It’s great fun building your own home without any outside interference whatsoever. Now, I know that may sound nerve-wracking to most people, but I loved every moment of the procedure. Having handled countless house-building projects for clients over a couple of decades, this was my time in the sun. And I made the most of it.
As the house was in a very pretty place - on an island in Galway Bay, no less - I visited regularly when the builders were absent, just to enjoy the site itself. On Sundays I would pack a small picnic, pick up the Sunday Times and head for Aughinish. It was a lovely summer in 2001 and I would carry my picnic and newspaper, sit on an ancient stone – once part of the old cottages – and relax. I remember the extremely loud, relaxed buzzing of the bumble bees as they went about their leisurely business on those glorious afternoons. On other Sundays, I climbed over the back wall and sat in the long grass on my blue and yellow rug. After my little, solitary picnics, I would pack my belongings into the car and walk to the beach, which was just a couple of hundred metres away. I had a special rock on which I loved to sit and look out over the bay to Salthill and Barna on the opposite side.
These were memorable and wonderful times and put the difficulties of my move back to Ireland the previous year right to the back of my mind. My focus changed completely and I felt the deep stresses of the past couple of years dissolving into the milky waters of Galway Bay.
Then it would be Monday again and my house was progressing well. The engineer would appear on site regularly to sign off the various stages of the build to enable me to draw-down my mortgage as agreed with the bank.
I chose my tiles, sanitary-ware, skirting, window-cills, doors and their handles, architraves and frames. I picked out my kitchen too – and herein lies a story.
Now, I’m an interior designer, helping clients to choose their kitchen finishes on virtually a weekly basis, so you would think that this would be a piece of cake for me. Not. The little story I’m going to tell you made me realise how many people, building their own homes, must be undergoing bullying on a huge scale.
I had decided I wanted a cream painted kitchen (very revolutionary in the west of Ireland in 2001) with beech counter tops. I had designed the kitchen with the sink on an L-shape – not under the window. I wanted my dishwasher in the laundry room, which was directly off the kitchen. The reason for the seemingly odd location of the dishwasher was twofold: living on my own, I only envisioned using it when the family was around; my kitchen was small and I needed all the space possible for my accumulation of crockery and cooking utensils. Also, as the area was open plan and quite small, I didn’t want the possible noise involved when my family was sitting back after supper chatting or playing backgammon or Scrabble. This had been decided. And I’m quite an assertive person. And I had designed it myself. And I’m a highly qualified interior designer. So, no problem – right? Wrong!
My builder informed me that he had a kitchen-maker of choice. Much better, he said, and cheaper, according to him, than my chosen firm. Right, I said. Let’s go and see him. A tall and supremely self-confident kitchen-maker met me and showed me around his showroom. We discussed my kitchen. He said he would quote me and I got back into my car and headed off. I can still remember the exact spot on the road to Kinvara where I pulled in to the side of the road. It was about ten minutes after I had left the kitchen maker on the Dublin Road when the penny dropped. I stopped the car and phoned the builder to inform him that I would not be using his chosen craftsman and that was that.
Here is the reason: I had gone in with everything organised as I have just told you. I had left there having been convinced that I must have a pine kitchen, with black granite countertops. My dishwasher would be under my sink, which absolutely had to be under the kitchen window, which he considered the only possible place for it. I cast my mind back to his showroom. Clue 1: almost all the kitchens were pine. Clue 2: all the counter tops were shiny black granite. How could I have been smooth-talked into such an about-face? Because I’m a woman, I suppose! Thousands of years of being indoctrinated into thinking that men know best. Who knows, but I was furious with myself and resolved to pass on this story to vulnerable home-builders as a lesson in keeping your eye on your goals and not allowing yourself to be smooth-talked into doing anything with your new home that is not part of your dream.