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Houzz Tour: A Family Home With a Large, Light-filled Extension
Hidden behind an unassuming frontage, this vast, modern extension is a very big surprise
From the outside, this Dublin house looks fairly standard – a modest family home built in the 1980s. Step inside, though, and – wowzers! – you find a modern, light-flooded space that is absolutely vast. ‘The extension at the back has more than doubled this property’s footprint,’ says Catherine Crowe of Optimise Design, the architecture and interior design team behind the project.
The space accommodates a young couple and their growing family – two small children and a baby – but it also delivers the wow factor. ‘The owners wanted you to come into the house and it be completely different from what you’d expected,’ explains Catherine. ‘From the outside, you would never guess this property is so big.’
Spacious architecture is married with a stylish palette of grey and white, modern rustic touches and a combination of vintage and design-classic furniture, for a home that looks beautiful, but is family friendly, too.
The space accommodates a young couple and their growing family – two small children and a baby – but it also delivers the wow factor. ‘The owners wanted you to come into the house and it be completely different from what you’d expected,’ explains Catherine. ‘From the outside, you would never guess this property is so big.’
Spacious architecture is married with a stylish palette of grey and white, modern rustic touches and a combination of vintage and design-classic furniture, for a home that looks beautiful, but is family friendly, too.
The sociable family who own this house wanted space to entertain. The kitchen island offers room for friends to relax with a drink while the owners are cooking, and this large table, surrounded by Eames DSW chairs, can seat 10. ‘The table was just one of several pieces the owners wanted to factor into the design of this extension,’ says Catherine. The Maskros pendant light is from Ikea.
The original living room, at the front of the house, is now a playroom and this sophisticated living space straddles the place where the old house finishes and the extension begins. A tunnel fireplace was installed in the wall between this room and the dining space beyond to link the two areas. The grey paint is London Road in the Colour Trend range by Dulux.
A wall clad in reclaimed timber is a striking feature in the kitchen. ‘The owners wanted something that looked quite wrecked and rustic against the clean, sharp white kitchen,’ says Catherine. The timber had been part of a barn and runs beyond the kitchen onto the wall outside that flanks the covered bar area. The timber came from Ebony & Co. The island and worktops are Silestone, a quartz material that looks like marble.
Although this extension is spacious, the owners have been careful to keep it looking sleek and ordered. They built bench seating under the window – it provides somewhere to relax without eating into the floor space too much.
Rather than build the extension on one level, creating a huge space potentially lacking in features, the kitchen is set lower than the rest of the house. Stairs lead down from the living area into it. ‘They help to gently break up the space,’ says Catherine. The flooring is poured concrete.
The owners love to have friends over and had a bar built outside for entertaining. It has a roof and heaters, too, to help fight off the chilly Irish weather and make it a space that can be used all year round.
Instead of individual skylights, Catherine designed a row of roof lights that run along the spine of the extension. ‘They are slightly raised, too,’ says Catherine, ‘which helps them pull in light all day long.’
The study sits in what was the original house and is lit by a courtyard outside, which also brings natural light into the living room opposite. Large timber-clad sliding doors can be pulled across for privacy. They are less obtrusive than regular doors and help to keep the space uncluttered. Jules swivel chairs from Ikea at a built-in desk provide space for two people to work.
The bright yellow on the stair runner adds a zingy accent that runs through the house and punctuates the grey colour scheme. ‘We couldn’t find a carpet with a yellow trim, so we chose a regular stair runner and edged it with yellow leatherette,’ says Catherine. ‘It cleans easily and its smooth feel is a nice textural contrast to the deep wool carpet.’ The floor is oak, which Catherine’s team painted white.
Get help choosing whether to paint your stairs or lay carpet
Get help choosing whether to paint your stairs or lay carpet
The children have a dedicated playroom at the front of the house, complete with a wall-mounted structure for running balls and marbles down. ‘We borrowed space off the living room to make a cloakroom,’ says Catherine, ‘and that left a little nook, which we turned into a play house.’
The owners had fun with the décor in the downstairs cloakroom and chose a wallpaper designed to look like classic rusted metal tiles. It is the Brooklyn Tin Tiles 08 Metallic wallpaper from Rockett St George.
The owners chose a slightly more romantic look for the spare bedroom, with a French-style bed and white bed linen. The built-in cupboards are fronted with glossy white doors, and their softly reflective surfaces help increase the sense of space.
See why white bedrooms work
See why white bedrooms work
For a luxe look at a fraction of the price, Catherine sourced marble-effect tiles. ‘Often imitation marble tiles look really rubbish,’ says Catherine, ‘but these are beautiful.’ The tiles and sanitaryware are all from Tile Style.
The owners have stuck to a grey theme throughout the house, painting banisters in a soft grey and using grey carpet on the upper floors. ‘They had a very clear idea of the colour scheme they wanted,’ say Catherine. ‘Definitely no beige!’
What did you make of this home? Tell us your opinions in the Comments section.
What did you make of this home? Tell us your opinions in the Comments section.
Who lives here A young couple with three children
Location Dublin, Ireland
Designer Optimise Design
Size 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
Long and light-flooded, the extension at the back of the house replaces a small, single-storey kitchen. ‘It more than doubles the footprint of this house,’ says Catherine Crowe. ‘We had to design carefully, keeping that scale in mind. So rather than a single glazed wall overlooking the garden, we suggested fitting a door and windows, to help delineate the huge space and frame the view.’