A woman said her plan to renovate a 120-year-old cottage in Clare has been turned upside down after the project ran into more than just a few problems.
The small two up, two down cottage was bought by herself and she hoped to move into the property relatively quickly after carrying out some initial renovation works.
However, after building works finally began, she said the project has become a 'nightmare'.
READ MORE: Irish couple transform 'uninhabitable' 1950s house bought for €81,000 into dream home
She told the Irish Mirror: "It was a pretty much derelict property, and I obviously bought it on my own, and it was literally all I could afford because obviously house prices are just mental and whatever, so I would have never been able to buy an actual real house that you could move into tomorrow."
Knowing that the renovation would take some time, she immediately started looking for builders, but this proved extremely difficult.
After trying to get hold of a builder for weeks, she finally thought the project would get underway. However, the builder pulled out just two weeks before the start date.
She said: "So now I have a builder who is from, I'm in Clare, and he's from Newcastle West in Limerick, so it's really awkward."
She added: "It's really difficult. Now, if I knew then what I know now, I would have been rethinking buying it."
To make matters worse, she discovered an incredibly dangerous problem while she and her father and brother were clearing away the overgrown garden.
She said: "When we were clearing because the whole back garden was completely overgrown, my brother came across a live hand grenade in the wall. So the bomb squad had to come up from Cork.
"So it was an interesting Sunday afternoon.
"It was still live, so they were going to take it and bring it out to a field somewhere and let it off, but they couldn't move it. It was so fragile. So they actually had to activate it in my house, so down in my garden. It was mental, absolutely mental, and all the houses nearby had to be evacuated.
"What I found out then afterwards was the cottage was an IRA cottage and that two previous residents, two men, were IRA members and that hand grenade was from the war of independence, and it was just mental that it was still live."
She said she and her family were incredibly lucky that they did not accidentally detonate the device while clearing the garden.
She said: "Myself and my dad and my brother, we said if anything, the three of us would have been gone."
Unfortunately, the age of the building has meant that she has had to take the roof completely off and insert a ring beam.
She also had to then build back up the two gable walls and replace the original roof, which has caused her to run out of finances for the project.
She said: "I won't be able to finish it.
"I bought it in April last year, and we actually only started with the actual house building in September, so as I say, I won't be able to finish it."
She said she would continue to live with her parents while she saved to continue the restoration as she could afford it.
Offering advice to anyone thinking of starting a similar project, she said: "Really get an engineer out, pay the money to get proper surveys and whatever done and have lots and lots of money because once you open that can of worms, oh my god the amount of issues I've had… these old, old, old houses are a nightmare."
Read more: Couple transform neglected 'stopgap' Carlow rental property into their dream home
Get breaking news to your inbox by signing up to our newsletter.
