Room to Improve: Dermot Bannon flips butcher shop into tasty home
For the first time since she was a child, Karen Mulligan is living above the shop she grew up in.
Or, as architect Dermot Bannon says, at least “the memory” of that sacred space in Charlestown, Co Mayo.
The views are enviable, the architect notes, and she's back at the heart of her community. "There's no point living in the centre of town if you can't be nosy," he gleefully teases Karen — and all of us rubbernecking viewers.
The key to making it all happen is “flipping” the family butchers on Church Street upside down.
Karen was based in London for a decade and a half.
But in those years, she never lost touch with her roots.
Her career in marketing means she can work remotely and she also travels to Dublin every week — so as she tells us in the opening episode of the current RTÉ One series, she'd like to return to roost in her very first childhood home, Mulligans butcher shop. “I lived here until I was 14 or 15 years of age,” she says.
“It has many great memories, it was a very social house. I want to make it that social house again for everyone to feel they can knock on the door and have a chat and a catch-up.”
The business was as important to the Mulligans as it was to the entire community — and it closed its doors in 2017. “That was when my dad was diagnosed with a brain tumour and was no longer able to continue delivering the service,” says Karen.
Passing the premises afterwards was “hard for him to do”, but it would give him “joy” knowing the property would become a “lively” spot again, she adds.
Karen has a keen sense of what brings her joy — and also what doesn’t. Spoiler alert — she succeeds in her point-blank refusal to allow visible joists to feature in her home.
But family and community are highly visible elements of life.
Must-haves for the homeowner are three bedrooms and two bathrooms and open-plan living space for visits from family and friends: “We like to scatter but to be in the same room at the same time,” she says Karen whose original budget is €290,000.
The Mulligans moved out of this property three decades ago, in 1995. Decluttering before work begins, Karen and her sister discover their mother’s wedding dress in a bedroom wardrobe.
“I thought that was missing!” “We’ve got to keep that!” “Yes, we’ll restore it!”
Restoration is the leitmotif.
Because after Dermot and the suppliers' work is done, what Karen has achieved is “regenerated a small part of the town she loves”, as the architect describes it.
Original accommodation in the building comprises a butcher shop, a sitting room and a kitchen, while a former abattoir is among the zones dispensed with during the work.
Of the sitting room, Dermot asks: “This was a sitting room with all the hooks?” Karen shrugs, noting the practicality: “My father turned it into a kind of functioning area for the shop.”
Dermot flips the house upside down and places all the living accommodation on the upper floor and the sleeping quarters on the ground floor. “The old shopfront may have been good for business but that doesn’t make for privacy,” he says.
A new central courtyard brings light and ventilation “like a lung” into the centre of the house, adds Dermot.
A vaulted open-plan living space on the first floor proves perfect for gatherings — the homeowner’s favourite zone.
The name is also emblazoned on the house front. “It’s like turning a light back on in the street,” says Karen.
"She’s built a refuge for herself, a gathering space for her entire family but most importantly what Karen has done is she’s regenerated a small part of the town she loves — and in the way that dereliction can spread through a town so can repair.”
The contract value was €345,000. “Karen's budget was her real budget and we ended up bang on budget,” says quantity surveyor Claire Irwin.
The project received €95,000 worth of grants (€70,000 from the derelict property grant scheme and €25,000 from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland for energy upgrades.
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airs on RTÉ One on Sundays at 21.30 and on RTÉ Player
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