Architectural duo take their work home

THEY thought about moving, they thought about going all contemporary on makeover and extension front – and eventually this couple of practicing architects went the seemingly modest route for their own family home.

John and Siobhan McCarthy had spent the best part of the decade of boom in their 1,000 sq ft, three-bed suburban semi-d, where they’d grown to love the neighbourhood and its services.

Happily, their family had grown with them, hence the need for more space, one way or the other. They decided to stay put, and re-looked at what was best about their present home, and thought about how best to maximise its positive points, and get around any shortcomings.

Basically they doubled the house’s size, boosting it to 1,950 sq ft, turned it inside out and literally back to front – and yet, from the outside, all seems calm, unruffled, respectful to the neighbours and definitely not calculated to engender neighbour envy and distaste.

This Irish Examiner visit wasn’t for a purpose of a sales spiel, rather a newspaper colleague who lived across the road said the house was worth featuring in its own right, and we arrived forthwith, without prejudice. Well, to be truthful, we’d expected to see glass, cedar sheeting, exposed steel – all the bells and whistles of the architecture business of the past few years of domestic upgrades.

That expectation was all the more so, given that both John and Siobhan’s professional work is in the contemporary mould – John is a director of Wilson Architecture, and was one of the Elysian tower lead architects, while Siobhan had worked for almost 20 years with Reddy O’Riordan Staehli Architects, (RORSA) another leading native Cork firm of designers.

Here, they accept their design lights are hidden under a bushel, but do admit they had looked at some far more contemporary inputs and materials, which they then would have transferred over to the ‘old’ part of the house to tie it all in.

Instead, and after many sketches, debates and the odd argument, they went the way of matching the exteriors, with traditional looking dash and windows, while changing just about every thing else inside, taking down four walls and supporting the upstairs with a similar number of steel RSJ girders.

They were blessed, in retrospect, by virtue of having a corner site, so they could add easily onto the side, without crowding out the neighbours on the right. As the front of the house faces south, their small back garden was mostly in shade: now, it grows spuds, herbs and veg, while the children’s play area is to the front.

Now, there aren’t too many houses that you can, effectively, turn back to front like the McCarthys so successfully did. They were helped by the shape of the site, and privacy afforded by the high, mature hedge. So, if you need to build towards the sun at some time in the future, start planting those boundary hedges right away.

Not only did John and Siobhan build over two levels, they also went up into the attic for one more multi-purpose room, with a full staircase and an extra-large landing, with light flooding down courtesy of a high perch Velux.

Downstairs, all is changed, back to front. The kitchen, in cream and walnut by Premier Kitchens, is now in the very front of the house, where the hall door was, with a slight extension out for extra space (home to the sink). A serving counter links back to the big family/dining space, which has a suite of double-hinged folding doors to the front garden and patio.

Because of the open plan nature, there’s great sight-lines through the core: in fact, the parents can see right into the super-stocked playroom to the rear, able to do a visible ‘net-nanny’ spot-check on what Patrick, 9, Michael, 6, and four-year-old Fionnuala might be watching on the computer or TV screens from the kitchen. Flooring in the play area is soft, cushioned Jerko vinyl.

Straight from the ‘every home should have one’ selection is the sliding teak glazed door from entry hall to the family living/dining room. Sure, there’s an extra cost in building the double skin wall to house a ‘withdrawing’ sliding door, but think of all the space it then frees up on either side, thanks to not having hinged doors swinging through.

Internal teak doors here were done by O’Riordan’s Joinery, while Carrigaline Joinery did the walnut stairs and teak folding external window/doors, and Munster Joinery did the rest of the slim profile uPVC glazing.

A bespoke screening timber fence was custom-made in sheeted timber on steel by Dave White, and main contractors were the long-established and highly-regarded Jerry O’Driscoll, and his son Brendan of JOD Contractors. John says he strongly advises going the main contractor route unless you have lots of time on hand (“you pay for direct labour with heartache,” he observes), and experience to match, even though it can be 10 to 12% dearer than going direct labour.

When the McCarthys found very soft ground on the side where they planned to extend, it was the O’Driscoll builders’ engineer who came up with the simplest remedy.

“We went with them because they gave the best breakdown of costs, everything was visible and transparent,” says Siobhan, who acted as QS, controlling costs and budgets - even managing to come in slightly under budget after the nine month process as “we knew where we could pull back and make savings.” Overall cost came to €1,200 per square metre of €112 per square foot, excluding furniture and fitting, but including the fitted kitchen

The final finishing was delayed a few months as the painter they’d committed to broke a wrist, so they waited for him to recuperate.

The job finished up around late 2008, growing the house in size to about double its original floor area, and bringing the bedroom count from three to five (including the attic room). It has been fully reinsulated and brought up the comfort scale, has been plumbed for solar panels, and is completely rewired and replumbed as well.

There’s not a wasted inch or mean room anywhere, light floods throughout, it has slipped unobtrusively into the neighbourhood - and, they most definitely won’t be moving on or out.