Cork life, local knowledge, homes and beyond.
Cillian is the one here who cares about home improvement and cork life.
There is a particular look that comes over a builder's face when you mention pebbledash. A slight wince, maybe a sharp intake of breath, followed by the inevitable suggestion that you strip it all off and…
Six months in and the house is still standing. That is honestly the best thing we can say about February. The plasterers finished the back bedroom last week, the new windows are in on the upper…
Residents associations can be genuinely useful. They push back on planning applications , organise estate clean-ups, deal with the council on your behalf, and give neighbours a way to talk to each other beyond a nod…
Anyone who has put a timber deck in their back garden in Cork knows the story. It looks brilliant the first summer, maybe the second too. Then the green creep starts, the boards begin to lift…
If you have heard the phrase "shared ownership" floating around and nodded along without being entirely sure what it means, you are not alone. A lot of first-time buyers in Cork have picked up the term…
There is a particular rhythm to a Saturday morning in Cork city that you either know or you don't. If you've been going to the Cornmarket Street market for a while, you fall into it without…
Last spring I hired a skip for a kitchen clear-out and a bit of garden tidying. Rang the skip company on a Tuesday, had the thing sitting outside my house by Thursday. Job done, I thought.…
September is the time to stop putting it off. Once October arrives and the rain gets serious, you'll be dealing with problems rather than preventing them. If you live in a terraced house or an older…
Cork's climate is mild, damp and rarely dramatic, which sounds like a complaint but is actually ideal for growing native plants. The county sits in one of the wettest corners of Ireland, with Atlantic air rolling…
Anyone who has repainted the outside of a house in Cork or anywhere along the west coast knows the feeling. You spend a decent weekend up a ladder, the job looks great, and then a couple…
There's a period a few years back I'd rather forget, involving three separate plumbers, a leaking copper pipe behind our kitchen wall, and a repair bill that climbed well past what it had any right to…
Planning permission in Cork county is one of those things that seems straightforward until you're actually in the middle of it. The official process looks fine on paper. Eight weeks, submit your drawings, wait for a…
Every autumn it's the same story. You turn on the heating for the first time in months, walk into the sitting room and hear that unmistakable gurgling, clunking sound coming from behind the radiator. The top…
We put it off for years. Every winter the same conversation: the heating bill arrives, someone mutters about the attic, and then life moves on and nothing gets done. Last January we finally stopped talking about…
