Cathal is 51, lives in Wexford, runs a one-man carpentry business that he's quietly winding down to free up time for his grandchildren. Standard week now: 3 days of carpentry, 1 day of admin, 1 day off. Annual carpentry income approximately €38,000 net.
On top of that, he earns €11,400/yr gross / ~€7,200/yr net from five Packhood storage listings he assembled across an 18-month period in 2024-25. That's the equivalent of two extra weeks per month of carpentry income, with zero physical labour and roughly 20 hours of total work across all five listings since they went live.
Cathal isn't anyone special. He has no investor capital, no business school, and no family wealth. He's just a guy who saw an opportunity that almost nobody else in Wexford was acting on, listed five spaces in eighteen months, and is now drawing a quiet auxiliary income that's reshaping his retirement timeline. Here's exactly what he did.
The five listings
Listing 1: His own garage in Ferrybank, Wexford. Single-car garage attached to his home. Listed June 2024 at €85/mo. Booked in 14 days to a returning emigrant family. Currently on second renter at €92/mo. 24-month gross: €2,140.
Listing 2: His mother's empty garage in Wexford town. His mother had moved into a sheltered apartment in 2022; the garage at her former house was empty. Cleared it in two afternoons, listed September 2024 at €75/mo. Booked in 19 days. Two renters back-to-back. 21-month gross: €1,580.
Listing 3: A purpose-built shed in his back garden. Bought a 3m × 2.5m metal shed for €920 from B&Q, assembled in a weekend. Listed November 2024 as outdoor-covered storage at €55/mo. Has held the same renter (a small Etsy seller) for 16 months. Payback on the shed: month 17. 16-month gross: €880.
Listing 4: A spare room in his late aunt's inherited terrace (jointly inherited with his sister; they agreed to list the storage and split the income). Listed February 2025 at €60/mo. Booked in 23 days. 13-month gross: €780, split 50/50 with sister.
Listing 5: A small workshop room in a friend's idle commercial premises (Cathal pays his friend a 30% revenue share for hosting the listing on Cathal's behalf; the friend's commercial space is in town). Listed July 2025 at €130/mo. Booked in 11 days to a wedding photographer storing equipment. 9-month gross: €1,170.
What Cathal noticed that the other Wexford tradesmen missed
Wexford has roughly 2,000 self-employed tradespeople — carpenters, sparks, plumbers, painters, mobile mechanics. Most of them have garages, sheds, or workshop space they don't fully use. Maybe two of them had a Packhood listing as of mid-2024 when Cathal started.
Cathal's actual edge wasn't insight. He'd seen a similar platform in the UK (Stashbee) when his daughter lived in Manchester. When Packhood launched in Ireland in 2024 he recognised the model immediately. He listed his own garage on a Sunday morning. By the time the second-listing idea hit him, the first one was already booked. The compounding kicked in fast because he didn't talk himself out of the next move.
His own summary, from a chat we had recently: "Half the lads I know would do this if they tried it once. They won't try it once because it sounds like more bother than they need. It's not. The bother of an empty garage for the next ten years is worse."
The leverage points other hosts can copy
(1) Cathal didn't wait for "a good time." He listed his first space when he was busy mid-summer with carpentry work. He listed listing 5 when his wife had been ill for two months. There is no good time. The listing form takes 20 minutes; finding 20 minutes is always possible.
(2) He used family inheritance + relatives' empty spaces with explicit revenue-sharing agreements. He didn't try to keep the income for himself — he split listing 4 50/50 with his sister, and pays his friend 30% on listing 5. Generosity is functional: it secures access to spaces he wouldn't otherwise have.
(3) He spent capital deliberately on listing 3. The €920 shed wasn't a stretch — it was a deliberate small bet that paid back in 17 months. Most homeowners would never spend €920 to enter a "side income"; Cathal modelled it as a 15-year compounding asset and was right.
(4) He keeps each listing's identity distinct. Different titles, different photos, different access language. Renters who searched the Wexford area in 2025 saw five different Packhood listings; only Cathal knew they had the same host.
What Cathal would do differently
Asked what he'd change with hindsight, his answer was short: "List one or two more, faster. The first one was the slowest because I didn't believe it would work. By listing 3 I was just on autopilot. If I'd skipped the doubt phase I'd have been at five listings by month nine instead of month eighteen, and that's another €4,000 of income I didn't get."
For new hosts, Cathal's advice is consistent: "Don't list one and wait for it to book before doing the next one. List two on the same day if you have access. The setup cost of the second one is twenty minutes; the income is a year per listing. Lists in flight at the same time book independently."
What €7,200/yr net actually does for Cathal
Funds his wife's hip surgery (private, €11,000 total) — paid for by storage income across 18 months without disrupting carpentry cashflow.
Pays for his three grandchildren's swimming lessons + after-school activities (~€1,800/yr combined).
Pays the entire annual home-insurance + TV-licence + Netflix + Sky bills.
Allows him to drop one full carpentry day per week without his household income dropping. This is the one that matters most to him. He gets time back that he wouldn't have had.
You don't need five listings to start
Cathal didn't start at five listings. He started at one. Over 18 months he went from one to five at his own pace. Most readers of this post can do the same, with the same patience, in roughly the same timeline.
List your first space. If, six months from today, you've added a second one, you're already on Cathal's curve. If you've added a third by year 2, you're functionally him. The income at five is what it is at five — but the path begins at one.