Build Your Own Home – follow the ups and downs in new RTÉ Series 

New four-part series explores DIY building on a budget with Building Teacher and Craftsman Harrison Gardner 

Build Your Own Home, a brand new four-part series which follows the trials and tribulations of homeowners from across Ireland will air on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player from Wednesday 26th October, 9.35pm. The series will chart the mammoth challenges faced by the participants as they set out to build their own home under the watchful eye of master builder and building teacher, Harrison Gardner.

Over days, weeks and months of hard labour, the homeowners are taught and mentored by Harrison, an Australian eco-builder and sustainability designer, who believes that anyone can learn how to build. In this four-part series, he challenges the construction and borrowing practices of previous decades, sharing his expertise and teaching homeowners to build or renovate their own dream home on a budget.

The series is narrated by Irish actor Moe Dunford.

Harrison comments: “I really want to show people that you can be scared to do something and still do it and be OK… There could be such a beautiful surge of owner/builders in Ireland who take on the building project on their own.” 

Among the ranks of Gardner’s brave students are Grace and Robbie, a young Dublin couple coping with high rent, a mortgage and childcare costs, who take on the challenge of renovating and extending a two-bedroom 1930’s suburban home on a budget of €70,000. We also meet Aoife and Tony, two self-employed circus performers who are unable to secure a mortgage. The pair saved long and hard to buy a 19th century ‘doer-upper’ cottage in rural Westmeath for €95,000. However, their maximum budget to make it habitable is €50,000, so they have no choice but to learn the skills needed to do the work themselves.

Esther is a part-time teaching assistant and divorced mother of 3 teenagers living in Clonakilty, Cork. She dreams of being mortgage free at 50, so she has committed her entire life savings of €230,000 to building a brand new 3-bedroom home for her family. A young professional couple in rural Limerick, architect Padraig, and his wife Laura, set out to renovate an old farmhouse on a budget of €85,000 while also faced with the challenges of balancing a young family, demanding work schedules and an incredibly ambitious build.

With so much at stake, Harrison is faced with his own personal challenge – to do his absolute best to get his new students into a new home – whatever it takes! As the seasons change, we follow the ups and downs of life as a self-builder and what it takes to learn how to build your own home. With tight budgets, time pressures, the vagaries of the Irish climate and a whole raft of skills to learn overnight, will these rooky builders succeed in the fundamental goal of having their own ‘forever ‘home? Will the physical pain be worth the financial gain?

Tune in to the new series of Build Your Own Home on Wednesday 26th October, 9.35pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player.