When they first viewed their now very bright and contemporary detached dormer bungalow in Blackrock, Co Dublin, four years ago, the architect Paul Sheeran’s clients Neil and Jen had to focus on the potential rather than the reality of the 1960s decor and configuration — as well as the draughts.
“It had been empty for a couple of years and was in poor condition,” says Neil. “But there was something about it and I loved the garden. It was wild and overgrown but it was a beautiful west-facing garden with a huge south-facing wall. All the houses around are dormers, so there are big open skies.”
The location was a definite attraction — the couple’s daughters, who are five and seven, attend the French school around the corner. And the fact that it was a detached 1960s bungalow made it seem like it would be a realistic project. “We kind of knew what you see is what you get with this kind of bungalow,” says Jen. “We just felt it was an easier project than some of the others we had seen.”
Not that they particularly wanted a project. However, it was becoming increasingly clear that they’d have to do some work to get what they wanted. The pair had spent seven years living in Zurich before returning to Dublin in 2017. “In Switzerland, every apartment and house is really well specced and built to a very high standard,” Neil says. “I didn’t notice it growing up but the houses here were cold and draughty. Coming back and going around to see these houses, we realised that most of them need work. It’s very hard to find turnkey houses to the level you really want, particularly as we were looking for a house that was going to be our for ever home.”
Sheeran, who is principal at Architexture, went along to a viewing to give his opinion on the feasibility of the project. “He said we could do a really nice job on this house because we’d have free rein,” says Neil. “We’d already looked at a couple of period houses where we wouldn’t have been able to do what we wanted, or it would have been extremely expensive to do it.”
Advertisement
What they wanted was probably the same as 95 per cent of people doing this kind of project, says Jen; namely a bright, open space that would be functional, would work well in terms of storage and would have an A energy rating.
“I’m obsessed with storage — I hate clutter so smart solutions for storage was a really big thing on the list,” she says. “And we wanted a space that would work well for us as a family.”
They bought the house in spring 2018 and after going through the design and planning process, work began that November and they moved into the house in June 2019.
During the build, the house was completely overhauled and upgraded, as well as being reconfigured and extended. The structural changes included converting the garage into a utility and laundry room, adding a large kitchen and living space at the back of the house and putting in two new dormers on the first floor.
The house originally had two reception rooms, a kitchen, a conservatory, two bedrooms and a lavatory downstairs, with two more bedrooms and a separate bathroom and loo upstairs.
Advertisement
Now, downstairs living is focused around the multifunctional kitchen/family room, with its pitched ceiling and huge windows overlooking the patio, garden and a side courtyard. The 61 sq m room houses the kitchen — mainly white units with a large island and Cosentino silestone worktops — as well as a dining area and family space. Next to this is a living room with a sliding door. At the front, there are two bedrooms — one of which doubles as a study — and a shower room, while the utility room is to the right of the hall.
Upstairs, the two new dormers have made it possible to squeeze in an extra bedroom, make a larger family bathroom and add an en suite shower room and a walk-in wardrobe to Jen and Neil’s bedroom. The overall floor space has been increased from 158 sq m to 197 sq m.
Bringing the house up to modern energy-efficient standards was a big concern. This has been achieved — with the rating jumping from G to A3 — thanks to a heat pump, underfloor heating, triple glazing at the front, double glazing at the back, and external insulation.
For Sheeran, one of the standout elements of the design is the new birch plywood feature staircase just inside the entrance hall. “We put a lot of thought and effort into it and it’s more than just a staircase,” he says. “It’s a perch or a threshold spot. It defines the house. As you soon as you walk in you get the white interior, the roof light and the birch ply, and that theme is continued throughout.”
The rear extension, meanwhile, is a big feature because of its height and volume, he says. That lofted ceiling addresses one of the big challenges in the design: the fact that the back of the house faces north. It allows for the extra height in the triangular window and for rooflights facing east and west. “So, despite the fact that it has no direct sunshine, it’s probably the brightest space in the house,” he says.
Advertisement
As per Jen’s wish list, the house is packed with hidden storage. “We wanted a clean, Scandinavian, modern feel to the house,” Sheeran says. “To achieve that clean feel you need lots of storage and it was built into pretty much every room.”
In the open-plan space, it can be found in the bench seating around the dining table and the TV stand in the sitting area. In the living room, it’s in the window seat, which continues around the corner to provide low-level units along the length of another wall. In the hall, there’s space under the stairs as well as a cloakroom opposite the front door.
Not all the storage is hidden. Built-in shelves on either side of the pocket door between the living room and the kitchen/family room help the flow in these two spaces.
Upstairs, the landing has doors to four rooms, as well as to various storage areas, including the hot press, the linen cupboard and the eaves. All the walls of the landing are panelled and, along with the ceiling, painted a blue-grey-green (De Nimes by Farrow & Ball). Light comes in from a dormer window at one end and from a skylight.
While the main rooms have door handles, the storage spaces are accessed by finger pulls. “The landing is a funny space in any house,” Sheeran says. “It ends up being lots and lots of doors and can be a visual clutter. We removed all the detail, got rid of the skirting boards and architraves, and made it one flush, painted box.”
Advertisement
In terms of favourite spots, Neil particularly likes the pitch ceiling and rooflights in the open-plan room. “The fact that you can see the sky during the day and at night is a lovely thing to have in your house. It’s unobstructed and you can see all the different colours.”
Jen enjoys looking at the house from the back garden. “I just love the design,” she says. “I’m from Belgium and it’s very similar to things we would have seen at home.”
This is partly because of the white-painted brick on the exterior wall, which carries through to the interior back wall on the garden side of the dining space. “That’s a really Belgian thing. The black brick at the front was supposed to be painted white but everyone convinced me to leave them. They are beautiful bricks and it would be a shame to paint them.”
Both are happy that the finished house reflects exactly what they were looking for. “One thing we really enjoyed about working with Paul was that he never tried to convince us beyond what we were willing to go for,” Jen says. “Sometimes you watch shows on TV and the architects will say, ‘You don’t know it but believe me, this is what you need’. We never had that pressure from Paul.”
“He came up with a great design and concept and took on board what we wanted,” Neil says. “We definitely pushed back on a few things. For me, the end result is a really beautiful house that is also very practical and nice to live in.”
