Back in the days when television was black and white and there was no need for a remote control because we had only one channel, most houses had a room that no one ever went into.

The good room or the parlour was the exclusive preserve of the parish priest; occasionally it was opened if you had visitors from America – but otherwise the good couch was covered in a dust blanket and the entire family spent their downtime around the kitchen table.

The Kirwans in Co Kilkenny had maintained that tradition up to the arrival of architect Dermot Bannon and his Room to Improve team to the rolling fields around Knocktopher.

Series three is currently enjoyed a second run on RTE; well merited too, given that extending is the new moving – and here’s a man who is willing to help you accomplish that.

Dermot is not just an architect; he’s also a drama queen who has the ability to make the choosing of a kitchen seem as weighty as a debate on the pros and cons of NAMA.

He furrows his brow under his hard hat and takes on the appearance of a man who is preparing the next budget as opposed to one deliberating on the right sort of hardwood for the kitchen floor.

Perhaps it’s to make for better television but he rarely gets through a project without some major crisis – although the biggest issue he had with the Kirwans was the colour of their kitchen units.

Bridget and Michael Kirwan had bought their ex-council cottage in 1985. Built in the forties, it consisted of four basic rooms, with no bathroom or running water when they moved in.

They immediately added a basic extension to the full length of the back of their cottage to accommodate an extra bedroom, a kitchen and a bathroom – and therein lies the source of their problem ever since.

The corridor is a space only marginally more useful than the redundant sitting room. The kitchen, meanwhile, is bursting at the seams with all the family flocking into its like sardines into a can.
Bridget and Michael have four children and two of them are already over six feet tall – daughter Roisin is 6' 3" and son Michael 6' 5".
The kitchen has one sofa where three of the Kirwans can sit; four, if sixteen year old Louise sits on her father's knee!

There’s one small telly and it’s on the kitchen counter beside the sink; so if someone is washing up that’s the end of the goggle box.
Meanwhile the empty, television-free zone of a living room lies in splendid isolation; darker than a confessional box with arm chairs lined up like a nursing home, facing into the fireplace, all set off by the corridor that acts as a sort of no man’s land.

The sleeping arrangements were also somewhat unorthodox; the aforementioned six foot tall children are stuck in bunks but the biggest bedroom in the house is only used every third weekend when Bridget’s mother comes to stay.

The Kirwans called in Dermot and his team – and set him a budget of €65,000 which the architect saw as more of a target than a limit from the start.

Michael says he doesn’t want much change at all; Bridget says she likes simple changes – so clearly Dermot is the wrong man for them, because he likes change in the way that monkeys like bananas.
In fairness, though, the design is fairly standard stuff; changing the emphasis and the lay-out and throw in more space and light. The only problem is that there’s a crisis for Dermot every time one of the builders lifts a hammer.

Despite being dry-lined ten years ago, there's actually no insulation in the walls, bar a thin strip of foil – or fresh air, as Michael puts it. All the wiring and the windows also need to be replaced which means the project is immediately over budget, by €8,000.

And it gets worse – because the floors in the old house are rotten, the walls are crooked and the ceilings need to come down. There’s more warmth in a fridge and now that the outside needs a sort of insulation cladding, the roof has to be extended so that it meets the thicker walls.

And when the dust settles, the Kirwans have a fine home, complete with the maroon kitchen units, loads of light and space – and in effect a brand new house.

So the children have their own beds, the sitting room is reclaimed as a living space and the kitchen has a space to flop down and watch the telly without the dinner table obscuring the view.

And Dermot furrows his brow before taking himself off to his next assignment, wreaking havoc on someone else’s life ... and in the end, leaving them with the home of their dreams.