Downsizing in Ranelagh: a sun-kissed slice of Provence in Dublin 6

Irish Times

25-05-2025

A
Ranelagh
homeowner traded down to a
house
around the corner from her original three-storey abode, the smaller property a villa-style residence overlooking a large green space. It had, she explains, lovely period features including good ceiling heights, cornicing and ceiling roses, dado rails, architraves and timber floorboards.
When she bought it, the reception rooms were upstairs, at entrance level, while the kitchen was downstairs, and ran the depth of the house. This lower-floor room opened out to the garden to the rear which, although south-facing, was relatively small.
The homeowner brought in Mícheál de Siún of De Siún Architects and, in doing so, achieved a more balanced house, with all the living space on the same floor, now washed in light. She and her late husband had spent a lot of time in the south of
France
, and it was a painting, Paul Cézanne's Gardanne 1866, a view of the hill town of that name near Aix-en-Provence, that was the inspiration for the ambient renovation.
Gardanne, 1866 by Paul Cézanne
'Light was also central to the brief,' says de Siún. By demolishing an outhouse and outside toilet, the architect explains, he gained space to the side of the house. This gave him the room to push the property out to its perimeter wall at entrance level.
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The extension has added just 19sq m (204sq ft) of space, but it is the reorientation of the rooms to the left of the entrance hall, and the addition of glazing on three sides, that is transformative.
Mícheál de Siún of De Siún Architects, who were behind the reinterpretation and renovation of the Ranelagh property. Photograph: Alan Betson
Now, instead of a small and relatively enclosed back garden, the livingrooms overlook the aforementioned green, affording a front-row view of its trees, their colours changing with the seasons.
The kitchen-diningroom now gives the impression of hanging above the boundary wall – the line of which follows the river Swan, which appears on maps dating from mid-1700s and now runs underground, de Siún says – and of being among those trees. 'It feels like you're floating,' de Siún says. The house plants too are thriving on all the sunlight.
Exterior. Photograph: Alan Betson
Extended area. Photograph: Alan Betson
Kitchen area. Photograph: Alan Betson
View to rear
Renovation designed by De Siún Architects
The glass is interspersed with timber upright fins to shield the space from the outside. These are finished in Owatrol oil in Weathered Grey. By inserting a long roof light into the centre of the room, areas that would have been discernibly darker have been illuminated.
A beech dining set adds further warmth and is adjacent to a long built-in window seat. The olive-green colour used on the Teroco windows is RAL 6003, to which the steel, by H&M Ironwork, inside and out, was matched.
The nature of this home's reinterpretation means the interior is washed in light from sun up to sundown. In the mornings the exterior fins are dappled with shadowplay from the leaves on the trees, backlit by the sun.
Livingroom. Photograph: Alan Betson
Window on to green space. Photograph: Alan Betson
Hallway. Photograph: Alan Betson
The elements of the bespoke kitchen, designed and made by Dean Cooper, have been 'scribed to fit', as de Siún puts it, meaning that the units have been constructed to specifically suit the period property's proportions and non-straight walls. It's subtly done and explains why the Nettle Soup-coloured cabinetry, a Colourtrend shade, looks so at home in the space. The Cézanne painting, which now hangs in the
Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art
in New York, helped the owner select the serene shades that feature on the walls and woodwork.
The kitchen island was also made to measure; it's 1m wide and 2.5m long, with ribbed ends to add texture and to echo the character of the architraves, de Siún explains.
All this attention to detail knits together the kitchen area, in the old front room, and newly added dining-cum-reading nook.
Behind a half wall is additional space housing a guest WC, cloakroom and side entrance via granite steps down to the front garden, all hidden from view from the cooking area. The wallpaper in the lavatory has a painterly quality too; this time it could be a Dutch master.
WC. Photograph: Alan Betson
Bathroom. Photograph: Alan Betson
Exterior. Photograph: Alan Betson
Across the hall the interconnecting rooms remain much as they were. Their large sash windows continue to wash the space in light from front to back. The painted cast-iron fireplaces endure, and the beautifully engineered set of original fold-back doors still sit flush with the walls.
The blackened floorboards, which had possibly been covered in a bitumen paint, have been sanded back and are now stained a soft matt honey tone, a colour from Osmo oil tints. This helps bring this entire upper floor together.
Here, there is a full-size burl walnut grand piano that belonged to the family of the homeowner's late husband and had to be winched up to the second floor of her former home, she recalls.
'They had to take out a window,' she says, delightedly reporting that there was no such drama when bringing it into this home. Her Aunt Molly's dining table is also in this room, and it is lovely to see such pieces with stories on show.
Downstairs, the principal bedroom has an en suite bathroom that features microcememt tinted a bleached terracotta. The colour, Fleetwood Shell Coral, is a replica of the sun-warmed rooftops of the Cézanne.
Microcement, de Siún explains, 'is worked on by hand and has a finish that feels like polished concrete. The colour is handmade per batch. The owner didn't want to use tiles and there are no seams or joins.'
Now when the family gathers, they can wander between the reception rooms and the kitchen-diningroom. The grandchildren, who often excuse themselves after dinner, can jump over the wall with a ball and have a kickabout, surveyed, but only from a distance, by their parents.
The work, which was executed by MSVI builders, was a winner in the home extension refurbishment, medium size, at this year's Building and Architect of the Year awards.
'It's very easy to manage,' says the owner. 'I have just 18 steps down to bed, rather than the 50 up to bed in the previous house.'
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