My Favourite Room: When Niamh Swail’s parents downsized, she bought their home – and got a new career to boot

With the housing crisis, there’s a lot of talk about older people selling on to the next generation. Niamh Swail, who bought her wonderful home from her parents, found it’s a win-win all around

Niamh Swail outside her home. She and her husband bought it from her parents, who were downsizing. Picture by Tony Gavin

Mary O'Sullivan

It’s well known that doing up a house can result in decision fatigue. After choosing window styles, flooring, paint colours, fabrics, kitchen units, wardrobes, stove types, and dozens of other items from the thousands of styles in all of those areas available, and then on to the nitty-gritty items such as worktop materials, blinds, doorknobs and lampshades, many of us want to shout, “Stop! Enough already!”