Dramatic touches in €415k theatre set designer's coastal Munster home

Smart moves mean no drama for buyers who want no DIY projects to action in Tramore home at The Orchard

Fri, 08 Dec, 2023 - 00:00

The set designer owner of this home has made it lights, camera, action-ready, says Trish Dromey

Tramore , Co Waterford
€415,000
Size	183 sq m (1,970 sq ft)
Bedrooms	4/5
Bathrooms	4
BER	B3

WHEN someone who designs stage sets for a living renovates a house, you can expect colour, drama, and the type of creatively different decor that you find at 5 The Orchard, Waterford Road in Tramore.

The Cherry Orchard pick? Check off the setting by the sea of The Orchard, Tramore

The owner of the three-storey four- or five-bed semi is a freelance set designer as well as the technical director of Theatre Royal Waterford and a former artistic director of Spraoi theatre group. Since purchasing it in 2016, he has added quite a few unique features and made some bold colour choices.

“When we bought it the décor was drab — it had fake mahogany timber and the look of a rented property,” he says, explaining that the attraction for him and his wife was the location: Close to amenities and the beach, and the views — especially the ones from the small top-floor balcony.

“You can look out across the rooftops to Tramore Bay and you can see Brownstown Head on one side and over to the Metal Man on the Dungarvan side.” The couple were particularly happy to find a house from which the beach was not only visible but also easily accessible. “If you take a shortcut through the park, you can walk there in around five minutes.”

The fact that the house is part of a small development of eight houses designed to look a little some of the old three-storey period houses in Tramore also added hugely to its attraction for its owners.

“We love that it has nine-foot-high ceilings and tall windows.” Although the house had been built just 17 years before the couple bought it, quite a lot of changes were required to turn it into the family home they wanted. “Very surprisingly, there was a guest WC in the centre of the ground floor and that had to go,” says the owner who knocked most of the internal walls on the ground floor.

Not wanting it to be totally open plan, the couple decided to separate the front living space from the kitchen/dining/living space at the rear. Using his set-designing skills creatively, the owner made a door/partition out of windows. The feature (main pic, above) is both functional as well as decorative, although he says the family rarely use the door.

The owner also built the fitted units for the living room and painted the walls a deep shade of mustard yellow. “Trends may come and go, but we like the strength of this colour,” he notes.

When he redesigned the kitchen/dining space, the choice of colour was equally dramatic and involved high-gloss red and pale grey units. “In a space at the rear — which used to be a utility room — we put in a galley-style kitchen room, pale grey units, and red walls and in the dining area, we put in a centre island and some tall red gloss units.”

During the reorganisation of the ground floor, the couple found space under the stairs for a guest WC to replace the one they took out.

The majority of the changes carried out upstairs involved refurbishing bathrooms, taking up carpets and stripping and painting floors. “I am not a fan of of laminate — I love painted floorboards which give quite a traditional look,” says the owner. In the main en suite bedroom, he used his set designing skills to build a large timber headboard and some cleverly concealed wardrobes.

“The wardrobes are on castors and can be pulled out at the sides, so it’s easy to see everything,” he says, explaining that the key benefit of this is that it gives a minimalist, clutter free appearance to the room. The grey headboard matches the bed and the painted floorboards and even has two small bedside lockers built on to it.

When the couple bought it the house had five bedrooms but they didn’t need that many. The smallest bedroom on the first floor became a music room and later a walk-in wardrobe while the smallest room top-floor room has been turned into a home office.

The front bedroom at the top of the house has a balcony while the second one at the rear has an en suite showerroom . The owners say that on very windy days they can hear the sound of crashing waves from the balcony.

Besides redesigning, renovating and redecorating the house, the couple also upgraded the heating and insulated the attic which brought the BER up to a B3.

To the rear of the property there’s a good-sized patio garden which backs on to a wooded area. “When you sit out, you can hear birdsong,” says the owner who reused doors used in a staging of The Crucible to make a shed. Painting the garden wall blue, he strung up some lights and used pieces of mirror to create a mosaic on the back wall which reflects light. The house has come on the market now because the owners are now taking on a new project and are planning to renovate a ‘60s property.

Listing this one with a guide of €415,000 Petrina Walsh of Purcell Properties says it’s a spacious and charming home which has been injected with a great deal of personality by its owners. Interested buyers so far have included young couples and trading-up families who want to live near the beach, she reveals.