VIDEO: Modern renovation to Old Bridge House offers seasonally cosy charm
In the bleak depths of midwinter, even the prettiest of houses need to be cheered up by some tasteful festive decorations and spruced up with a brightly-lit Christmas tree.
Such is the case with Old Bridge House at Pallasgreen in Limerick, a wonderfully made-over old property, where the Christmas-loving owners enthusiastically put up decorations and a tree in the sitting room the day after they took the Halloween ones down.
This room is now seasonally cosy and bright but splashes of red in the décor throughout the other rooms make this home a little festive at any time of the year too.
The island in the kitchen, roll-top bath, and the antique radiators upstairs have all been painted red while the living area also has a stylish big red fridge.
With or without Christmas decorations, this is a very attractive and unique house, one which was created by its Limerick owners who five years ago fulfilled a long-held dream of renovating an old farmhouse.
What they bought back in 2008 was a building half this size which had been built in 1831 as terrace of houses for the farm manager and the labourers on the nearby Sunville Estate.
Having been turned into a single property in the 1970s, it was, according to the owners, “just about habitable” in 2008.
What they have now is a four-bed 2,850 sq ft house which has kept the original front façade but which now has 52’ long, 20’ high extension which has been built around an oak post and beam frame.
It’s modern, with a double-height vaulted ceiling in the living area, huge windows, glass balustrades, and contemporary bathroom fittings — but also has traditional touches such as exposed bricks and oak beams and antique radiators.
The transformation took — if not blood sweat and tears — then certainly copious amounts of sweat since the man of the house toiled on the project for a year in his spare time, building, tiling, plastering, painting, insulating, making kitchen units and stairs, laying flooring and doing every job that he could himself.
A shipping agent by profession, he also came up with the design and got a draughtsman to draw it up for him. The key element was the post-and-beam frame which was produced for him by Walls Sawmill in New Ross.
“In the modern version, beams are put in afterwards, but this post-and-beam frame is actually holding up the extension,” he explains.
The path to building the home of their dreams didn’t run totally smoothly for the couple, though, since it took two applications and two years to get planning permission.
The biggest difficulty was concern about the proximity of a septic tank to the river which runs along the boundary of the property.
“Now we have a mechanical aerated bio-filter tank big enough for half of Limerick”, he quips.
Work began with the gutting of the interior of the original part of the house at the front which was then replumbed, rewired and insulated.
After that came the laying of the foundations of the extension for which the owners drafted in some local builders.
The delay in the planning permission meant that the project started in the boom but was carried out during the bust.
Economising did not however mean that the owners cut down on quality.
“We sourced a huge amount of materials in liquidation sales such as tiling and the beech flooring for upstairs. I saw a bathroom sale advertised in Liverpool and took a van over and bought taps, sinks, baths and showers for all the bathrooms for a third of the cost I would have paid here.’’
The radiators came from salvage yards and the red brick for archways came from a train station that had been knocked down in Kilkenny.
The owners did not stint on the oak frame, which cost a third of the price of the house, or the triple-glazed hardwood windows and doors which came from a company in Nenagh, the toughened glass for the balustrades or the walnut timber used for some ground floor rooms.
The huge kitchen/dining living with its double-height ceiling, high windows and impressive oak beams is undoubtedly the most striking room.
Floored with ceramic tiles inlaid with stripes of walnut, it has a granite-topped red centre island, white units with a double oven, and a big red fridge. Storage cupboards and other appliances are tucked away out of sight in a large pantry/utility area off the kitchen.
The living area has two sets of bifolding doors — one opening out under high glass windows at the gable end on to a patio.
In the original part of the house at the front are two sitting rooms — one is tiled with a cream-coloured stove and the other has walnut parquet flooring with a black stone fireplace and, for the moment, a Christmas tree.
Off the kitchen/dining room at one side there’s a door leading to red bathroom with a roll-top bath coated in eggshell red and another leading to a cream coloured bedroom.
A walnut and cream staircase leads from the front hallway to the upstairs where there are three bedrooms and two wet rooms — one black and chrome and modern, and the other traditional with black and cream tiles and exposed stone. Two bedrooms are creamy, beech-floored, and oak-framed, while the one in the old part of the house is a kids’ room with a unique slide bed.
Outside the bedrooms is a balcony and seating area with glass balustrades overlooking the kitchen dining room.
The lady of the house took responsibility for the interior design, opting to keep the colour scheme as simple as possible.
The exterior is white with grey trims while the interior has two shades of cream with splashes of red. A slightly deeper shade of the grey from the outside has been brought inside for one wall in the large open plan room.
The red theme started with the big red fridge — retro style with rounded corners made by the Italian company Smeg — which the owners bought in Limerick at the same time as the house.
“That came first and then my wife hunted for a matching Smeg gas wall stove which she found in Dublin.”
After that he built the free-standing red island unit in situ while his wife searched for antique radiators. The couple had been working on “a look” for six or seven years prior to buying this property.
They had previously sought and failed to get planning permission for a new post-and-beam build and been keeping a cuttings scrapbook of things they wanted to put in their dream home.
Items that stand out amidst the eclectic mix of modern tiles and glass and traditional stone and timber include the sitting room coffee table — a glass-topped timber boat which the owners purchased from a Limerick shop that sells unusual furniture.
Awaiting a BER cert, the owners expect a high B because the property has triple glazing, high levels of insulation and is heated (under floor at ground level) both by the solid fuel stove’s boiler and an oil boiler.
“The whole house is spray foamed. In the new part there are five-and-a-half inches of insulation on the walls and seven on the ceiling. In the old part there are three inches on the wall and three inches on the ceiling as well as fibreglass in the attic.”
Old Bridge House comes with an acre of grounds although the River Mulcair, which bounds the property at one side, takes up around a quarter of this.
Out front there’s a gravel driveway and an old milking parlour which is now a shed and to the rear there’s a patio, lawns and a raised decking area overlooking the river.
The stone walls and pillars at the front are part of the old estate but the gardens at the back have only been added on since 2008.
To start with, the property didn’t have any land at the rear so the owners bought an additional section from a neighbouring farmer.
The man of the house laid the lawns, the decking and the paths and built garden steps, fencing, stone walls and patios. He also found time to put in a large tree house, a swing, a recessed trampoline, and a platform with a zip wire.
Located one mile from Pallasgreen village, the house is 16 miles from Limerick city. Selling agents GL auctioneers are seeking offers of €450,000 for a property which they say has individuality, character and a high class finish.
“I sold it to the owners seven years ago — what they have done is quite remarkable” says auctioneer Barry Ledin. He expects city commuters will be charmed both by house and by the tranquil riverside location.
Short-term plans involve putting a very large Christmas tree in the kitchen/dining room. Moving for family reasons, they are making New Year plans to start again.
“Next time it will be a nice modern house — we have done the farmhouse renovation where nothing is straight or level.”
A Christmas wish for someone who can’t build this type of house with their bare hands.
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