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Like clothes, some houses are of the here and now, complete with the accoutrements of the latest trends, while others are as timeless as a well-tailored suit. This 1940s red-brick bungalow in the south Dublin suburb of Churchtown is more of the latter.
It was even still wearing its original steel windows, as rare as hen’s teeth, when a young couple found it for themselves and their two small children. All it needed was a little alteration to expand and adapt to modern living.
All the front façade needed was some minor repointing of the brickwork, repair to original roof tiles and conversion of the single-glazed Crittall steel windows to double-glazing, which was worth the extra expense as they felt they were integral to the original appearance.
Through the front door there’s a narrow corridor with the children’s bedroom and master bedroom to the left, while the right is full of light from the refurbished steel windows. The original floor was suspended and raised high off the ground. This was dropped across the back of the house to increase the ceiling height in the living/kitchen area and snug, so as you descend three steps you move from a slightly compressed feeling to a generosity of space that is quite dramatic.
Big pivot doors at a couple of locations create the feeling of an open, fluid house, even as they separate the sleeping quarters at the front of the house from the living/kitchen area, which is in turn separated from a cosy snug with a wood-burning stove.
The interior can be open-plan or partitioned, according to the owners’ needs. Again, in the principle of working with what you find, the window of the original bathroom was left in the snug to bring in light. At the back of the house, the original steel windows were matched with contemporary ones that repeat the horizontal bars.
Through the living room, into the kitchen extension, a high ceiling follows the roof profile. The kitchen contains a semi-circular roof light that captures the light, changing with the time of day and seasons of the year. Not only does it create a beautiful natural orb during the day but also a light show from the moonlight.
Ryan creates a dialogue between old and new parts of the house: “I was interested in this idea of where we could reveal the original character of the house and that’s done externally through the brickwork. Internally, we stripped off the plasterwork in the snug and we found old block wall. We patched it up and painted it to a datum line, which ties the living room to the capping line in the kitchen, and you get this nice differentiation between the very textural, rough lower surface and then this crisp roof space above that.”
Photography: Shantanu Starick
Words: Emma Gilleece
This feature originally appeared in the spring/summer 2022 issue of IMAGE Interiors. Have you considered becoming a subscriber? Find out more here.
