A new-look extension

Two-storey 1970s home opened up for views of garden and pond, says Tommy Barker

WE all have our blind spots — especially after living with them for 25 years. But, finally, the owners of this newly extended home saw the light, and the garden, and the pond.

This house hid its great garden pond and sloping garden views behind a blank gable wall. However, architects’ eyes saw the potential, past that un-seeing kitchen wall, with hung units inside, and grey dash outside facing a fish pond.

Knock out, extend modestly, cleverly and tastily, and then look back into the house’s core and reconfigure some of the space was the clear solution. One single-storey extension later, it’s all done, seamlessly — the job that was dreaded for years (if not decades) — is done, house transformed.

This was a summer 2012 job, a three-month makeover under the auspices of Cork firm, Cook Architects. It’s a transformation of an early 1970s, two-storey home that was stuck in a rut, but has now been painlessly plucked out for easier living, and garden glories.

Worst imposition? Having to move out for three weeks while walls were knocked and services reconnected. The owners used that time for holidays, and short break in a city apartment complex usually let to students.

Architects Paul Carpenter and Dermot Harrington say this home — a ten-minute drive from Cork City suburbs — was a conventional 1970s building, well-built, but with compartmentalised rooms, restrictive corridors and a little-used dining room — more care had gone into the building than into its functionality.

The owners say the dining room “was less than adequate for purpose, it would comfortably fit about five. As a result, the kitchen invariably doubled as the dining area. It was cozy, but very tight for space.”

They’d previously added a sun-room extension, which gave garden views, but the pond (which punches above its weight in visual amenity for its relatively compact size) remained tantalisingly out of view.

So the owners asked the architects for better and brighter space, a more integrated ground floor with a better flow between rooms, and better garden and pond views.

The result is seen here, essentially a new cube added onto that former blank and bland gable at the south/west end. This doubled the old kitchen from 14 sq metres up to 30 sq metres. In the process, the dining area was taken away, replaced by new circulation space bookended by a very useful, curved storage closet in the hall. Now, there’s easy circularity of routes through the kitchen/hall/sun-room.

Next, the architects replaced a number of the internal doors with glazed doors, allowing light through unimpeded and giving long views through rooms, making it all seem much larger.

Then, the several different floor finishes were reduced to a handful; porcelain tiling in the kitchen, and oak in the hall, corridors, storage closet and in a sun-room, with a stove for winter.

The spend came to close to €70,000, and that included all building and trades, fees, VAT, finished kitchen, new appliances, extra furniture, and the spill-over of finish upgrades in the house’s core.

It might look the same house from the front, but behind, all’s changed.

The choice of finish for the cube extension was brick — even though wood might have been an obvious choice, given the woodland scene just beyond this house’s two-thirds-of-an acre boundary. Completed only three months ago, it’s already maturing, and will remain a warm-looking, sympathetic, maintenance-free finish, with flush mortar joints.

“Visually, it provides for a clean and modern facade, in contrast to the existing house, while still respecting the original materials of dash and some brick on the front facade,” says Mr Harrington.

The job necessitated sturdy, steel RSJs to support the house gable after the end wall was taken out, and the builder in charge of it all was Carrigaline man, Gus O’Callaghan, who had to work around tight spaces, at the back of the site, between a rockery, slippery paving, a pond and several other, hard pinch points.

A precious tree dictated movements of men and materials, but came through the build process unscathed — only to be dug up when the work was done, as the owners wanted to clear the view from the sun-room to the extension and pond.

The roof is a flat membrane concealed behind a few courses of brick parapet, and the new kitchen came from OB Woodcrafts in Bantry, continuing a look of sleek, bright, clear surfaces.

A pleasant surprise is the way the pond’s shimmering waters get reflected on the kitchen ceiling, so it’s just as well the plastering here is spot on.

VERDICT: Heading into their first Christmas in the new space, pitch-perfect for groups and parties as well as quiet moments, the owners say “the process and finished project could not be more satisfactory. All our expectations were surpassed. The attention to detail at design, planning, tender and building phase bore fruit and are a tribute to the architect and builder.”