New build timber frame 4 bed house – family tight for time to move in before birth of second son.

Our fortitude and patience paid off when our Castleknock site came up for sale. We had our eye on it for some time and jumped at the opportunity to build our very own home in a great location. It was a site with planning permission where the first 4 houses had the same house type but each family used their own builder.

The main works happened during the period July 2015 to April 2016. Declan and the Shorycon team worked tirelessly to get us ‘home’ on time and in budget with literally four weeks to spare and prepare our new home before our second son was born.

Declan organised everything: all the day to day events and suppliers and even saved us money by helping us to source our kitchen, tiles and many other necessities with his vast network of contacts. He even took time out at the later stages to help us with decisions on the smaller details like door styles!. His insight and expert advice was invaluable.
At the outset of the journey, the build had some challenges. It took a few years to get going because of the need for additional planning permission and also due to a number of delays while finalising the site purchase. And to add to this – we had a safety challenge with an ESB line on the perimeter that needed to be moved by ESB – which took ages!

But Declan remained faithful to us and stuck it out through all the ups and downs and time delays beyond our control. We will always be grateful to him for that. Reactions have been fantastic from friends and family – they were blown away by the quality of the workmanship and finishes on our new house.

We just love all the space and our new open plan kitchen / dining area has really become the heart of the home and our family space. Personally, I love the new attic room we also had done – It’s my office – come – cinema projector room where I can hide away from the world. It even has its own personality – I decided to use bolder colours for the floor and accents in the room.

It was easy making the decision to hire Declan and the team from Shorycon as our builders because they had done a number of brilliant jobs for a number of family member and friends. It was a no-brainer. We also contracted Tomas O’Neill from ONCE Civil & Structural Ltd. as our architect.
Read more from the McDonnell’s testimonial here.