Well-upholstered life beckons at craft furniture maker's hand-build family home and showrooms

Irish Examiner

10 hours ago

THERE must be some time/space warp continuum out at West Cork's Kilshinahan — how else to explain how many hours in the day there must be in David and Deirdre Blake's family life?
The couple moved here in 2002 after they decided they needed a bit more space for family, for holiday gatherings and, in particular, for David's business, working as a second generation master upholsterer and furniture maker, swapping Navan in the Royal County for a life nearer the sea in the Rebel County.
A place called stop? Kilshinahan setting for Blake family enterprise between Bandon and Timoleague
Meath man David and Bandon woman Deirdre, a nurse, upped sticks from Crossmahon, just west of Bandon, and built a new life, expanded a business and fostered a high-end craftsman reputation, with a large home, plus an even larger workshop/showroom as well as creating and cultivating acres of ground and garden here off the Bandon-Timoleague road, located somewhere roughly before, oh, a place called Stop!
Hidden home behind, and underneath
Stop only comes after David designed and built this 4,575 sq ft three-storey over-basement home in timber frame, largely with his own hands. He finished it out and furnished it with his own handiwork, from sturdy turned stair spindles, stairs, and shelving to plushly upholstered bed back boards.
He worked from the smooth to the rough, with a mason to face the Blake family home in stone, then finally topping off its lofty height and steep gable pitches with ornate solid timber fascias and soffit to the front, and getting it pretty much finished inside and out to the nth degree.
Then, David built a vast showroom for his output, two storey and over 8,880 sq ft with underfloor heating, mixing sales with display and reams of fabric samples along with making from scratch, having three-phase power in his enclosed joinery workspace for enormous saws and lathes and everything needed to create fine furniture from design to delivery.
While he was building he necessarily had his 'day job' which funded the investment (see davidblakefurniture.ie), selling both domestically and commercially, having clients as diverse as hospitality and education/schools to Google Irish HQ offices.
Just for show....and sale. first floor of showrooms at family homestead
Oh, and he also repairs and reupholsters furniture, operating for the past number of years pretty much as a one-man band, while Deirdre commutes to the Bon Secours hospital in Cork city each week for work, before coming back to join the fray on the home front, and in the gardens where David goes to, eh, relax?
'Our garden is something we are very proud of, having spent many years planting flowers and trees,' says Deirdre.
'David's passion for gardening has led him to create a large vegetable garden at the rear of the house, where it has not been unusual for him to spend 12 hours on a nice summer's day down in his garden perfecting his next crop of vegetables — done in the 'no dig' style.'
You make your bed(s) .....and compost too
That's not a dig at David, hopefully? Nor is it a hint at lazy bed veg growing either: right now, the proof is in the eating, or the soon-to-be eaten produce from a large polytunnel, and from a series of raised beds, 12 in all, built inside tall concrete frames (not timber, so long, long-lasting) with salads, fruits, potatoes, tomatoes all coming on nicely as summer rolls out.
Why would they not be happy in their David Blake beds, as he even makes his own compost — even typing the tasks undertaken here in just over two decades is tiring enough....
Suite dreams
Now it's time to say stop? Or, at least, to slow down.
The couple's two children are adult and have largely moved on and out, aren't interested in the business, and 'we have made the difficult decision to downsize but know that it's the right one for us, and David hopes to continue his business on a smaller scale,' says Deirdre who still has her own 35-minute commute to and from the Bons.
They hope to stay in the wider Bandon area, given proximity of her family in the area.
Both are from large families: David grew up with seven sisters 'so was always running off away from them to work in upholstery with his dad,' laughs son Peter.
Christmases typically are meals and hospitality for 25 nearest and dearest and where, handily, there's never a shortage of chairs, seats, sofas, and otherwise soft sitting. Hardly a shortage of home-grown food from the freezer, either?
Home comforts
It's all fresh to market now with estate agent Mark Kelly of Hodnett Forde, who is selling the extensive and immaculate family home, plus showrooms/business base, on 2.5 groomed and productive acres, and who says the attention to detail and finish and comfort is at the top end of the scale, on all levels.
It has four mid-level bedrooms, with a superb master suite all furnished by David, with dressing room/walk-in robes and private bathroom, while two of the other three bedroom have their own en suite bathrooms also, and the top floor has three attic rooms suitable for sleeping or studying: one room 'brings back Leaving Cert study nightmares', says Dublin-based son Peter, now working in the financial sector.
The entry/ground level has a substantial hall, with large living room with bespoke walnut shelving with concealed lighting (home-made next door in the workrooms), a very big kitchen dining with large island, recently enhanced with a butcher's block-style enormous chopping block in beech, mahogany, and teak, and there' s also a sitting room, large utility room, guest WC, office, and play room; it all gets a B3 BER, with two wood-burning stoves able to churn out extra heat and use up some of the workshop's leftover timber bits and bobbins.
Gym'll fix it
'Oh, I forgot to show you the basement,' remembers son Peter doing a dutiful son tour as David and Deirdre take a well-earned holiday break away after prepping the property mix for sale.
This lower level, accessed from the rear, includes a series of stores, a plant room, a gym, and garages (one home to a veteran Massey Ferguson tractor Deirdre gave work-horse David for his 30th birthday back in the family's Crossmahon years) while another houses a ride-on mower which yields grass cuttings for mixing with other green waste for composting: the home does farm to fork, and fine fabrics to fabulous furniture.
Hodnett Forde's Mark Kelly guides the entire here at €1.15m and adds 'that's well under build costs…' not to mind labour costs, which in this case came largely gratis of the man of the house.
It's hoped to find a buyer looking to combine home life with a business, either manufacturing, display, storage, or other, as a walk-in job on both fronts, but a purchaser could prioritise the house and gardens and rent out the business unit as an option as it has its own drive, services, and parking.
Given the build and insulation quality of the 8,880 sq ft two-storey commercial unit, with various heating options, it could even be a perfect buy for a serious collector of vintage and veteran vehicles, or a valuable collector's racier cars — there's enough space not only to park a fleet here, but also enough to move them about in.
VERDICT: A niche buy, but could be the answer to someone's serious space needs for work, play, and day to day living, all within easy reach of Cork City, Bandon, Clonakilty, and the coast.