‘The bills are very manageable’: A suburban renovation with a colourful touch in south Dublin

The scent of lavender shrubs planted beside the sunny yellow front door, is the first thing to greet visitors to the home of Lisa Hayes and Brian Shields in Myrtle Park, Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin.

Step inside, and a floor-to-ceiling window leads the eye straight to the back garden. It all feels soothing and calming, but the timing of this 1940s house renovation was anything but relaxing.

The couple had been living down the road in Dungar Terrace with their two young children, and a third on the way, when they decided to move to a bigger home. This was early 2020 and Covid was lurking.

Nevertheless, they managed to buy, and move into Myrtle Park in August 2020, at a time when they hadn’t sold their old house, and they had a three-month-old baby and two other children under four. Just to complicate things, Lisa was contending with a broken arm, after she tripped on the stairs while night-feeding.

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But they were undaunted. They had previously renovated their old home and were excited to embark on the new project.

They had worked with David Shannon from local firm The Architects when they renovated their previous home, and Lisa says his approachable manner and meticulous eye for design and detail, meant she didn’t have to think twice about choosing an architect.

A few months later, they moved out to start renovations. Of course, Covid reared its head again and construction work was shut down three days after it had started. The family would move five times in that year, going between a rented house to the homes of family members in Kilkenny and Dublin.

But they finally moved back to Myrtle Park, two weeks before the kitchen arrived. The builders worked around them for a month, and they felt like part of the family by the time they left.

“It should have been very stressful, and it was at times, but our architect David took a lot of stress out of the situation,” Lisa says. “And I am very interested in interior design, so I was delighted to be making decisions on the finishes. It turned out to be a really enjoyable and interesting learning experience.”

And the end result? “We’re just thrilled with the outcome. The kids love the space.”

Unusually for a renovation project, they did not need to extend the footprint of the house. Instead, they incorporated the garage into the living space and turned an old boiler room into a utility room. “We were delighted with that because it meant we didn’t need to go for planning permission and it saved money on building costs,” she says.

They removed a chimney and knocked the walls between the old kitchen and dining room. It meant giving up the quirky serving hatch, which Lisa had become attached to, but it was a small sacrifice.

This large space has become the focal point of the house — a spacious open plan kitchen, living and dining room. It runs from the front to the back of the house, and thanks to the large windows and patio doors, it’s flooded with light.

They created a feature out of the exposed steel by painting the girders blush pink and also left the timber beams exposed. The rich green kitchen cupboards contrast nicely with these design touches.

One corner of the living space contains a generous-sized play area with ample storage under birch-ply seating. Hidden storage is a recurring feature in this room and in the adjoining utility room, with all the bespoke joinery provided by Brendan Kavanagh Kitchens. A large window seat looking onto the garden also contains hidden storage and is Lisa’s favourite place to sit for a quiet moment — if that’s possible with three young children.

“This room is just brilliant. You can see the kids, but they still have their own space,” she says. While the open-plan living area suits the family of five, there is also a separate sitting room to allow for a temporary respite from the madness when needed.

They installed a heat pump, added insulation and fitted triple-glazed aluclad windows, all of which brought the house from a BER of D2 to A3. “It’s very cosy and the underfloor heating works really well with the polished concrete floors,” she says. “We have the thermostat set at 19 degrees and the bills are very manageable.”

Lisa’s choice of natural materials and colours gives a modern Scandinavian feel to the home, with furnishings and artwork providing bright pops of colour everywhere.

She took a career break from her work as a primary school teacher when she had her third child, and after her positive experiences working on both renovations, she decided to switch direction. She completed an interior design course and set up Fabric interior design studio (fabricdesign.ie) in November 2022. “I thought it was worth a shot. I have a few things in the pipeline, so we’ll see how it goes.”

So, two house renovations and three children later, are they now in their forever home? She says if her husband was asked about moving again he would say “no way, not a hope”.

And Lisa? “I’d say: never say never.”

Biggest win

“I wanted a functional house for the family but the aesthetics were also really important to me and I’m just delighted that we got both.”

Biggest mistake

“I wouldn’t call it a mistake, but we had the option of having a side passage on the house but decided against it because it would have reduced the size of the kitchen. In an ideal world, I would have liked that side passage but I prefer to have the extra space in here.”