Renovating and restoring it over many years has allowed her to gradually find a layout that works for her, while respecting the house’s connection to nature, and its surroundings.
Architect Patti O’Neill MRIAI of O’Neill Architecture had experience with old stone cottages when she bought this one in Tipperary, having previously transformed the Limerick cottage where she lived, uncovering original brickwork and reorganising the disjointed layout.
When she bought this thatched cottage in Tipperary in 2013, it was in need of similar attention. Immediately, cement was removed from the walls and floors. “It seemed only then I could feel the realness of the stone cottage,” Patti explains.
“We put it back together lovingly with lime and other natural materials. I moved in after four months when only one room was completed (window and floor and lime-pointed walls). Then step by step I did up each room, and had a reasonable roof-over-my-head-home within a couple of years. This allowed me to stay loan-free and any money I earned could be spent directly on the cottage and not on additional rent.”
Once this step was completed, Patti’s attention turned to how the home functioned day-to-day. “You have to imagine that if a house is over 200 years old a lot of generations have lived in it and each one puts their stamp on it,” she says. “This isn’t always the best stamp though. In the last century it was typically adding a concrete extension to the rear containing a kitchen directly opening up to a toilet and both being miserably cold and damp. Another issue is that often doors have been blocked or moved so that the natural front door / back door flow has been damaged.”
She paid attention to how the flow of the home could be improved, and set about finding solutions. The house no longer had a front and back door as it traditionally would have done, and she explains that she felt this disrupted how all the spaces could work.
“The works to the existing entailed adding some breathable insulations and finishing off the lime render to the exterior to ensure no more moisture ingress in the winter months. The extension solved the flow of the home which now included a back door with the uplifting lake view, a bathtub with the sunset, a WC and an upstairs room also with the lovely far reaching view.”
All of these changes, Patti explains, have changed not only the house, but her, thanks to how they shape her everyday life. “The back door opens up with the lake view in the distance and mountains and the apple orchard, and my garden as well. So you open up and instantly there’s abundance and expansion.” Even small things, such as what you see first when you arrive home, can have an impact, she says. “It has incredibly opened up my awareness of how we live.”
Approaching the home gradually has had numerous benefits, Patti explains. Taking things in several stages has not only allowed her to work with her budget, saving up and then completing work, it has also allowed her to understand the space before making significant changes. “It takes time to grow into a home and a home can shape you in that time. It also allowed me to learn and gain experience as I worked on the different elements and materials in the cottage.”
Another aspect of this home that she loves is its connection to nature. She has used natural materials including clay block, and natural insulations such as sheepswool, woodfibre board and foam glass gravel. “I feel I can fully recharge my batteries and raise my spirits in this safe and natural environment.”
Many people are put off buying thatched cottages – in fact, Patti says she got hers for a low price for precisely that reason – but it’s one of her favourite things about her home. “It is a constant reminder of how we used to live close to nature. I am aware that many families were born and reared in the thatched part of the house. The thatched part is only half of the size of the footprint that I now have and my house is by far the smallest house in the parish! I believe we should be spending most of our day outside in nature and not inside.”
Even the new extension respects the form of the original thatched cottage, not overshadowing it with anything too imposing or excessively modern. “It was really important for me that the gable end of the old house with the chimney sticks out a bit.”
It’s been a long but worthwhile journey for Patti, who says it has changed not only how she thinks about design, but also herself. “This has been quite a long journey, but it’s been almost therapy for me. It’s been the most grounding experience, it’s definitely transformed me to become more at home in myself.”
Photography Philip Lauterbach