‘It seems that being on Grand Designs is a sure-fire way to end up having kids!’ jokes Michael. It wasn’t too long afterwards that the couple discovered they were due to have another baby. ‘I had three very important things in my life – my family, my business and the house and one of them was going to have to be compromised, so it had to be the latter.’ While it was a tough decision, it was the right one as the project picked up pace again. ‘The realisation that I couldn’t build it myself was the lowest point in the project for me,’ admits Michael. With heavy hearts, the couple decided now was the time to employ a contractor and a team of builders. Photo: Aidan Monaghan Delayed deliveryĪt that stage they hadn’t even started work on the extension and Michael simply didn’t have enough time to dedicate fully to the build. The interior of the new extension is open plan with a mezzanine.
That shouldn’t have come as a shock but it did.’ Trying to jump straight into it with no experience when you’re in your mid-thirties was difficult. ‘The building process was really, really hard,’ he continues. I didn’t quite realise how tough it was having kids and figured this project would be just like taking up golf or something. ‘I was still pretty stupid and naïve at that point. ‘We started planning before we had kids and began building not long after our first child, Rudi, was born,’ explains Michael. A demanding processīut it wasn’t a bad thing it was a process of learning more than anything else – not just invaluable lessons that would help shape his future as an architect, but about life’s priorities, too.
Particularly as he was hoping to do most of the work himself.
Even as a practising architect, Michael was the first to admit that he was perhaps somewhat naïve when he first started the Grand Designs blacksmith’s forge conversion. One of the traits that people admire most in others is honesty. Adapting a century-old forge in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, was a journey of discovery for Michael Howe and Michele Long.
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