The Little Red Bridge

With small windows that weren’t making the most of the beautiful ocean and garden views, and dated décor, this 20-year-old two-storey house in Cappanacush, Greenane, Kenmare was in need of an overhaul.
The brief was to create a comfortable and inviting holiday home with soul and warmth for the owners. As the home is also let out to other holiday makers, the interiors had to be able to appeal to families or couples looking for an escape with a pared down luxury, unique homestay feel that exudes character, personality, and individuality. The living spaces needed to be maximised and had to be able to deliver a great space to entertain. Style wise, it was important to maintain a modern country vernacular.

The brief was to create a comfortable and inviting holiday home with soul and warmth for the owners. As the home is also let out to other holiday makers, the interiors had to be able to appeal to families or couples looking for an escape with a pared down luxury, unique homestay feel that exudes character, personality, and individuality. The living spaces needed to be maximised and had to be able to deliver a great space to entertain. Style wise, it was important to maintain a modern country vernacular.

The house is located in a beautiful country-side setting with fantastic views taking in Kenmare Bay and the Beara Peninsula. The green fingered previous owners had also done a great job with the garden. However, small windows and French doors opening onto the deck failed to optimise on the vistas. The interior needed to open up to those views and bring them in. So with the help of the architect we opened up the whole ground floor living space by knocking out the back façade, and incorporating floor-to-ceiling sliding doors along the whole length of the ground floor living area.

Being in the country side, a boot room was on the couple’s wish list. The area is on the Kerry Walking Way so there is great walking and hiking all around right from the house’s doorstep.

Upstairs the en-suite bathrooms were exceptionally small, so the owners wanted to extend them by going back into the dormers of the roof. There was no storage what-so-ever so designing built-in wardrobes was also in the brief.

The reconfiguration of the ground floor made all the difference. The previous single living space was converted into a large kitchen and dining room with a brand new bespoke fitted kitchen and a three meter long dining table. The downstairs bedroom was converted into a spacious and airy lounge or sitting room with a wood-burning stove and folding doors onto the kitchen/dining room to give the occupants the choice of semi-open plan living or separate rooms if they so wish. We took the small existing utility room, and knocked through into some of what had been the downstairs bedroom space; by taking in the en-suite shower room and some wardrobe space, we created a fully functioning boot room with utilities and a lovely new walk-in wet room that doubles up as the downstairs WC. This reconfiguration fulfilled the brief and created interiors for an easy indoor-outdoor living.

We kept it very simple and used a base plate of white and then introduced a lot of intense blues and greens and they flow throughout the whole house. The idea was to bring the outside in and reflect the colours of the ocean views and the garden. For the furnishings, we also used a lot of natural textures and fibres such as oak, cane and wool.

Key pieces in the project included the bespoke joinery. Wherever possible we used local tradespeople to carry out the work. All of the joinery was done by a local company. We tried to introduce some Irish elements as decoration as well, bearing in mind that this would be a holiday home for international people to come and stay in. The traditional Irish Skib baskets hung as an installation on a wall in the kitchen is an example of this. And we used Irish woolen throws and blankets in the bedrooms and lounge.