A house in Castlebar, Co Mayo has undergone an incredible makeover for a surprising price.
Mayo Country Cottage, listed on Airbnb, dates back to the 1950s and has undergone an incredible facelift to bring it into modern times, creating a warm, light and airy home.
Tom McHale, the owner of the house, left the property after his two elderly cousins died and said the house sat idle for 15 years before he and his wife decided to take the plunge and to do it again.
Mr. McHale wanted to retain the exterior structure while modernizing the interior as he did not want the house to look out of place.
He said: “All the houses in this village, there are six of them, they are all the same…the old land commission houses all look alike and this house meant a lot to me, the people who were there. .. I was terribly attached to them, so I didn’t want to touch anything.”
(Picture: Airbnb)
He added: “If you come to the village now and drive back, you wouldn’t know there was anything different about this house until you drove around the back. is the exact same house as when I was growing up and we used to visit.”
After receiving a quote from builders, Mr. McHale decided to take an unconventional route of installing a modular home.
He said: “We then decided to give it a shot and get some advice on how to do it the normal way. So we used a few builders, and the price was astronomical just to put a bathroom in and do it in a normal way.”
After hearing about a local business big red barn owned by Donal Byrne, Mr. McHale decided to visit their showrooms and was impressed with the quality of the structures.
(Picture: Airbnb)
He said: “I went down to him and asked him if he could come down and take a look at it and see what he thought of it. So he came down, and he was quite happy. okay. He said let’s make a plan and see what you think. So that’s what they did, they made a plan, and it’s like a three-bedroom house with a bathroom and a bathroom and a large open-plan living room, and I wanted to keep the high ceilings because that was what was in the original house.”
As Mr. McHale wanted to retain the original look of the house, the three original retaining walls were retained and then the new modular house was actually inserted into the walls.
“It’s all factory built, so they came in, and they put their concrete slabs in there first, and that’s what the structure is on. Then they just made the frames and stuff, and then and they put it on. did, I say, in three weeks between the walls and the roof and that.
“They took a few months to make the plans, but once they did it became very fast.”
Mr McHale said the house was extremely economical to run and cost him only half of the builders’ estimate.
(Picture: Airbnb)
He said: “The problem was that if we were going to renovate it, we could have invested €150,000 in it and you would still have an old house and now, as we did, we really have a brand new house. is brand new top It’s just that we kept the three retaining walls, and that’s really cosmetic, and we got away with half the price.
The house is also exceptionally economical to run and is A rated.
Mr. McHale said: “From a Airbnb point of view, it’s terribly easy to clean because there is no fire. It’s electric underfloor heating in the living room and then you’re talking about electric heaters in the bedrooms and bathrooms so there’s no cleaning. There’s no ashes or anything like that, and it’s an awfully easy house to heat.
(Picture: Airbnb)
“It’s an A rated house so we’ll just say my electric bill for it, if it was full occupancy in the winter months you still wouldn’t be over €300 for the two months.”
The owner said he couldn’t recommend the modular home enough and said it would be ideal for any young couple just starting out as they didn’t have to take out a mortgage and opted for a Credit Union loan instead .
He said: “For any first-time couple, you know, who can’t get a mortgage or whatever, that’s a no-brainer. It’s an absolute no-brainer.”
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