Home of the Year: Pitch perfect dormer bungalows back in focus

The new season of RTÉ’s Home of the Year brings the humble dormer bungalow into sharp focus with not one, but two, pitch perfect, Co Cork, reworkings of the genre.

The bungalow, a house type with Anglo-Indian roots, has found itself right at home in rural Ireland. The property style has proliferated in our villages and townlands and evolved to accommodate large Irish families by going up to become a dormer bungalow.

"It was easy to construct from both builder and budget points of view but sound transfer and energy efficiency were not considerations," explains architect Dermot Harrington, a director at Cook Architects, whose design is one of those featured in the new season of RTÉ's Home of the Year.

It was because of a need for more space and a more considered flow that he was hired by Norma Barrett and her husband Stephen to reimagine their tired, early 1990s construction near Cobh which they had built on a site they bought in 1994.

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By eliminating the voids under the eaves, typically used to store not-often used items like Christmas decorations and suitcases, and reworking the ground floor layout to extend it into the garden, the property grew about 30 per cent in size to 175sq m.

The cost of the retro-fit was €320,000, which is almost four times what the couple paid for the original site and build, when it cost a total of IR£64,000 (€81,260).

But the house, now home to four people, including their two kids, Katya (11),and Alex (8), finally works for all its inhabitants. Each of the kids has a room that they can use for home schooling – a luxury that has proved invaluable during lockdown.

One child uses the living room to the left of the hall at the front – an original room, while the other uses the home office with gym. This is accessed via a secret door, hidden behind the reeded larch detailing on what appears to be an outside gable wall at the far end of the property. Both rooms have doors to shut out interference and the back room is also used for gaming.

The real talking point in this property is its interconnecting living spaces. The kitchen – very serene, sage green and bare timber by Nick Moody – and TV room – home to a cognac-coloured, Muuto, leather, L-shaped sofa – lead through to a large, light-filled space that opens these rooms to the garden.

The accommodation also got reconfigured with the main bedroom now situated downstairs, a big step towards future-proofing the couple’s home so they can grow old here. It includes an ensuite and walk-in dressing room.

Across the city, just minutes from Cork airport in Lios Cross, Upper Ballygarvan, interior designer David O’Brien has constructed a new, pitch black, abode. Its form riffs on agricultural buildings and its corrugated steel exterior was inspired by the roofs he admired whilst holidaying in Iceland, a country whose bedrock is black basalt.

He comes from a building family with an entrepreneurial streak. His father Ray set up RJ O'Brien Building Contractors and, with his brother Aidan, they opened a tea rooms in their father's old workshop. The Workshop serves gourmet sambos washed down with Barry's tea.

Vintage furniture was also on its menu with David its buyer. It was Aidan who took him to his first auction age about seven, he says, recalling how he imagined the story behind each item that came under the hammer.

“I loved the history behind the pieces. I also loved the quality. Pieces that were more than 100 years old still had many more lives to live.”

He has quite the habit and has been squirrelling away finds for himself for the last 15 years, spending his free time at the now shuttered Cork Auction Rooms and at least an hour daily on the likes of Adverts.ie and DoneDeal. These finds have been housed in a spare sitting room belonging to his very understanding sister Caitríona, one of four siblings. Three of them live across the fields from each other in a very modern take on traditional clachan settlements. Mown paths from David’s house lead through his wild landscaping to his brothers, sister and mother’s homes.

The mothership is a farmhouse that his mother grew up in. Set on about seven acres the homestead was divided to give each of the siblings a site to build their own home but none is quite so striking as David’s all-black design, completed in 2017.

Four-bedroomed it has two bedrooms upstairs, where there are views west to Kinsale lighthouse and Crookhaven, and two more at ground level, the second of which is used as a home office -cum-gym.

The house has under-floor heating and large picture windows washing the interior in light but is unique for its fresh taken on the kitchen island. In teach David a rich, rosewood baby grand piano plays the role of kitchen island and large freestanding lamp.

The instrument is protected from the wear and tear of prep work by a toughened glass top and has been wired underneath to fit plug sockets for appliance use. It is a really innovative way to marry a beautiful piece of furniture, often used as a showpiece within a home, with modern functionality.

“The underbelly of the piano has strip lighting so after dark it also outline casts soft, warm white light,” he explains.

Made in England by John Broadwood & Sons, the oldest piano manufacturer with a royal warrant, it cost him about €500, the price of a very bog standard kitchen sink and tap, and had to be brought home on the family’s tractor.

Although he learned how to tinkle the ivories as a kid it is his musician friends that knock the most fun out of it when they get an invite to dinner.

The rest of the kitchen features affordable MDF units that pale into the background letting the rich wood of the piano contrast with their blue doors.

In the living area a deep-buttoned, hide, Chesterfield sofa on bun feet shares the space with a contemporary design by EZ Living, one of only two new purchases in the whole house.

Extending to 204 sq m (2,200sq ft) the house cost about €350,000 to construct four years ago. It includes uPVC windows from Munster Joinery and polished floors by Concrete Concepts.

David used Mallow-based CEA Architects because the firm had got planning permission for a neighbour, a smart move that other would be self-builders should duly note. Did he change much of the original plans? He installed a rooflight into the main bedroom dressing room so that it had a natural light source.

The new home was his first major project, its mix of old and new really helping to make it stand out. His decorator’s eye for the unusual makes him one to watch.

Home of the Year is televised on Tuesday nights on RTÉ 1, at 8:30pm and is also available on RTÉ Player.