When commuting to Dublin from the suburbs became too much for Will Seaman and John Kiernan, they decided to pack up and head closer to the city centre. “It was a choice between deep country and the heart of the city,” says Seaman, who set up and runs interior design company William James Interiors.
The city won out, and in 2000 the couple moved into a 1920s home in The Tenters in Dublin 8, just as the area was being gentrified. “I preferred the city and I love this area. John knew it well, as he had gone to school locally,” says Seaman.
He fell in love with the three-bedroom, double-fronted, end-of-terrace house instantly because “it looked like a house a child would draw: a door and two windows below, two windows above. The symmetry appealed to me”.
There was also the “cracking big” garden; the orientation, which provided sunlight throughout the house for almost the entire day; untouched original features; and the fact that the structure was solid and well built. The house was part of a development built in the mid-1920s for Dublin Corporation, in which variations of the new idea of the garden suburb were tried out. The gardens are large, the design of the homes varied and there is a large amount of public green space.
“The house was in good condition, so we just stripped off the wallpaper, painted everything cream and moved in with the idea of living in our new home a full calendar year before considering the potential for renovation,” says Seaman.
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Over the next five years, they tackled different areas of the house, sacrificing a small bedroom to have a comfortable upstairs bathroom and blocking up the master bedroom fireplace to create a wall for the bedhead.
A wall and door were moved so that the living room was no longer a transit space to the back garden and the couple also decided to cut open an alcove and install a fully glazed door.
“The difference that made to the light in the living room was wondrous,” says Seaman. “That’s when I decided that any further work in the house was going to be all about light; capturing it, bringing it into the house, filling the interiors with light all day long.”
The big project kicked off in 2008, when the couple decided they wanted more space to entertain. “We loved the garden, the area and the house, and we didn’t want to move, but we also love entertaining and hosting huge lazy Sunday dinners, parties and relaxed entertaining, with lots of adults enjoying their food and children running about,” he says. “We needed a big kitchen/dining space which opened into an inside-outside room.”
The rear of the house had a cramped kitchen and a mid-1960s lean-to extension. It was the obvious place to extend outwards. “This was something we were definitely going to design for ourselves,” says Seaman, who had worked for retailer Next Home for five years before he set up his consultancy in 2005 and had been its designer of the year twice.
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Kiernan also has a degree in design. “John and I devised the plans to utilise every centimetre possible in each space. We worked on them until we felt that we could do no more,” Seaman says.
The contemporary new extension contrasts with the 1920s house. The kitchen units are also minimalist and contemporary. After years of having a tiny kitchen, the couple wanted the space to be clean and modern. Everything is integrated, and there is plenty of preparation space.
The biggest headache was agreeing on a splashback. The granite-effect laminate was a stopgap, but has proved successful.
For the dining area it was all about light and access to the garden, creating paths and flow for eating and entertaining.
Kitchen clutter has been relocated to the utility room, fashioned from part of the old kitchen. To capture the light, the extension has floor-to-ceiling glazing on two sides.
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“As 80% of daylight comes in through the top 20% of any window, we designed the tops of the frames holding the glazing to be subsumed into the ceiling,” says Seaman. “I also wanted to be able to look out and see the sky from the kitchen sink. At 6ft 4in, I can’t always do that, and I like to watch the changing seasons in the sky, the skeins of geese flying over, winter migrants to other countries.”
Upstairs the couple “got creative with space”. They wanted a spacious bathroom so decided to extend. “There are just the two of us, so we weren’t worried about en suites, dressing rooms or more bedrooms,” he says.
The new bathroom is set over the kitchen/dining room. The existing bathroom was used to create a larger landing area and a generous airing cupboard/storage. Skylights have transformed the landing, bringing in a wash of daylight and an impression of more space.
A metre-wide strip was taken into the guest room to give ample space for a king-size bed. Will made and upholstered the grey linen bedhead and made curtains using Shot grey fabric from Hickeys. The bedside lamps came from a fleamarket in Amsterdam and the chest of drawers is from Ikea’s Malm range. The floor was salvaged from the second reception room and painted with Urbane Grey from the Little Greene Paint Company.
For the entire house, the couple used a main colour theme throughout and accessorised carefully. Seaman’s tip is “to use colour in cushions, not sofas, as they are a lot easier to change”.
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The sitting room is designed as a night room, a space to watch television, listen to music and relax. Everything in it is low, for comfort and relaxation. The couple painted a 1970s TV cabinet in the grey Mole’s Breath from Farrow & Ball. The wall colour is Quincy Granite from Colourtrend Paints, with a feature wall in Calke Green from Farrow & Ball.
“We just had 16 adults and eight children to lunch and it was a doodle
The second reception room was the “ big surprise of the project”, according to Seaman. “We use it so much now. It’s perfect for Sunday morning newspapers in front of the fire, a real success.’
The mirror over the fireplace is from Will’s grandmother, the clock belonged to John’s grandfather. The parquet flooring came from Harland and Wolff shipbuilders in Belfast and was found in a salvage yard.
‘The results of the renovation have passed all our expectations. Our house has changed completely,” says Seaman.
“‘We live in the kitchen a lot of the time, the light and warmth are so inviting. We just had 16 adults and eight children for lunch and it was a doddle. There was plenty of space for people to move around and mingle, the children could run about in and out of the house to their heart’s content. We love it.”
