It's a project architect's and designer's dream - free rein to use cutting-edge ideas to transform a staid redbrick into a colourful, zany family home, writes EMMA CULLINAN
AT THE HEART of this revamped family home in Dublin 4 is a large oak dining table, “because the clients wanted something the kids could stick forks in,” says architect John Monahan. Such robustness – and such a sense of fun – has been a key element in the way the house has been reconfigured and decorated in a joint project between Monahan and interior designer Lisa McSharry, both of Peter Legge Associates.
The couple who own this house also work in creative areas: “The beauty of working on a project which is design-led to the point of cutting edge is that you don’t have to sell your design ideas. They embrace what you are trying to achieve,” says Monahan. When the couple bought this 19th century redbrick house it had not been done up for about 50 years. There was a poor flow between the rooms, and between house and garden. To the rear of the ground floor there was a warren of small rooms in no particular order with tiny windows overlooking the garden.
The brief was for a colourful, easily maintained family home suited to 21st century life. “They wanted bright colour, while respecting key parts of the original structure and quality craftsmanship,” says Monahan, “and not everything flush, flush, flush.” So, many of the period features, such as cornices, doors, architraves and skirting, have been kept (and some of them restored).
The fun, colourful elements are dotted through the core scheme, some offering jack-inthe- box surprises, such as the yellow interiors of the kitchen cupboards, the pink Vola taps in the downstairs loo and the green stair carpet that seems to spill across the hall floor like paint. The carpet, which was made by Dixon Carpet Company in Oughterard, Co Galway, changes colour as it goes up through the three-storey (plus attic) house starting with green and rising through blue, indigo, raspberry, orange and, on the top floor, yellow, while each landing has a solid colour. “It’s really cool,” says McSharry.
"We definitely had fun with the design." On the first floor is the main bedroom, with walk-in wardrobe, en suite bathroom with hexagonal tiles and a baby room. On the second floor are two bedrooms, and the attic space has a bedroom/study with small bathroom, lined in cork and lit by an orange pendant light. "We've used elements that give dashes of colour
without being too much in your face," says Monahan, who likens the timber drawers set inside the white kitchen to a sea-shell with a soft interior.
The lighting in the kitchen, made by Langrell of Wicklow, has been kept soft too, with pendants as well as wall and ceiling washes. "We didn't want landing-strip spotlights," says Monahan. The floor is in polished concrete. The views and increased natural light start right from the front door, where the first thing you used to encounter was a wall. This was
taken down and now there are views down the hall, through the kitchen (and glassy extension to one side, housing the utility room) to the garden.
The reception rooms to the left of the hall open out to each other and into the kitchen while, at the top of the stairs, on the first-floor landing, there are views across the double-height kitchen – where a former bedroom was taken out – to the green-roofed extension giving, with the garden added to the view, “a tiered garden effect”.
The extension was made with bricks salvaged when the back wall of the house was taken out and have been used in a configuration that is in homage to one of Monahan’s favourite architects, Alvar Aalto.
Details were very important to the designers – and to the builders, Oikos. “They have been exceptional – we would be talking about trying to do something and they would come up with an even better solution,” says Monahan. On the landing overlooking the kitchen, for instance, lines in the floor, wall, ceiling, shelves and door all meet and match each other perfectly. The complete area has been painted in a classic/contemporary grey, called Delicate Oyster from Dulux’s Simply Colour palette (the whole house has been painted in colours from this range).
While the house has been opened up, each area is designed to be adaptable in terms of use and can be closed off: "People love the idea of open plan but the noise can wreck their heads over time," says Monahan. So now the family is happy living in the adaptable, flowing, robust, fun house it sought, and worked to achieve, and where nobody is precious
about cutlery ending up in the furniture during meals
