have been involved in the design process — memorably described the house as being like a mullet: business at the front, party at the back. The judges shivered under cold Mayo skies. Once they got inside, even Amanda was stunned by the size of the entrance hall.

It has taken six weeks but Hugh is coming round to carpets. “There is an acoustic issue in this hall,” he said, his voice echoing as far as Clew Bay. It was the same in the master bedroom, where he also wanted a rug. Some of us have been saying this since week one.

When Sara says that a room is like a nightclub, Hugh puts his arms out and looks like he’s starting to dance. These tiny moments are what keeps us going in week six.

The judges loved the fitted joinery in the children’s bedroom. But they were critical of the fact that the master bedroom did not have bedside lights. (Maybe Mike and Lorraine don’t read in bed? Is that a crime?) Too much of the lighting in the home was downlighting, said the judges. But Mike and Lorraine seemed delighted with it. You could hold an ard fheis in their cavernous kitchen; mind you, given what is happening to our political parties, you could soon hold an ard fheis in one of their toilets.

There’s a regular Nordie element in Home of the Year which other programmes should copy; money is a great unifier. Alan and Charlene live in a Co Antrim newbuild in period style. Charlene wants to live in Pride and Prejudice, she said; she is perhaps not familiar with the female death rates of that era. The house was big. Amanda didn’t like it. So Marty and Shane won, as we always knew they would.