Marty Campbell and Shane Murray’s terraced Dublin city home wins RTÉ’s Home of the Year

The couple bought the house in 2022 in a state of disrepair and took on a huge project to renovate the 1920s house and make it their own.

Inspired by their love of travel, their home took on a hotel aesthetic and staying true to a home that fit their personalities was enough to take the Home of the Year crown.

"For me the show is all about personality compared to other home shows where a lot of it is about big open spaces, architects and design,” Mr Murray said.

"We were very much about our personality so we are very happy. We started the process not knowing how far we would get, we had no expectations about it.

"We were ecstatic when we found out. It’s all a bit surreal.”

Mr Campbell said renovating an older home afforded the couple a blank canvas to put their stamp on.

"It’s got loads of character and history but we wanted to bring it back to its bones and take it from there. We went through room for room and were designing the rooms for us in mind.

"For example the dining room, I was adamant we have to have a bar in there. When we’re having friends over I want to make cocktails. Shane was adamant we had to have two ovens even though there wasn’t space because he loves cooking and baking.

"We love travelling and hotels so when we stay in hotels we get loads of ideas and inspiration. It makes staying in hotels less of a novelty.”

There was one piece from the old owner given a space after the renovations. A signed picture of the singer Roy Orbison fell out from behind one of the old wardrobes and now hangs in the bathroom.

It nods to the previous owner and that’s the joys of renovating an old home like this, it’s got previous owners and their stories here as well,” Mr Campbell said.

They won’t mind now they’ve been named overall winners but one point of criticism from judge Hugh Wallace on how high their TV was hung on the wall.

"We knew what we were signing up for and the judges would have their own opinions, personal tastes and preference,” Mr Campbell said.

"The feedback was fair and we took the points on board, particularly what we call ‘TV gate’. We landed on that decision based on our own personal preference and how the room would work for us.”

Mr Murray was the one to suggest entering Home of the Year to begin with and said he hadn’t thought about the judges judging their personal space.

"When we were going through the process of it being filmed, I wasn’t thinking about it. It was only in the last couple of weeks leading up to our episode being on we were talking about what they were going to say or what they were going to pick out.

"We were interested to know because there’s a lot going on in the house. It isn’t everyone’s taste, it’s Marmite so you either love it or you hate it. We were kind of worried what the comments would be but we were pretty happy.”