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Room to improve

7 Irish celebs who should go on the next series of Room to Improve

If the show’s going to be about big budget projects, it might as well feature more celebs.

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ROOM TO IMPROVE returned to our screens in February with a very special celebrity couple featuring in the first episode.

Daniel and Majella O’Donnell went through the process of renovating their home with Dermot Bannon and it was far more entertaining than any of us could have anticipated. It was RTÉ’s most watched programme of the year, and Daniel’s wee strop had people talking for weeks afterwards.

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After Daniel’s episode, we all expected to see regular people, like ourselves. People with budget ceilings that barely exceeded six figures. People who just wanted an extension for their grandad to live in. But no.

Instead, we met some wild characters, like a single person in their 30s who bought a two bedroom house for €435,000 and ended up spending €200,000 getting Dermot Bannon to kit it out with a load of windows and some underfloor heating.

The vast majority of single (or even married) Irish people in their 30s cannot even dream of having €600,000 to blow on a house.

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Nobody wants to kick back on a Sunday night and think “A husband and wife who are probably ten years older than me have €820,000 to spend on a house in Stillorgan and another €280,000 to spend on extensions while I am watching them on TV and scraping curry out of a 3-in-1 that I had to put myself into an overdraft to get.”  Understandably, it can be even more depressing if you’re older than said couple.

If we’re gonna have such massive budgets, we may as well remove the “regular people” element from the show, and go all out with a celebrity series of the show. It’ll be pure entertainment, and nobody will ever have to worry about feeling inadequate because we don’t expect to have the same lifestyles as celebs.

We have a wealth of Irish celebrities that would be suitable for this. For instance…

1. Anne Doyle

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Anne Doyle lives in a four-storey Georgian house on Leeson Street which is as stately and sophisticated as she is, but there is always something that can be improved. Does she have underfloor heating? Could she do with another jacks? Dermot will sort her out.

If Anne appeared on Room to Improve, it would not be about her house. It would be about her. We’d all like to watch her have some very gracious, light banter with Dermot Bannon and see what she gets up to in retirement.

2.  Marty Morrissey

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All we need to do is look at how many viewers Marty Morrissey pulled into RTÉ’s Dancing With The Stars. Like Daniel O’Donnell, we’d be desperately curious to see what Marty’s house is like on the inside.

Come on, Marty. There has to be something in your house that needs to be improved. Have you got a conservatory? Have you been toying with the idea of treating yourself to an ensuite? Give Dermot a buzz and sort us out for next season.

3. Vogue Williams

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This one is perfect. Vogue only made her pregnancy announcement last month, so she’s going to be nesting soon. Her and Spencer are going to need to make some space for the baby at some stage.

Nobody is on the fence about Vogue Williams. People either love her or they hate her. Room to Improve: Vogue Williams is Having a Baby Edition would make for a very interesting night on the Room to Improve hashtag.

4. Niall Horan

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Last August, Niall Horan decided to invest in some property in Mullingar. As number 15 on Ireland’s entertainment rich list, you’d expect that Niall would have bought something quite extraordinary with his fortune of €52 million. In reality, he bought the most painfully average mansion you could imagine.

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Dermot could definitely do a number on this. It would be nice for Niall to check in with Irish media too. When’s the last time he even sat down to have a chat with Ryan Tubridy? Is this what it feels like when your son goes to college and is too busy to come home and visit for weeks? Niall, just ring us and check in.

5. Cormac from Tallafornia

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We’d all like to see Cormac from Tallafornia on TV again. All Dermot needs to say is “Cormac, look, there’s no way we’re going to fit all of these eggs into the budget. Why do we even need eggs in a renovation project?” Cormac will probably say “You’re 45, shut your face!” Quality TV.

6. The Happy Pear

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Do these guys even live together? Probably not, considering they’re grown adults, but they’re so inseparable it’s hard to imagine one of them going to sleep in a house without the other one within 30 metres.

Anyway, it would be interesting to see if the cheerful Happy Pear twins could handle the pressure of working with Dermot. Would they be at each other’s throats within the first 20 minutes? Does Dave want an extension that makes no sense to Steve at all? Do they both agree that the house needs a “cartwheel room”, even though it’s frustrating Dermot?

7. Michael D. Higgins

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Himself and Sabina could be set to downsize from Áras an Uachtaráin, so they may as well televise it. Who doesn’t love a bit of Miggeldy Higgens content?

Imagine Michael D. and Dermot Bannon driving out to the backarse of Donegal together so that Dermot could show Michael what a certain type of cladding looks like against a certain landscape, while Michael gently speaks to Dermot about how important the Irish language is.

That would definitely soothe and distract us from that horrible feeling of dread you get on a Sunday night.

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