Older buildings can remind us of our colourful past, says ISABEL MORTON

THIS WEEK I have been looking at large period properties requiring renovation, decoration and, most importantly, preservation.

My first port of call was to assess the cost of renovating an early Victorian house which had, to put it mildly, been ignored for decades and suffered badly from neglect.

Houses in ‘original’ condition are becoming a bit of a rarity, and this one completely missed out on the boom years. Its restoration would not be a job for the faint hearted, but it did have the potential to be a fine family home again after an investment of a considerable amount of time, energy and money.

The trouble is that banks are not too keen on lending money at all, let alone on a property that needs the works. And, according to one client who made every effort to get a bank loan to cover such work, the bank bases its rebuild figures on the square footage renovation costs for the average house, not one in which the use of expensive salvage materials is required to match existing period features.

Prospective buyers can become a bit blinkered when they have fallen in love with a property and don’t want to believe that it could possibly cost so much to renovate, let alone decorate and furnish.

And, talking of decoration, my second port of call was to a late Regency house which I had worked on in 2002, and which the owner now wants to redecorate, this time in strong warm colours. The sludge greige (grey/beige) colours they had been so keen on seven years ago were to be discarded in favour of a much bolder colour scheme. “It’s taken us years to realise that dull pale colours don’t really suit either our climate or these type of houses,” she said and I agreed.

Adele Roche of General Paints (manufacturers of Colortrend) says she has noticed that homeowners are gradually changing from neutral shades of beiges and whites to stronger colours.

Owners of modern houses are including a feature wall in a vibrant colour whereas people decorating period properties, which have higher ceilings, are reverting to the definite colours favoured in Georgian and Victorian times.

Stillorgan Décor also reports that the more dramatic colours of its Farrow Ball paint range are gradually becoming more popular and they recently had to order in a large quantity of Sudbury Yellow for a client who was redecorating an old house.

I noted the use of strong colour again the following morning, when I received the autumn newsletter from the Irish Georgian Society, which featured photographs of the superb decorative plasterwork and bright ‘verdigris’ green walls of the newly restored Eating Room in Headfort, Co Meath.

Unfortunately the Irish Georgian Society, like everyone else, is feeling the effects of the downturn and is hoping to attract new members and more financial support.

At a time when many Irish people are worried about being able to service their own mortgages, it is hard to expect them to be too concerned about financing the maintenance of historic buildings. But even if we can only afford to preserve them now and decorate them later, they must at least be preserved.

With the knowledge and understanding we now have of the importance of protecting all elements of our heritage, ignorance or lack of money can no longer be used as an excuse.

If nothing else, the global financial crash has encouraged us to go back to basics and we are now looking back in order to learn lessons from the past and realise the importance of saving and protecting what we have for the future.

Our new-found interest in looking back is being reflected in television programmes which trace ancestry and research family histories.

And the recent availability of the 1911 Irish Census online has made it easier to obtain interesting details about our own families from almost a century ago.

Also, the availability of Google virtual tours of streets worldwide, have even made it possible to look at the houses in which your ancestors once lived. That is if they haven’t been demolished.

And for those of you who enjoy stepping back in time, it may be worth indulging in Robert O’Byrne’s Romantic Irish Houses, which will transport you back to a different world, far removed from today’s harsh reality.

Having spent over a decade believing that we were living in a semi-tropical climate, adding glass box extensions and decorating our homes as if they were bathed in Californian sunshine, O’Byrne’s book reminds us that our homes “provide a sanctuary from the Irish climate, which is frequently grey, cold and damp”, and the book’s numerous photographs show how “colour and vivacity” have been the distinctive feature of Irish homes through the centuries.

What ever possessed us to believe that we could reinvent the colour wheel?