case study
architect as the building was listed and required specialist advice. “When we bought the house in July 2012 it was full of plush old flowered carpets and bulging wallpaper. I probably could have lived in the house as it was but my wife found the heavy furnishings, dainty lights, brick fireplaces, pink and yellow bathroom furnishings, the small kitchen and many little rooms (to name a few!), not to her liking.” “We had ideas of what we wanted and there were several possibilities,” continues Ken. “At one stage we thought of restoring the original configuration by moving the entrance, with the hall door at the side, and convert the front room back into a study but this would have involved altering the look of the house from the outside and we were keen to avoid having to go through a planning application.” Their architect spoke with the county council’s conservation officer, who happened to live down the road from the bungalow. “It was agreed that the proposed internal works would not require www.SelfBuild.ie
planning permission, on the condition that at the end of the project a conservation report was submitted to the council and that the project would be overseen by a conservation architect. So the decisions were taken by us and guided by Fergal.” The works were carried out by local contractors listed on the Louth Traditional Building and Conservation Skills register; the tender process and subsequent building works were managed by their conservation architect. But once things started moving, Ken found it difficult at times to keep on top of it all. “You end up deciding things on the hoof, it’s hard to know what to choose when you have little experience in this type of thing.” “It can feel like a long drawn out process, and despite the help and support it is a lot of work. From our point of view, the timing of some elements led to cost overruns as we’d moved from Belgium and had to keep our stuff in storage for a month. We were renting a place down the road, which incurred extra costs, but it wasn’t a whole
The neutral finishes highlight the house’s original features
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