Renovations by remote and email worked out dandy for West Cork's €325k cottage called Windfall

London one-bed flat sale funded artist and writer's successful 'remote' house upgrades

Fri, 03 Dec, 2021 - 00:05

Property Editor Tommy Barker reports Pictures Niamh Whitty

Rosscarbery, West Cork
€325,000
Size	80 sq m (867 sq ft)
Bedrooms	3
Bathrooms	2
BER	E2

GOOD karma seems to have come with the rebirth of this West Cork cottage, happily called Windfall.

Windfall is at Barleyhill East, just west of Rosscarbery off the N71

Having been empty for 15 years, it was bought in 2016 by an artist looking to relocate from London: its renovations were done almost remotely, with communication with builders and craftspeople done by email, and it all went super-smoothly, with the house handed over by the crew spotless, debris removed, ready to rock, and decorated and tiled with aplomb.

What were the chances?

Karma, definitely, and possibly the fact it was done five years ago when tradespeople weren’t quite so run off their feet.

Now that it’s up for sale, as a restored walk-in order home bursting with personality, it holds a similar good feeling promise for its next occupants, who’ll have little or nothing to do, bar spend a year in the organic garden watching what comes and goes, as nature and sensitive planting dictates.

The owner is artist and writer Mich Maroney, who got a lucky break when she sold her one-bed apartment in London: this gave her enough funds to buy here at Barleyhill, near Rosscarbery, and do the renovations and upgrades on this quite traditional ‘two up, two-down’ cottage with deep local roots.

Wildflower summer meadow and trefoil at Windfall

The name, Windfall, came from that lucky London sale, that, plus the fact this near-coastal property can get a bit of wind, but the Irish Examiner caught up with Mich on Tuesday, as Storm Barra whirled and threatened, and it stood rock steady.

Windfall’s been a very different living set up for its owner, who was born in Hong Kong, with a Portuguese mother, and who lived most of her life in the UK.

Mich had lived briefly before in Ireland, and West Cork life sort of appealed to her creative side (see www.michmaroney.com).

When she came to view this property, almost on a desultory call and mainly on the advice of a friend, she had little or no expectation of it, until she walked in the door. Despite the fact it hadn’t been lived in for 15 years, she knew there and then it was for her.

She was lucky in her choice of builder, Patrick O’Sullivana of Daytona Construction in Clonakilty, who she said was a pleasure to deal with (by email, mostly, remember: what trust?).

Similarly, she has high praise for joiner Ruben Barrett, who designed and made a birch-ply window seat with storage, fashioned her bookshelves and more, and praises mason Finbarr White to the skies: he rebuilt the chimneys for her, which now serve two internal wood-burning stoves.

In her continuing lucky streak of good service at Windfall, she praises her windows and doors supplier, where one incident had an emergency call-out answered and sorted in 25 minutes, ye gods.

But, most obvious of all now after all the work is done, the dust settled and gardens abundant, was the input of multi-skilled craftsman John O’Donovan, of Clonakilty based Custom House Design.

Most notably, he did the tiling here, working around the constraints of an old house (probably 100 years old, or more) to deliver impressive walls and chimney breasts fully tiled, tiling in the kitchen and bathrooms: blue wall tiles in the sitting rooms look Dutch, or Portuguese, Mich admits, while John O’Donovan says “she made brave choices, and they paid off”.

Most challengingly, John did the floors throughout in the same, small honey-coloured hexagonal tiles, flowing from one ground floor room to the next, through the entire level, with no ‘escape clauses’ of door saddles or steps to hide any discrepancies. That’s exactly when the follow-on trades such as tilers give thanks to those who went before them, pouring smooth new floors, as Daytona Construction had done in this case.

It all took about six months, done remotely before remote working was a ‘thing,’ and even things like ordering the tiles online (from UK-based mega retailer Walls & Floors) went smoothly, with just a €100 delivery charge for all the tiles, in easier, pre-Brexit days.

One suspects that the house’s owner, now a vendor, is pretty calm in any case, and she spent her Covid-19 lockdown period working on her art (she currently has work in the West Cork Arts Centre/Uilinn in Skibbereen. Ironically, for such a colorful home, the work is in a group show called Monochrome.

Oh, and she also just completed a novel, Ink Blood Brick Bone, spanning a 100-year period from World War One, which just last month won a Book Edit Writer’s Prize.

The inspiration to write came from an initiative by Cork County Council Libraries, says Mich who admits: “I never really thought of myself as a country girl but living and working in the countryside in Ireland has been great for my creative life.”

She’s now looking to trade down from her half acre property just off the N71 and a couple of miles west of Rosscarbery, a few miles from beaches and bays, reckoning that she needs less garden, and more time.

Mich had been in a gardenless London flat before embracing rampant West Cork growth.

Replanting meets naturally seeded varieties

Now that she is selling Windfall, she’s done an illustrated four-page advisory note for next residents outlining what’s planted (including a fruit orchard with trees (apple, pear, cherry plum) planted in a double quincunx pattern, similar to the five-spot on dice, outlining what pops up when and where, and it’s all been chemical-free and organic for six years.

Orchard path at Barleyhill East's Windfall

The selling agent for this end-of-year, out-of-season offer is Con O’Neill of Sherry FitzGerald O’Neill, who guides Windfall at €325,000 and who describes it as “an artist-designed house and detached studio situated in a wildflower meadow, orchard and flower garden, full of original character, and more.”

Sizewise, it’s just over 850 sq ft, with one en suite first-floor bedroom, one of the two other ground floor bedrooms also has an en suite, and there’s a sitting room, kitchen/dining room, and a porch, having had small add-ons put on by a previous owner, likely in the 1980s.

One of the two ground floor bedrooms is en suite

Also in previous times, this compact cottage served as a local shop, appreciated by workers in nearby quarries such as Benduff, and it was for years also known as Mother Jo’s, after an elderly woman who lived here and cared for her sister.

Mich Maroney didn’t add to the house, which she upgraded, getting to a D2 BER, adding solar panels, oil central heating, stoves, and raising the ceiling in the kitchen a bit, but she did add a separate studio/workspace of about 250 sq ft.

It’s got power, plumbing, is insulated and was done by Steeltech who also, perhaps by now not surprisingly, also get praise for service and delivery by this home’s generous owner.

So, no pressure at all on Sherry Fitz’s Con O’Neill not to let the side down on such wholly-positive professional services, with his side of the deal here at Windfall?

VERDICT: It couldn’t have been a less promising week weatherwise to aim for first sale viewings at this West Cork idyll, but if viewers like it in December, imagine the joys set to unfurl throughout 2022?