We bought a cottage
— November 2020 —
On the market for the first time since built in the 1930's the aptly named, 'The Cottage', is an enchanting and original semi-detached 'land cottage'. In need of a complete refurbishment, upgrading and modernisation the property on circa 0.25 of an acre offers any discerning buyer the opportunity to put their own stamp on the house and potentially extend further (subject to planning permission). The tranquil setting makes for a calm and peaceful environment that will appeal to growing families, those looking to downsize and first-time buyers alike.
We moved in together in Rathmines in November 2019 and we were so excited to be so close to everything. Our cycles to work would go from 30 minutes to 10. Our social outlets would jump from 1 pub to the whole city. We wouldn't need to worry about the fight for taxis home on a night out with friends because we could walk back to our little house together! Little did we know what was just around the corner in March 2020...
We viewed the Cottage for the first time in July 2020, the same week masks became a mandatory requirement in Ireland. The pandemic reshaped life as we knew it, turning remote work from a perk into a necessity and forcing us to reevaluate where and how we wanted to live. Dave and I had been looking at houses for many years (mostly on his part!). I wasn’t very interested in buying a house at the beginning of 2020 but when the Pandemic cancelled all of our plans and uprooted everything we loved about living in the city, we started thinking that maybe living surrounded by grey skies, walls, and tarmac wasn't what we wanted long-term.
Over the previous 7 months, all plans that were in our calendars were thrown up in the air: Cambodia, Croatia, Budapest, and Germany. Everything we had organised, discussed, and planned went up in smoke. We were fed up being cramped in a tiny house where we really weren’t getting any of the perks of being that close to the city as everything was still closed.
Dave received weekly daft.ie and myhome.ie email alerts with new properties on the market that needed a complete renovation. He had always dreamed of building a house but after looking into it a little more realised that without a plot of land gifted by a family member and without any affordable plots in the Dublin area near our family and friends, building from scratch was highly unlikely.
With our lease coming to an end in November, and our landlord insisting that our rent would increase by nearly double, we contacted the estate agent and set up a viewing for the Cottage. As Lena Norms said ift, “the life I was building was on sand, and not on rock.”
The Estate Agent insisted that there was huge interest in the property and we would need to move really fast if we wanted to be in with a chance of getting it. We organised a second viewing and asked Dave's family friend who is also an architect (and ended up being our architect!) to come with us to see if the renovation plans we were thinking were even a possibility! He said that most people would walk away from a project of this size, but that it was possible... and that he could help us to make it a reality. We knew we wanted to either buy a house that was ready to live in, or one that was derelict or very dated so we could really put our stamp on it. I defintiely didn't want to be updating or renovating somehwere that was functionally sound, but that we just didn't like the interiors. The number of kitchens on the market at that in high gloss red was bizarre!
We placed our offer and miraculously, it was accepted! (It turned out that there was no other people bidding against us!) After many months of back and forth between banks, solicitors, and estate agents, we got the keys in November 2020.
Over the next few months and years, we became part-time/full-time builders, roofers, tilers, carpenters, brickies, painters, demolition experts! Having only stepped foot in a Chadwicks for weird art supplies previously, it became my second home... And I became friends with the doorman on the way out! It was an incredible way to spend so much time during lockdowns when socialising wasn't an option!
To be quite honest, if the COVID-19 pandemic had not hit I don't think we would have bought the Cottage. I don't think we could afford to move to this part of Wicklow if we were trying to buy the same type of house today. I also really doubt that we would be able to find any tradespeople to help us with the few jobs that they did do! Self-building is one of the most challenging things I have gone through, especially in the middle of a global pandemic and everything I thought I knew about the world being flipped on its head.
Would I do it all again? Yes, I think so! In an ideal world, we would have been able to find tradespeople to carry out more of the work. Becoming the tradie yourself involves learning so much! Before we could carry out any task, I needed to research and learn how to do it first! I would love to see how quickly a professional tiler would have tiled our bathroom vs the almost 3 weeks it took us!